May 31, 2009

Brooke is working to make the team

Brooke was signed to a training camp contract by the Phoenix Mercury this season. The Mercury have played two preseason games  — against the Sacramento Monarchs and the Seattle Storm.
Brooke has been working hard  to secure a spot on the final 11-player roster, which  will be announced next week.
Here are Brooke's 2009 statistics and a report on how she's doing  by Jake Curtis, Stanford Cardinal Basketball Examiner.

May 15, 2009

Karen Middleton, Head Coach

Although Karen is not a Stanford alumna, she is a Stanford women's basketball alumna. She was an assistant coach at Stanford for ten seasons before leaving in 2007 to take a job as assistant coach at Illinois. She was announced today as the new Head Coach of Western Carolina University women's basketball. Congratulations, Karen!

May 8, 2009

Jennifer Azzi awaits Hall of Fame induction

Jennifer Azzi, who was in Tara's first Stanford recruiting class in 1986, will be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame next month. 
ABC7  reported the honor on their news show. Click here for a story, a video of the  TV news spot and a long video interview by ABC7 sports anchor Mike Shumann.

Happy Birthday, Kristen!

Kristen got the birthday present she was hoping for -- a gold medal!  Her team, Fenerbahce, defeated Mersin 68-54 and won the Turkish Women's Basketball League championship today.
Kristen contributed no points and two rebounds and teammate Nicole contributed  three points and four rebounds to the victory.
On the losing side, Olympia Scott scored two points and eight rebounds.
Here are the game report and the box score.
Kristen writes about visits from her parents, JJ and Cissy and the first two games of the championship series in her blog.

May 5, 2009

Fenerbahce one game away from title.

Fenerbache won the second game of the best-of-five finals of the Turkish Basketball League playoffs today. They defeated Mersin 102- 63, which, as the game report says, took a big bite out of Mersin's title hopes.
Mersin's last chance to recover is the third game on Friday at Mersin (the first two games were in Istanbul).
Fenerbahce distributed the offense. Six players scored in double figures. Nicole had 10 points and  two rebounds. Kristen had 11 points and one rebound.
Only ex Blue Devils Mistie Williams and Lindsey Harding were effective for Mersin.  Olympia was held to two points and four rebounds. She is being very well-defended in the photo above by 6'-5" Yilmaz Nevriye.
Here are the game report and the box score.

May 3, 2009

Kristen, Nicole & Olympia compete for Turkish league championship

Kristen Newlin and Nicole Powell played together at Stanford in 2003-4, Kristen's freshman year and Nicole's senior year.  Olympia  Scott ('98) preceded both of them. Today the three played together in Turkey, in the first game of the best-of-five finals of the Turkish Basketball League playoffs.  
Kristen and Nicole play for Fenerbahce, a  Turkish team located in Istanbul.  Going into the playoffs, Fenerbahce leads the Turkish League with a 17-3 record. In today's game, Kristen  (her Turkish name is Nevin Nevlin) had 13 points, eight rebounds, an assist and a block. Nicole had one point, three rebounds , two assists and three steals.
Olympia  plays for Mersin, a town on the southern coast of Turkey. Mersin is third in the league with a 15-5 record. Olympia is a starter for Mersin. In today's game, she had 10 points, the team-high seven rebounds, an assist and two steals.
Fenerbahce defeated Mersin 87 - 61.    Here is the box score.  The second finals game will be played on Tuesday, the third on Friday and the fourth and fifth, if required, next weekend.  
I couldn't find any photos of today's game or any of Kristen and Nicole playing together, but here is one from Kristen's blog of them out to dinner with their teammates.

May 2, 2009

Candice's team wins league championship

Candice Wiggins played just six minutes and scored only four points, but her team, Ros Casares of Valencia, won its third straight Spanish League title by beating Perfumerias Avenida 70-66 in Salamanca on Friday to sweep the best-of-three championship series 2-0.
It was a hard-fought game  -- very nervous in last minutes -- according to this  game report  from Eurobasket News.