Game reports from EuroBasket qualifying round

Turkey 64, Italy 59

Turkey 43, France 55

Turkey 70, Belarus 86

Kristen helps Turkey advance to qualifying round

The Turkish National team won two of its three games in the preliminary round of EuroBasket Women:

• vs Russia, L 64-71. Kristen had 10 points, nine rebounds and a block.
• vs Lithuania,W 69-66. Kristen had 18 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
• vs Serbia, W 65-55. Kristin had six points, seven rebounds and a  block

Kristen's performance is critical to Turkey's success since they are missing their star center Nevriye Yilmaz. The game reports from EuroBasket say nothing more about injured players, but Kristen tweeted last Friday before the competition began, "team is dropping like flies.....acl tear, swollen back, torn ankle ligament, broken cheek bone. pleeeeease no more injuries!"

Now they advance to the qualifying round of the tournament. They begin against Italy on Friday, then play France on Sunday and Belarus on Tuesday.

Kristen and EuroBasket Women tournament

Kristen Newlin is in Latvia with the Turkish National team, competing in the EuroBasket Women tournament for the European championship.

EuroBasket Women is held every other year. It alternates between serving as a qualifying tournament for the FIBA World Championship and the Olympics.

Competition begins today with the preliminary round and continues until the finals on June 20. 

This is a summary of the competition:

Preliminary Rounds: June 7-9. Round-robin competition within each of four groups of four teams. The Turkish team is in Group C with Lithuania, Russia and Serbia. The top 12 teams (three per group) advance to the:

Qualifying Rounds: June 11-16. Round-robin competition within each of two groups of six teams.  The top eight teams (four from each group) advance to the:

Quarterfinals: June 17-18. Four games with teams seeded according to the qualifying rounds (A1 vs B4, A2 vs B3, etc.). All eight teams advance to the:

Semifinals: June 19. Winners play winners, losers play losers. All advance to the:

Finals: June 20. Winners play winners, losers play losers. #1 is the European champion and qualifies for the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women.

For more information, see:

• The EuroBasket Women 2009 website. Current results and standings are posted on the home page.
• The entire tournament schedule.
• A diagram of the tournament structure
• Links to the 16 participating teams
• The Turkish National team website. If you're looking for information about Kristen, remember that her Turkish name is Nevin Nevlin.

Latvia  is in far northern Europe, about the same latitude as Sitka, Alaska. Kristen tweets that the long daylight hours are messin' her.

The Turkish team has already played two pre-competition friendly games. They lost to Latvia 84-67, in spite of Kristen's 20 points. They defeated Ukraine  82-76; Kristen had 10 points and five rebounds.

Brooke makes the team

Brooke's hard work and good performance at training camp paid off. She begins her second season with the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday.

Congratulations, Brooke!

Here's more about Brooke and the Phoenix Mercury's new uniform by Jake Curtis, Stanford Cardinal Basketball Examiner.

Katy Steding, Columbia assistant coach

Katy Steding, member of Stanford's stellar 1990 team and  the 1996 gold medal U.S. Olympic team, has joined the Ivy League as assistant coach at Columbia University.

Head coach Paul Nixon is ecstatic about adding Katy to Colunbia's coaching staff.  He said, "Our student-athletes are truly the winners with this hire, as they will not only benefit from having a coach who has played for and won championships at the highest levels, but they are also getting an outstanding role model.”  Read more ...

Congratulations, Katy!

Player with a purpose

From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: Minnesota Lynx star guard Candice Wiggins scores off-court points as an advocate for youth AIDS education. Read more ...

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.

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!

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.