Ros has posted a few clips from her second year of broadcasting as a Studio Analyst, Color Commentator, Reporter, and Host in this video:
December 26, 2012
December 14, 2012
Azzi rebuilding San Francisco
The freshmen this season, the first full class of her recruits, are making an impact. USF has won as many games already this season as it did all of the past three seasons.
November 28, 2012
Morgan brings Stanford standards to M-A High girls
By Judy Richter, FBC feature writer and interviewer:
After graduating with a degree in biomechanical engineering in 2009, Morgan Clyburn is making good use of both her academic and athletic experiences at Stanford.
The forward/center’s latest venture takes her to Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, where she’s serving as head coach of the girls varsity basketball team. To add an even greater Stanford flavor to her new team’s style, her assistant coaches are two former Cardinal guards, Lindy La Rocque, ’12, and Markisha Coleman, ’07.
There’s a family angle, too. Morgan’s dad, Collins Clyburn, is coaching Menlo-Atherton’s frosh-soph team. He and Morgan’s mom, Rose Mary, live in the Chicago area, but he has temporarily moved to Redwood City to help with the program.
Morgan’s day job finds her at Autonomic Technologies in Menlo Park, where she’s a senior development engineer and a project manager. The privately held company is developing “a miniaturized implantable neurostimulation device to provide rapid relief from the debilitating pain and suffering caused by severe headaches,” its website says.
The 42-employee firm is already selling the device for cluster headaches in Europe and is conducting clinical trials for its use in migraines in Europe, Morgan said in a recent interview.
Morgan got her coaching job thanks in part to parents of four girls she had coached at National Junior Basketball’s Redwood City chapter for two days a week after her graduation. NJB is a youth league for boys and girls in first through 12th grades. The four girls are now sophomores but are on the varsity team, as is one freshman. The team also has two juniors and three seniors.
When the M-A position became available, the parents contacted her, she applied and got the job. Since she lives and works in nearby Menlo Park, just a few minutes from the school, she deemed her new post a case of “the right situation coming together.” She succeeds Pam Wimberly, who had coached at M-A for 41 years.
She then lined up Lindy and Markisha, both of whom had been her teammates, knowing that Lindy wanted to get into coaching and that Markisha had worked with AAU teams. By day, Lindy works in sales and marketing at Host Analytics in Redwood City, while Markisha is a probation officer for Santa Clara County.
Job involves more than just coaching
Morgan has found that being a head coach involves a lot more than strategizing and working with her players. “You forget that you’re running a program,” she said.
She has to contend with practice schedules, a challenge since several sports need to use M-A’s two gyms. Then there are the administrative duties such as finding people to take players to away games and making sure that field trip request forms have been signed – things her Stanford coaches never had to consider. Luckily, “the parents have been great,” she said.
As a coach at the high school level, “you really get to start teaching the little things” instead of basic drills, she said. Still, she has to decide what plays are appropriate to run.
Because of Stanford’s high academic standards, its athletic teams recruit only really smart students. Therefore, players on the women’s basketball team can master its approximately 60 plays, Morgan said.
That’s not the case in high school, so she teaches far fewer plays. She doesn’t want to be too complicated because she doesn’t want her girls to have to worry about how to execute a play. It should be automatic.
Nevertheless, she wants her Stanford experience to carry over with a high-execution offense and the mindset that “we’re smart. We’re going to outthink people.” She wants her players to push harder and work harder than their opponents.
Because she was so busy getting ready for the season, she hadn’t had a chance to get advice from Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, who recommended her for the M-A job. Morgan hoped to have a chance to talk with Tara on Nov. 25. That’s when Morgan led a skills clinic for youngsters before the home game against Long Beach State.
M-A practices started Oct. 29. After two scrimmages (the equivalent of exhibition games) this month, her team started its season Nov. 29 and will continue through Feb. 12. If all goes well, competition could extend into March with tournament play.
“We’ve got good shooters,” Morgan said, so she has high hopes for the season.
Morgan, Markisha lead practice
To get a feel for Morgan’s style, I attended a recent joint practice for her varsity team and her dad’s frosh-soph team. All of the girls took part in warmups, which looked familiar to anyone who has watched the Cardinal routine.
They then divided into their respective teams with Collins and his assistant, Shannon McMorrow, working with the younger girls and Morgan and Markisha working with the varsity players. Lindy wasn’t there because of a conflict in her schedule.
Markisha led the varsity team in various dribbling drills, including some when the girls wore goggles as they dribbled across the court for layups. Morgan explained later that the lower half of the goggles is blocked out, forcing the girls to look up rather than down when they dribble. Girls who missed a layup had to do a pushup.
Next the girls sprinted various distances across the court as Markisha timed then. After a water break, the girls split into two groups to practice plays and to scrimmage against frosh-soph players.
There’s a Stanford flavor to one play, which is called Cardinal. In a nod to Stanford’s cross-bay rival as well as Menlo-Atherton’s nickname, another play is called Bears. Still other plays are named after the coaches’ home states – Texas for Morgan, Nevada for Lindy and California for Markisha.
Markisha coached one varsity side. Because a varsity player was absent that day, Morgan, who had changed into shorts, did double duty as the coach and fifth player on the other side. Even though it was obvious that she didn’t take advantage of her 6’4” height and advanced skills, it was fun to watch her to run the court while passing along advice.
When practice ended, Morgan gathered everyone in a circle to talk about the upcoming scrimmage against Lowell High School of San Francisco. Afterward, a few girls stayed to shoot baskets or talk to the coaches.
Morgan said she encourages the girls to watch college games. Lauren Greif, the Stanford team’s video coordinator, has supplied videos from past Stanford games so that the M-A point guards can watch some elite players in action.
All of the M-A players will have a chance to see elite players in person Dec. 15 when they take a field trip to Maples for Stanford’s game against University of the Pacific.
Morgan undertakes other ventures, too
As if her day job and coaching job weren’t enough, Morgan has two other ventures. She’s president and founder of the Bay Area Basketball Academy in Menlo Park, which “is about creating fundamentally sound basketball players … regardless of age, experience or skill level,” its website says.
Among others, her staff includes Lindy, Lauren and Sebnem Kimyacioglu, ’05, who is playing pro ball in Turkey.
Still another venture is a nonprofit, BABA Global (the name is in flux, she said), which aims to teach life lessons through basketball to women in developing areas. Her colleagues in this effort include Lauren and four Stanford grads: Seb, Grace Mashore, ’12, and Eziamaka Okafor, Shelley Nweke, both ’06.
Because of foot problems, Morgan didn’t play during her senior year at Stanford. However, she worked with Tara during practices and in game preparation, Palo Alto Online reported.
“I was really fortunate to have a lot of positive role models growing up, played under several WNBA players and then actually came to Stanford, which to me was the best of academics and athletics,” she told the San Mateo Daily Journal. “I’ve always had a very high standard of both and hopefully can put that on my girls as well,” she said.
November 20, 2012
Catching up with Nneka
Nneka played with USA Basketball for five years as a high school and college student athlete. She recently talked with USA Basketball about playing professional basketball in Poland. Here is that story.
Nneka is playing for CCC Polkowice in Poland. Both she and the team are doing very well. CCC is 7-0 in the Polish league, and Nneka leads the team in both points (18.5) and rebounds (9.5) per game in league play.
CCC's most recent game was a crucial one against Wisla Can-Pak. Both teams were previously undefeated in Polish league play. Nneka led her team to a 56-49 victory with 21 points and 12 rebounds.
The rivalry between these two teams appears to be very intense. This story about the game reports that the general manager of Wisla Can-Pak collapsed after the game after getting into a fist fight with celebrating CCC fans.
Here are some photos of Nneka in action from CCC Sport:
November 19, 2012
Jillian's double-double lands her Player of the Week award
Jillian was named the Player of the Week by Eurobasket News:
25-year old forward Jillian Harmon (185-F-87) had an amazing evening in the last round for Parma and receives a Eurobasket.com Player of the Week award for round 6. She had a double-double of 18 points and 15 rebounds, while her team beat Chieti (#9, 1-4) 70-62. Parma is placed at 3rd position in Italian A1. They are still close to the very top. Parma would have been even better if they kept winning the games like in the last round. They have a solid 4-1 record. Harmon turned to be Parma's top player in her first season with the team. Stanford University graduate has very impressive stats this year. Harmon leads league in rebounds with 11.6rpg.
November 13, 2012
The Ogwumike sisters
"Look into a crystal ball and catch a glimpse of future USA women's teams and you'll probably see not one, but two players that go by the name Ogwumike." Read more...
November 4, 2012
Nicole reaches a milestone
November 1, 2012
Bobbie's blended families
- Seven Badger newcomers and seven returnees
- A husband, three stepchildren and a custom-built house
October 29, 2012
Alumni Abroad 2012-13
The 2012-2013 professional basketball season is well underway overseas.
All the national club team leagues have begun play, and last week was the opening round of EuroLeague Women, the highest international professional basketball league in Europe for women’s clubs.
Ten Cardinal hoopsters are playing abroad (two may surprise you), and three that used to aren't. Here they are — oldest to youngest:
Botas finished in the middle of the Turkish Women's League (TKBL) in the past two seasons. They've started well this season with two wins and share the top of the standings with traditional Turkish powerhouses Fenerbahce and Galatasary.
Perfumerias is in the Spanish Women's Basketball League (LFB) and have split their first two games. They are also playing in EuroLeague Women. They lost their opening round game, but basketball journalist Paul Nilsen predicts that they could possibly challenge for the Final Eight. In his profile of the team, Nilsen writes, "Headlining the new arrivals is undoubtedly Nicole Powell who comes via Wisla Can-Pack, where she underlined her status as one of the best inside-outside players in the EuroLeague Women. It's a good bet she will be a marquee player once again because of her scoring power and ability to win games for teams at this level."
Galatasaray is one of the teams that dominates the Turkish Women's Basketball League (TKBL). They've been the league champion once and the runner-up twice in the past five seasons. They've won their first two games this season. They're also playing in EuroLeague Women for the third straight season and won their opening round game.
Seb hasn't lost her touch. She scored 16 points in the Euroleague game and has averaged eight ppg in the TKBL games. She's made 67% of her shots from beyond the arc. In his review of the first week of EuroLeague, basketball journalist Paul Nilsen wrote, "There was also a landmark day for Sebnem Kimyacioglu of Galatasaray who grabbed 16 points via some sharp perimeter-shooting ..."
Fenerbahce is the other team that dominates the Turkish Women's Basketball League. They've been the league champion six times and the runner-up once in the past seven seasons. They're playing in Euroleague, for the seventh straight season, but haven't yet played their first round game. They reached the semi-finals last season and basketball journaist Paul Nilsen predicts that they may reach the final this season.
In his profile of the team, Nilsen writes, "One player who will be hoping to be resurrected is Nevin Nevlin. A fundamental part of the success of Fenerbahce for several years, the forward has drifted into the background of late, averaging just nine minutes per game across the last two seasons. With the added kick in the teeth of not being selected by Turkey for the Olympics despite a hugely impressive EuroBasket Women 2011 contribution, I do hope she is given the chance to shine once again."
Racing is one of six teams in the Luxembourg Diekirch League (a surprising number of women's professional basketball clubs for a country about 100th the size of Oregon). The team has started the 2012-13 season poorly, losing its first three games. Cissy is a strong addition to the team — she's averaged 18.3 ppg, second-best on the team and #9 in the league.
Parma has been in the lower tier of the Italian A1 League for the past several seasons, but are off to a good start this season with two wins in their first three games.
Jillian is averaging a double-double, with 10.0 points and 10.7 rebounds per game.
Basel has placed in the bottom tier of the Switzerland Women's Basketball League (LNA) in the past few seasons and have lost their first two games this season.
Michelle is a stong addition to the team. She leads in scoring (21.8) and assists (2.5) and is second in rebounds (9.0).
There is little news about Chinese women's basketball on the internet. All my sources still show last season's information (Henan finished last in the Chinese Women's Basketball League (WCBA)), but Jayne tweets that they won their first game this season.
Ceyhan is a middle-tier team in the very strong Turkish Women's Basketball League. They've split their first two games this season.
Kayla has made a good start. She's in the starting five, playing about 26 minutes per game. She's averaged 9.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.5 steals.
Polkowice is in the top tier of the Polish Women's Basketball League (PLKK). They've won their first five games. They're also playing in EuroLeague Women and lost their opening round game.
Nneka is playing her usual excellent game. She's played in just one of the five league games, but leads the team in rebounds (7.0) and is second in scoring (14.0). She scored 21 points in the EuroLeague game, had five rebounds, made all her free throws and sank a three-pointer.
In his review of the first week of EuroLeague, basketball journalist Paul Nilsen wrote, "There is huge expectation for Nnemkadi Ogwumike in her rookie season and she opened her account in the EuroLeague Women with 21 points and five rebounds for CCC Polkowice."
In his profile of the team, Nilsen writes,"The club has given their prospects of emerging from the first phase of the competition a huge boost with arguably the most exciting signing of the off-season, by handing a EuroLeague Women debut to the stellar talented Nnemkadi Ogwumike. Fans who don't follow the game in the USA, in terms of the WNBA or College game, may not yet be familiar with her explosive frontcourt game, but suffice to say, the EuroLeague Women potentially has a major new star of the future stepping onto the floor for the first time this year. Ogwumike has got a fantastic all-round game and frighteningly, she can still get a whole lot better due to the fact she is still relatively young and will mature with the experience of life in the EuroLeague Women. I expect she can have the same level of impact as players who have hit the ground running in previous seasons, such as Tina Charles for example. Signing Ogwumike should fill CCC Polkowice fans with huge levels of anticipation and excitement although she is only narrowly the best signing they have made!"
October 27, 2012
Shelley's experience in the Peace Corps
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