Archive - Sep 2011

Fowles heads WNBA All-Defensive Team

New York, NY (Sports Network) - Chicago Sky center Sylvia Fowles headlines the 2011 WNBA All-Defensive Team.

Fowles honored as top defensive player

New York, NY (Sports Network) - Chicago Sky center Sylvia Fowles has been named the WNBA's Defensive Player of the Year for the 2011 season.

UNI guard Kalin to miss entire season

Cedar Falls, IA (Sports Network) - University of Northern Iowa senior point guard Jacqui Kalin will miss the 2011-12 season after tearing her ACL.

Dream Take Eastern Conference Championship, Advance to WNBA Finals with 83-67 Game 3 Win Over Fever

The Atlanta Dream lives on, but for the Indiana Fever and its star veteran player Tamika Catchings. the quest for a first-ever WNBA title is done for another year.

On Tuesday's night, Coach Marynell Meadors teams new tradition of rallying, overcoming adversity and winning Eastern Conference playoff games as an underdog trumped the Fever's tradition of never losing similar series as the higher seed or in five previous games in the playoffs at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis determining who advances and who is done for another season.

As it evolved, to the detriment of the top-seeded Fever, the wrong Brazilian on the Dream took a leave of absence to play for her country in an Olympic qualifying tournament in Colombia.

After helping the Dream rally Sunday with a 30-point performance at the Philips Arena in Atlanta to even the best-of-three series, Iziane Castro Marques delivered 23 points behind teammate Angel McCoughtrys 26 to propel the Dream to an 83-67 victory and a second-straight trip to the WNBAs best-of-five championship series.

Dream down Fever to reach WNBA Finals

Indianapolis, IN (Sports Network) - Angel McCoughtry scored 26 points and pulled down eight rebounds to pace the Atlanta Dream to an 83-67 win over Indiana in the decisive Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Dream down Fever to reach WNBA Finals

Indianapolis, IN (Sports Network) - Angel McCoughtry scored 26 points and pulled down eight rebounds to pace the Atlanta Dream to an 83-67 win over Indiana in the decisive Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.

What Does It Mean To Be "Most Valuable"?

When Indiana Fever veteran All-Star Tamika Catchings was named the winner of this seasons MVP Award in the WNBA Thursday before Game One of the Eastern Conference best-of-three finals at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis she was asked during the press conference whether she thought the honor was a long time coming.

Catchings, who has been a strong also-ran in eight of her previous nine seasons in the WNBA, all with the Fever, shrugged the notion off, saying every year her quest is to win a championship, not be the MVP.

That achievement is now the only thing the former Tennessee All-American hasnt gained in her WNBA career, a career that has brought her two Olympic gold medals in 2004 and 2008 along with a number of other trinkets she has collected while competing internationally with USA Basketball teams.

But after Sundays injury to Catchings right foot (later announced to be a tear to the plantar fasciitis) sustained late in Game Two of the Fever's Eastern Conference playoff series in Atlanta, where the defending Eastern playoff champion Dream evened things at 1-1, the Fever's prospects of adding a WNBA championship to the resumes of the franchise and its principle star dimmed considerably. What's more, even if the Fever are able to complete the quest, they may have to find a way to get the job done with their most valuable player sitting on the bench cheering and encouraging her teammates.

Storm G Bird has hip surgery

Seattle, WA (Sports Network) - Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird underwent successful surgery Tuesday morning to repair the labrum in her right hip.

Lynx Advance to their First-Ever WNBA Finals Series with 2-0 Sweep of Phoenix Mercury in West Finals

In the end it was simple: The 2011 version of the Minnesota Lynx is a better team than Phoenix. They may just be a better team than any other in the WNBA. They'll get a chance to prove it, starting this coming Sunday, when they make their first appearance ever in the WNBA Finals, after sweeping their Western Conference Finals series against Phoenix, 2-0, with a 103-86 Game Two victory on the Mercury's own home court.

This Sunday's Game Two win showed why Minnesota's regular-season record was six games better than any other team in the league. The Lynx definitively proved themselves the better of the Mercury -- deeper, more talented and, on this night, at least, better coached. Surprisingly, given their youth, they also had more poise and composure. As a result, the Lynx beat the Mercury at their own game, in a high scoring, run-and-gun scoring fest.

"We tried to up the tempo,'' said Phoenix coach Corey Gaines. ``We just missed a little pop. I don't know if we were run down. I don't want to take anything away from them. They ran with us, they played half court with us.''

"They probably will win it," said Gaines of Minnesota's chances of going the distance against Tuesday night's winner of the Indiana-Atlanta Eastern Conference series. "Not putting other teams down but they are tough and have a lot of scorers in every direction."

Going Small Comes Up Big for Atlanta, as Dream Beat Fever, 94-77, to Force East Finals to Game Three

Going small came up big for the Atlanta Dream Sunday. As a result of Atlanta coach Marynell Meadors decision to return 6-0 wing Iziane Castro Marques to the starting lineup the Dream are very much alive in the WNBA best-of-three Eastern Finals.

The Dream boast two members of the Brazilian National Team on their roster. The first, starting center Erika de Souza, answered her country's call, leaving after Atlanta's loss in Thursday's Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals to join the Brazilian National Team at the FIBA Americas Championship for Women in Neiva, Colombia, where she helped Brazil take two steps closer to a berth in the 2012 London Olympics, putting up 18 points and pulling down eight rebounds in Brazil's 117-34 pounding of Paraguay on Saturday, before suffering foul trouble and settling for a far less dominant five-point, five-board performance in Brazil's 56-39 win over Canada on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Atlanta's other "Girl from Brazil," Castro Marques, who has been coming off the bench for the Dream since early July, opted to remain with Atlanta to assist in its quest for a return to the WNBA Finals. Meadors passed over several taller post players to tap Castro Marques to fill de Souza's place in the starting line-up in Game Two and Castro Marques thanked her by scoring a season-high 30 points Sunday in Atlanta's Philips Arena.

And though their victory was not quite so lopsided as Brazil's pummeling of Paraguay, the third-seeded Dream made a statement that, as a team, they are not ready to return home, as they avoided elimination with a 94-77 rout of the top-seeded Indiana Fever. The Dream win sends the series back to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for Tuesday nights decisive Game Three.

Two hours later, the Minnesota Lynx, who led the league in the regular season with a 27-7 record, eliminated the Phoenix Mercury in the Western Conference Finals Sunday with a 103-86 victory in Arizona for a 2-0 series sweep and their first-ever trip to the best-of-five championship series.

The Lynx will host the winner of Tuesday's Atlanta-Indiana duel for the first two games of the WNBA Finals, which tip off Sunday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. In regular-season play, the Lynx swept Atlanta 2-0 on a mid-June weekend and split with Indiana 1-1, with each team winning in the other teams arena.