Let’s wrap it up: Dec. 28

Not a lot of game action to talk about in the past week other than the Huskies’ second-half runaway from Stanford. Interesting thing about that is peoples’ different takes on what it means.

Some folks are pointing out that UConn looked “human” in the first half, and that is what opponents should focus on. I say that’s fine, because opponents have to focus on something hopeful. But not to go all coach-cliche here, however … what’s that irritating thing coaches always say about games lasting 40 minutes?

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Huskies remind us (again) how good they are

This has happened before. Lots of times. UConn goes through chunks of its schedule not playing anyone of note, and so the results of the Huskies’ games just kind of blend in with all the other blowout results across the country.

Then the Huskies play a team that really is supposed to test them … but it doesn’t happen. They pound them, too. It happened that way last season when both UConn and North Carolina entered a game in Chapel Hill, N.C., unbeaten … and then the Huskies won by 30.

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Let’s wrap it up: Dec. 21

You know the feeling when it’s just four days before that one holiday where, sometimes, you buy stuff for people or send cards …  and yet you have not really done any of that?

Oh, no, I don’t know that feeling, either. Ha-ha. Nope, not me. My motto is, “Always think at least two months ahead.”

Well, that is my motto starting today, actually, which means I should have any gifts purchased and cards sent no later than Feb. 25. That way I can just add in another major holiday like Presidents Day, too.

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What’s in a name?

You’ve probably heard by now that Tennessee coach Pat Summitt decided to put her players’ names back on their jerseys. In fact, if you would have been near my house around 6 p.m. Central time Wednesday, you would have literally “heard” about it because I was yelling,”Look at that! Look at that! The names! The names!” when I tuned into the Tennessee-Louisville game.

Certainly, there are people who couldn’t care less about this topic. Which I suppose I understand. But what I don’t get at all is anyone who actively opposes names on jerseys. I loathe that saying, “The only name that matters is the one on the front of the jersey.”

I mean, seriously, I can’t stand that. It goes against everything I love about sports and even why I became a sports writer. The individual does matter. Being on a team should never mean giving up your identity. It should mean blending your identity with other identities to pursue a common goal.

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Something to believe in?

One of my nephews once brought up the Loch Ness Monster, a topic that delighted me … but forced me to admit that as desperately as I’d like to believe it’s real, I don’t actually think it is.

“Oh, no, it’s real,” he said solemnly. “I saw it on Yahoo, and Yahoo knows almost everything.”

OK, well, who am I to doubt the all-knowing Yahoo?

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Let’s wrap it up: Dec. 15

Want to start a Monday feature here on the blog: Looking at the past week, and also including my Associated Press ballot to attract ridicule.

*- TIGER ISSUES: No, not you-know-who. Rather, this is about what’s going on at Missouri, where senior starters Jessra Johnson and Amanda Hanneman were suspended after being arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault regarding a dispute with fellow student Justin Short, who is an MU cheerleader.

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Not a great time to be the Tigers

Recently, I wrote a piece for ESPN.com about how the Big 12 had started the season, and I left Missouri out. Why? Well, it was sort of intentionally unintentional, if that makes any sense.

I started writing the story and planned only to hit the league’s highlights, not make it some 40-inch-long wade through the entire league. And when I was done, it wasn’t 40 inches  … it was 50. (Cough). So I sliced Missouri. Because I thought, sadly, “Who is going to mind? Who is wildly curious to know my thoughts on the Tigers’ performance so far?”

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Down memory lane at U.Va.

There are things you’ve done so many times that you don’t think you could possibly forget how – until you do indeed forget.

Such as knowing when to get off on Interstate 64 in Charlottesville to go to a Virginia basketball game. From 1991-96, I went to see the Cavaliers at their old arena, University Hall, dozens and dozens of times.

Yet when I went back Tuesday to see U.Va. – which now plays in the palatial John Paul Jones Arena across the street from U-Hall _ I somehow couldn’t remember the right exit.

That, however, is about the only thing to fade from my memory concerning that period in regard to coach Debbie Ryan’s program. It started with players such as Dawn Staley, Tammi Reiss and the Burge twins and ended with a team led by Wendy Palmer and Jenny Boucek.

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Harding back home, briefly, at Duke

Lindsey Harding doesn’t return to Duke all that often – the last time was when her jersey was retired in a ceremony in January 2008. She was back Thursday night, though, and watched the Blue Devils beat Ohio State.

I asked her what it was like now coming to Cameron Indoor Stadium, where her No. 10 hangs, without Gail Goestenkors there anymore and Joanne P. McCallie on the Duke bench.

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What if Jones had stuck with hoops?

I’m in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area for the next several days to see some games and work on stories. It was out here, of course, that Marion Jones was last a “real” basketball player, competing for North Carolina.

There has been a lot of chatter this week after news broke that Jones was working out in San Antonio with the hopes of returning to hoops and regaining her athletic reputation, which was left in tatters after she finally admitted steroid use, was stripped of her 2000 Olympic track and field medals and served time in prison for perjury.

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