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PLAYER OF THE WEEK Nevadas Laura Ingham has been named the Western Athletic Conference womens basketball Player of the Week for the week of Nov. 25-Dec. 1. This is the second career WAC Player of the Week honor for the senior, who was also honored last season.
Ingham, a point guard, played in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, as the Wolf Pack captured the Carr/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout. The Wolf Pack defeated the 2001-02 Big Ten Tournament Champion Indiana Hoosiers to take the title. Against Indiana, Ingham scored a career-high 19 points as Nevada defeated the Hoosiers, 68-56. She went 10-12 from the line against Indiana.
Against Alaska-Anchorage, she recorded her first double-double of the season with 10 points and 10 rebounds with five assists. For her efforts, Ingham took home the Most Outstanding Player Award. The Wolf Pack also went 1-1 in the John Ascuaga's Nugget Classic in Reno. In a win against Eastern Michigan, she provided 10 assists with nine points.
OTHERS NOMINATED Fresno State's Lindsay Logan was named the MVP of the Fresno State Classic for the third-straight season. She scored 31 points in two games for the Bulldogs, shooting 12-of-26 from the field. She leads the team in points per game (13 ppg).
Hawaii's April Atuaia was named the MVP of the Waikiki Beach Marriott Classic. In the Rainbow Wahine's win over UCLA, Roper scored 14 points along with 11 rebounds for her seventh career double-double. The senior was 7-of-12 from the field.
Louisiana Tech's Cheryl Ford led the Lady Techsters to a win over Arkansas State, 72-54. She recorded her first double-double of the season with 19 points and 15 rebounds.
Rice's Johnetta Hayes was named to the Mt . McKinley Bank North Star Invitational all-tournament team after averaging 19 points and seven rebounds in two games. She matched her career high of 21 points in Rice's loss to Wyoming.
San Jose State's Tatiana Taylor scored 17 points in two games at the GranTree Thanksgiving Classic. She is averaging 10.7 points in three games this season. The Spartans went 0-2 at the tournament.
SMU's Kim Walter was named to the Flint Hills Resources Islander Classic all-tournament team after scoring 36 points in two games. She recorded her second double-double in as many weeks. She ended the weekend shooting 15-of-20 from the field.
Tulsa's Allison Curtin scored 50 points in two games as the Golden Hurricane went 1-1 last week on the road. Curtin averaged 25.0 points with 10 rebounds and 6.0 assists last week. Against Oral Roberts she scored a season-high 32 points, adding 18 points against UT Pan American. She has reached 100 points faster than any other Tulsa player.
WEEK THREE This is the third full week of games with nine of the 10 WAC schools in action. Hawaii takes the week off this week. The headline game of the week takes place in Ruston when No. 4 Tennessee comes to town to face No. 15 Louisiana Tech on Dec. 4. Rice is the only team playing in a tournament this week, hosting the Gene Hackerman Rice Invitational on Dec. 6-7. The Lady Owls start the tournament against Idaho State. SMU will face instate rival TCU on the road on Dec. 5 in Thursday's only action. Seven teams will be in action on Saturday, Dec. 7, including Tulsa hosting Santa Clara and Boise State traveling to Idaho.
NON-CONFERENCE MARK WAC teams are 20-21 (.488) in non-conference games. The WAC is 1-2 against teams that were ranked or are ranked in the top 25 - Louisiana Tech is 1-0 after defeating then-No. 7 Texas Tech, while Tulsa is 0-2 after falling to then-No. 24 Mississippi State and then No. 22 Oklahoma.
BACK ON TRACK UTEP has won two games away (one away/one neutral) from the Don Haskins Center this season. Last season they were 2-13 while playing on the road (2-12 away/0-1 neutral), in 2000-01 they finished 2-12 in road games (2-10 away/0-2 neutral) and they were 1-14 (0-11 away/1-3 neutral) in 1999-00. In the previous 28 seasons, UTEP has won more than six games away from El Paso twice (1980-81/1992-93). The Miners finished 10-8 (7-8 away/3-0 neutral) in 1980-81 and were 9-7 (7-7 away/2-0 neutral in 1992-93).
PRESEASON RANKINGS Three preseason publications (Athlon, Lindys and Street & Smiths) ranked the top schools in the country. Street & Smiths picked Louisiana Tech No. 8 in the country behind Duke, Tennessee, LSU, Notre Dame, Kansas State, Georgia and Stanford. Lindys ranked the Lady Techsters No. 14 after a 25-5 finish last season. Athlon gave Louisiana Tech a No. 18 ranking for a team that returns only two starters.
WAC ROUNDUP Boise State head coach Jen Warden picked up her first victory with a 61-60 win over Weber State, the Big Sky preseason No. 1 pick. Last week, the Broncos dropped a pair of games. Boise State lost to BYU on Nov. 27 and James Madison on Dec. 1.
Fresno State won its second consecutive Fresno State Classic championship this weekend with victories over Butler and San Diego State. Fresno State notched wins over Cal State Northridge and Southern Utah in 2001 to claim its first tournament championship in five tries. The Bulldogs own an 8-4 overall mark in the Fresno State Classic, which has been in existence since the 1997-98 campaign. During that stretch, the Bulldogs had posted four runner-up finishes prior to last year.
Hawaii took fourth place in the Hawaiian Airlines Rainbow Wahine Classic
UH next hosts the Hawaii Invitational, Dec. 14-15. Joining UH are Kentucky, Long Island and UNLV. April Atuaia scored 17 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and tied her career high with three three-pointers in a 71-61 win over Gonzaga in the opening round of the Rainbow Wahine Classic.
Louisiana Tech freshman guard Tasha Crain scored a career-high 10 points and added five assists in her first collegiate start against Arkansas State last week. Fellow freshman Aarica Ray also scored a career-high eight points in 10 minutes of play against Arkansas State. Cheryl Ford, the 2001-02 WAC Player of the Year, was named to the 2003 Senior Class Award watch list. This week, the No. 15 Lady Techsters will be tested again, facing No. 4 Tennessee on Wednesday, Dec. 4 in Ruston. This is Louisiana Tech's first home game this season.
Nevada was well traveled last week, playing in two different tournaments. The Wolf Pack started the week playing in the Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage. Anchorage native Laura Ingham earned MVP honors at the Shootout, as the Wolf Pack defeated Alaska-Anchorage and last season's Big Ten Tournament champions, Indiana. On Nov. 30-Dec. 1, the Wolf Pack played at home at the John Ascuaga's Nugget Classic. At the home tournament, Nevada went 1-1 with a win over Eastern Michigan and a loss to Eastern Washington.
Rice senior Kim Lawson was two points off her career high, scoring 15 points against Elon. Junior Elisa Inman also had a strong weekend. Inman was perfect from the line (10-for-10) last weekend, including 8-for-8 against Elon. The Lady Owls will finally return home after playing their first four games on the road. Rice returns home to face Idaho State on Dec. 6 in the Gene Hackerman Rice Invitational.
San Jose State's 32-point deficit to Baylor was the school's worst loss since a 87-47 loss to Louisiana Tech on Feb. 9, 2002. The Spartans have not lost more than 2 non-conference games in head coach Janice Richard's last two seasons. Cricket Williams is in on pace to break 1,000 points in 12 games. She currently has 782 career points and is averaging 19.7 points per game. Three Spartans, junior's Tatiana Taylor, Jessica Kellogg and Williams, are averaging 10 or more points per game this season. Taylor is averaging 10.7 ppg, Kellogg at 12.3 ppg and Williams with 19.7. Junior Tatiana Taylor is leading the team with 33 rebounds and is averaging 11 rpg.
SMU Junior guard Andrea Cossey needs just three three-point field goals to become SMU's all-time career leader in three-point field goals made. She comes into Thursday's game vs. TCU with 130 treys. She is also closing in on the career mark for three-point field goal attempts. She totals 382 attempts and needs 18 more to become SMU's all-time career leader.
SMU's win over Missouri is the first win over a current Big 12 team since Nov. 18, 1998, when the Mustangs defeated Texas A&M in College Station by the score of 78-75 in overtime.
UTEP has defeated two conference preseason favorites in the early going of the 2002-03 season. The Miners defeated Sun Belt Conference favorite Denver, 65-49 on Nov. 22 and then Southland Conference favorite Northwestern State, 84-73 on Dec. 1. UTEP will rematch Denver, the Sun Belt West Division favorite, on Dec. 28 at the Don Haskins Center. Listed are UTEP's remaining non-conference opponents and where they were tabbed in their conference's preseason polls: Houston (3rd-Conference USA), New Mexico State (4th-Sun Belt West Division), Southwest Texas (5th-Southland), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (independent).
Tulsa's
35-point win over UT-Pan American marked the third-largest margin of victory in school history. Tulsa tied the school record for field goal attempts with 71 against Oral Roberts. The Hurricane also attempted 71 field goals against Colorado State on Jan. 10, 2000. After registering a school record 129 blocked shots last season, TU has picked up where it left off this season with 34 rejections in six games for an average of 5.7 per game. The Hurricane have been led by transfer Allison Curtin. Through six games this season, Curtin has scored 161 points and is averaging 26.8 points per game. She has reached 100 points faster than any player in school history.
ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAMS The following players have been named to all-tournament teams.
Lindsay Logan, FS Fresno State Classic*
Christen Roper, UH Wakiki Marriott Classic*
Jade Abele, UH Wakiki Marriott Classic
Natajsa Allen, UH Wakiki Marriott Classic
April Atuaia, UH Wakiki Marriott Classic
Rainbow Wahine Classic
Johnetta Hayes, Rice North Star Invitational
Kim Walter, SMU SMU Hoops for the Cure *
Islander Classic
Andrea Cossey, SMU Islander Classic
Sarah Davis, SMU SMU Hoops for the Cure
Vaida Zagurskyte UNLV/Lady Rebel Shootout
Allison Curtin, Tulsa Bertha Teague Classic*
Alyssa Shriver, Tulsa Bertha Teague Classic
*Tournament MVP
Tulsa's Curtin Recognized by USA Today as One of Nation's "Impact Newcomers" USA Today has tabbed Tulsa senior-transfer Allison Curtin as one of seven players from around the nation as "impact newcomers" for the 2002-03 season.
Curtin was listed along with Rutgers sophomore Cappy Pondexter, LSU freshman Seimone Augustus, Connecticut's freshmen duo of Ann Strother and Nicole Wolff and Tennessee's freshmen tandem of Tyesha Fluker and Shanna Zolman.
Although Curtin is a senior, she transferred to Tulsa from the University of Illinois prior to the 2001-02 campaign and will play just one season for the Golden Hurricane. In three seasons at Illinois, Curtin started 73 of 98 games played and led the Illini to two NCAA Tournament appearances and one postseason WNIT showing. She was a two-time All-Big Ten First-Team performer during her junior and sophomore seasons and was named to the All-Big Ten Freshman Team in 1998-99.
Curtin, a 2002-03 All-America candidate, enters her final season with career averages of 15.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.6 steals per game.