Surviving Juwanna Mann

 (much better than Juwanna Mann)

As you might have guessed, a very busy day yesterday didn't leave me with much time to write anything. 

First, in my hopefully-soon-to-fold baseball league, the deadline for voting for MVP, Rookie of the Year, etc. was yesterday, forcing me to scrape a few brain cells off the floor and fill out my ballot. 

Then, meetings at work.  Almost two hours worth of them.

Then, more work at work.  You know, work work.

Studying for Exam 3L.

An e-mail from an ABL player who was left off the "Where are they now?" list of 1996-97 ABL players.  This is because even though she was on a roster in 1996-97, she was injured and didn't have any regular season minutes until 1997-98.  I think that's the third time I've been contacted, either directly or indirectly, from an ex-pro.

A phone call from a basketball friend where we talked about Cambage in Tulsa, Diggins's inadequacies in Tulsa, and the poor attendance of the Atlanta Dream.  He forced me to name who I thought was going to face Minneapolis in the WNBA Finals.  I hemmed and hawed and I finally said "Indiana".

Then, some relaxation time before bed.

So, not much time to write about anything.

(* * *)

There were five games on Tuesday, and I only saw part of one of them - the first half of Seattle @ Phoenix.  After watching Seattle struggle to get to 10 points in the second quarter, with Diana Taurasi scoring 1-for-7 and the Storm collectively shooting 28.6 percent, I decided that watching the game was not worth the price of fighting sleep.  Which was a real pity, since the Storm won on the road 80-65, outscoring the Merc 49-35 in the back half and shooting 51.5 percent.

This led to a long line of discussion on Rebkell as to whether or not Corey Gaines should be fired.  I've never thought that much of Gaines's coaching chops although my phone friend said that it is a different team with Penny Taylor injured.  My guess is a good 60 percent that if Gaines can't make the Western Conference finals, he's gone for next year.  (Could we see Marynell Meadors at Phoenix in 2014?)

(* * *)

Before that game started, I decided that I would watch a movie that has been decried by the women's basketball community almost sight-unseen - the ignoble Juwanna Mann, which opened in theaters in 2002 and probably closed just as quickly.

Here's the plot.  In protest for being taken out of a pro basketball game, Jamal Jeffries (Miguel A. Núñez, Jr.) strips naked.  He is declared persona non grata by professional basketball, he loses his mansion and his money, his model girlfriend walks out on him and his prospects are slim to none.  Living with his aunt, he watches a pickup game between kids and one of the players - a girl - pretends to ask him for his autograph, only to insult him.

Seeing this girl play against boys sparks an idea.  He calls his ex-agent to tell him that he's found the greatest player he's ever seen - a woman.  He dresses himself as a woman, calls herself "Juwanna" (the "Mann" was inspired only out of necessity, needing a last name), and swings a tryout with the fictional Charlotte Banshees of the WUBA, the WNBA-stand in that acts as the pro women's league.

I only made it to somewhere between the 40 minute / 1 hour mark before I gave up.  This movie is terrible.

You've probably concluded that I'm some oversensitive "beta male" and that that's why I think that the movie is terrible.  That's not it.  On a scale of offensiveness?  Maybe about a 1 1/2 out of 10.  Yes, the movie is a bit dismissive of women's basketball but in terms of nastiness, ten minutes of a Daniel Tosh or Andrew Dice Clay routine would lap any nastiness from Juwanna Mann.

Rather, the movie is just terrible as a movie.  The humor comes right out of that kid from seventh grade who thought he was funny.  These jokes died in vaudeville over eighty years ago.  Miguel A. Núñez, Jr. plays the part of egomaniacal basketball player (male and female) so broadly that you could see it from Pluto.  I dare you - I mean I DARE YOU - to make it all the way through this movie to the end; I'd think I need combat pay to put up with the lameness of this film. 

The only way to watch this movie and survive it is to have absolutely no expectations of being entertained.  Women's basketball lovers will hate it.  Women's basketball HATERS will hate it as well.  Miguel A. Núñez, Jr. is now on a milk can somewhere.  The last movie of note that Vivica A. Fox appeared in was Kill Bill, and that was 10 years ago.  (Her last two movies went straight-to-video.)  Kevin Pollak acquits himself as well as he can, but he's probably made more money playing poker than he'll ever make from Juwanna Mann.

Trivia note:  the music from this movie is from Wendy & Lisa.  Remember Prince and the Revolution?  Yeah, those two.  After watching part of Juwanna Mann, I know now what it sounds like when doves cry.

How much the AJC is worth (to me)

 (not even worth stealing)

We have five WNBA games on tap today - the first is going on as I type, Washington is leading the Liberty 41-40 with 1:30 to go in the first half.  If New York loses this one, I expect a certain person on Twitter to go batshit insane.

My plan is to hit the game that is the easiest one to see - Seattle @ Phoenix at 10 pm on ESPN2.  I'll have to go to bed a little bit later than usual, but hey, them's the breaks.  There's nothing that beats watching the W on television; the picture and sound quality are just better and more dependable than Live Access.

This year, I paid $14.99 for Live Access.  Let's assume that I watched every Dream away game on Live Access, and just those games alone.  That's a fee of 88 cents a game.  Is it worth it? You bet your sweet bippy it's worth it.  I love my Dream at least 88 cents a game worth.

But you can watch a lot more than just 88 cents per game.  You can watch any WNBA game you want, including all of the archived games that have already been played this season.  You can stop them, start them, speed it up.  People whine about the product, but jeez, open your wallet up.  You're never going to get a better deal than that.  Even if the product was crappy and the $15 was just a pro-forma donation to the WNBA, I'd still be paying it.  The WNBA is at least $15 worth of my present day happiness.

Now, consider the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  I've had the chance to meet a lot of nice people working the Atlanta Dream beat at the AJC.  Unfortunately, it appears to be the niche beat and one of the lowest ranking reporters on the totem pole usually gets sent to cover the team, so it's a different person every year.  Not much continuity there.

Reporting on the Dream at the main city paper tends to be spotty.  At least I think it is.  I wouldn't know.  I stopped reading the AJC two years ago, as a protest against the lack of Dream coverage.  I think my disaffection with the AJC really started with their "Ha-Ha" reporting attitude of some of their sports bloggers after the infamous Elmo Game. It wasn't the kind of sports reporting that I needed to pay for, and frankly, I haven't missed it.

The AJC is trying the paywall solution to its financial woes.  They have a website called ajc.com which reports the main stories with a special expanded section (probably the stuff you get in the dead tree version) called myajc.com.  The cost of having myajc.com is $3.46/week.

This is approximately 50 cents per day.  Way too high.  I didn't even read 75 cents worth of the print version of the AJC per day.  (It is now $1 per day for the daily print version; I don't know how much the Sunday version is.)

So how much would I pay for the right to get all of the stories I wanted to read online?  Since most of a local paper is crap, I'd pay 5 cents per day.  I think that's a fair price.  I'd read the few articles I wanted to read, and to hell with the rest.

I'd pay 5 cents per day.  The AJC wants to charge 50 cents per day.  It looks like the AJC and I have a difference on price point.

Whither the W?

(17 years now)

I'm surprised at how much I was able to get done today.  I got a couple of items squared away and I have a larger item that is going to wait until after lunch.

Didn't see any of the games yesterday.  Part of this was due to being out and about, the other part was due to depression related issues. I think I'm going to need an upping of the dose of Pristiq I take, because I certainly had no get up and go.  In order to get this move done, I'm going to need some get up and go.  I wonder if that Red Bull stuff really gives you wings?

Not much of a suprise in the results.  San Antonio beat Tulsa and got a close win.  Coach Klopp is 0-4 in games decided in five points or less, and even though he's a big improvement over his predecessors, I'm wondering if he's really the guy to turn the shock franchise around.  If he can get to 10 wins, then his goal next year is the playoffs.  If he can't make that goal, then Tulsa should drop him and bring someone else in.

Los Angeles won nicely over Washington.  Harding stuck it to her former team.

Minnesota just keeps on rolling along.  16-3 on the year, third longest home win streak in WNBA history and another year of Lynxcess.  If they go to the finals, that's three straight years.  Detroit, LA and Houston are the only teams to go three straight years.

(* * *)

The guy I'm working with on the Historical Coaches Register wants to add a lot to the register.  I don't know if I'm really up to it but I'm willing to help out.  Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate so any help is going to be piecemeal at best.

(* * *)

I've updated the WNBA Box Scores spreadsheet to a v 1.1.7.  We have now added conference standings.  The sheet is updated to the end of last night's games, so go and check it out.

(* * *)

The Chicago Tribune asked several writers from various newspapers what the future of the WNBA would be after Adam Silver takes over from David Stern as the commissioner of the WNBA.

Josh Robbins, Orlando Sentinel:  no, the WNBA isn't going way
Shandel Richardson, Sun Sentinel:  Silver should have the WNBA play the same time as the NBA
Ben Bolch, Los Angeles Times:  the WNBA will remain a fringe product
Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune:  mentions the 24/7 website prediction, questions whether Silver has the same passion/power that Stern did - someone at Chicago Sky says that Silver cares deeply about the WNBA

My brief comments:

As for Richardson's comment, the WNBA will not play at the same time for at least two reasons - they don't want to piss off the NCAA women's basketball powers that give tacit support to the WNBA by playing the same time they do.  Furthermore, the WNBA fills arena space when the NBA teams aren't playing in the summer.

Robbins is right.  The WNBA isn't going away, and Bolch is also right.  We have a slight shifting of the terrain here.  The popular prediction used to be "the WNBA will fold within X years", but it looks like the new line of thinking will be "the WNBA will never be as popular as (fill in male sport here)."

Good.  All I care about is the WNBA surviving.  I don't give a shit about whether or not it is considered a "fringe product" by the sportswriter cognoscenti.  The print media hasn't given a damn about the WNBA for years and W fans have slowly learned how to return the favor.

Would we like to get on the front pages of the sport sections?  Of course.  But as long as 95 percent of sportswriters are guys and as long as 95 percent of the sport sections are devoted to guy sports, I don't see that happening.  So whether or not they consider the W a "fringe product" doesn't bother me, because they consider everything other than college football, the NFL, the NBA and major league baseball a "fringe product".  As long as we survive, they can keep opinionating,  

Hersh must have hunted hard for that 24/7 prediction.  He probably needed to find someone out there to predict the W's demise that wasn't a crazed blogger.  He would have settled for Debbie Schlussel, but only if he absolutely had to, which is one step above quoting that crazed guy walking the street who's wearing a sandwich board which predicts imminent doom.

Atlanta @ Phoenix

(the only time you'll see Taurasi throw in the towel)

During Atlanta's last six games, the Dream are 1-5.  The only win out of those six was a home game against hapless Connecticut, the rest are all road losses against Western Conference teams, including last night's 82-76 loss to the Phoenix Mercury.

So why does Atlanta look so bad now?  Sancho Lyttle was injured in the July 9th game against the Lynx.  She had foot surgery on July 15th and is not expected to be back until early September.  Sometime before the Seattle game, Tiffany Hayes injured her knee and is out indefinitely.  Given that Ruth Riley averages 3.1 minutes per game, we have an eight player roster.  Counting Courtney Clements, it's a seven player roster.

There are McCoughtry and de Souza, superstars and rightfully so.  Armintie Herrington is a fine complementary player but cannot generate offense.  Alex Bentley is a great rookie but still learning the WNBA game.  Jasmine Thomas hasn't impressed me, and both Bentley and Thomas shoot under .400.  Le'coe Willingham is here to provide some nebulous "leadership" but no offense.  Aneika Henry is now on a milk carton somewhere.

Given all of that, what I can't figure out is how we started 10-1.  I don't buy "scheduling" as the answer, we beat Chicago by 14 points so we are capable of beating good teams.  But without Lyttle and Hayes, we just don't. 

I wonder if the long stretches of time off have made us soft.  The schedule gods hate us.  The Dream hadn't played for 10 days before last night's game, the longest stretch of off-time for any team in the WNBA.  It will be another seven days before we play Indiana at Conseco Fieldhouse.

Including Indiana, then we:

play 4 games in one week
play 8 games in two weeks
play 10 games for the remainder of August

The beginning of September don't look all that great either.  Seven games in 15 days in September, finishing with four of the last five on the road.  Lyttle will get a lot of chances to work on that foot.  The way we're playing now, I have to look and see who we're better than.

Right now, we're not better than either Chicago or Indiana.  I think we're better than Connecticut and New York.  So that leaves us and Washington to fight it out for #3-#4.  Which puts us in the same damned situation we were in 2010 and 2011 - having to fight our way without a home team advantage in the playoffs.

So what about last night? McCoughtry scored 33 points and 8 assists (seven TO though).  De Souza picked up 16 points and 11 rebounds.  In the battle between De Souza and Griner, I'd call De Souza as the winner.  We won the battle of rebounding.

But Diana Taurasi had one of those outstanding games that she's famous for - 28 points and shooting about 50 percent.  You can tell just by watching Taurasi that she hates to lose.  In a lot of ways, Taurasi and McCoughtry are alike, but Taurasi's snit fits are seen as somehow charming and the sign of a real champion, whereas McCoughtry's are seen as her being an out-of-control, selfish player.  There's an entire essay to be had in looking at how various players are perceived in the league even though they fill up the box scores in the same way.

Indeed, McCoughtry seems to be one of the reasons Atlanta is disliked by so many teams in the league.  Previously, it was Meadors why so many fans dislike the Dream.  They were pretty vocal about it, about how Carol Ross was supposedly the real talent behind Atlanta.  And they've always disliked McCoughtry (although, truth be told, McCoughtry has never really helped herself).  This year it's a very different McCoughtry but you only get one first impression.

I suspect it's also a matter of circumstance.  When the Dream came along, the league lost Houston that same year (and we got Lyttle in the expansion draft), lost Sacramento the next year and ended up shipping Detroit off to Tulsa.  They were three franchises with strong fan followings (*), and those fans had to watch Atlanta go to the Finals two years in a row while they were left with memories.

Why did we lose last night?  Damned if I no. We just needed more from anyone who wasn't McCoughtry or de Souza, and we didn't get it.  Señor Fred has a week to figure things out, and God bless him.

_____


(*) Houston and Sacramento shouldn't have closed.  It wasn't the fans that screwed up, it was management.  As for Detroit, they seem to have a hardcore fan base but could never get people to attend games - those crowds in Detroit were virtually empty.  When Bill Davidson died, the Shock were going to follow, since Davidson was the only reason the Shock were alive at all.   And now it looks like his estate is in some IRS trouble.

San Antonio @ Minnesota

Performing at halftime was Naughty by Nature, the only act that would agree to perform for food.

I watched San Antonio @ Minnesota last night, where the Lynx kept it rolling with an 85-63 victory over the Silver Stars.  It was a good game, but hard to get involved in.

My problem is that I want to impose a narrative on the game.  With most WNBA games, this is easy, because one team is clearly worse than the other, and one can write the game up in one's own mind as "heroism of winning team/ineptitude of losing team", take your pick.  Aside from an awful third quarter where they were outscored 17-9, San Antonio tried hard and played as best as they were able to.  The problem was that Minnesota is an extremely good team, and having a good game won't guarantee a win against the Lynx, particularly when you throw away a quarter.  As Dean Wormer might say, "Shooting 4-for-20 in the third is no way to go through life, Silver Stars."

(I'll have some more stats on throwing away quarters later, but I don't have my box scores sheet updated.  If you're interested in what it looks like,  you can always download the latest copy from the links to the right.)

If there are any stats I'd like to see in a non-standard box score, it's a GU stat - "gave up".  Is there a way through APBRmetrics where you can define the point in the game where the losing team just throws up its hands and goes through the motions?

One way to do it might be to define the "20-20-20" players.  These are the players that appear in a game when:

a) a team is 20 points ahead, or
b) a team is 20 points behind, or
c) there are only 20 seconds left in the game.

Since there are only about 110 games played in the season, it shouldn't be too much effort to go through the play-by-plays and see where the players with the least amount of minutes show up.  Well, it wouldn't be too much effort for someone who had that amount of time on his hands.  I have other fish to fry.

(* * *)

I expect today to be another moving and packing day.  My wife and I are going to visit our future apartment, which has been vacated.   My wife wants to measure things and I'm interested in tagging along.  After that more rest and possibly working on the Box Scores spreadsheet.

Oh yes.  And Atlanta @ Phoenix tonight.  I think that game is on at 10 pm ET on NBA TV.  The 10-day layoff would be the biggest layoff for any team this season, so let's see what teams can do on 10 days rest.

(* * *)

Remember way back when when I said I had two other projects keeping me from working on basketball?  One was a writing messageboard and the other was a baseball simulation game?

It seems that the baseball simulation game is coming to an end.  It was a wonderfully detailed universe, but it suffered the fault of one guy carrying the load.  He stepped down to work on a novel, and no one has been able to pick up the slack. 

Therefore, by August 11, one of three things shall be decided by the "core players", of which I am not one:

a)  some new plan will be devised to keep the league alive, or
b)  the league will run one more (simulated) "Goodbye!" season, or
c)  the league will fold.

I've loved my time in the league, but I'd choose c), because it would give me a means of gracefully stepping down and freeing myself of this obligation.  I promised myself I'd do three seasons and then I felt I could step away with no hard feelings.  Hopefully, fate has changed that to one season.

Indiana @ Connecticut; more WNBA dreams

 Get out of my dreams, Agler.

My time for various women's basketball projects might be further reduced.  To say "why" requires a massive sort of post that I'm not quite ready to write. No bad news, rather, it would take some thought to give you the full background.  Nothing bad, just 'it is what it is'.

Last night after coming back home from cheap Mexican food, I treated myself to a dose of Indiana visiting the Connecticut Sun.  Tamika Catchings sat that game out for personal reasons (supposedly involving family issues) and I'm sure that most of the Fever and most of the crowd at Mohegan Sun arena wished they could have sat that one out too.

I came in late in the first quarter, and getting to the end of quarter #3 was a real slog.  At the end of three quarters, the Sun had only shot 32.7 percent (17-for-52) compared to 51.1 percent for the visiting 8-player Fever squad.  Indiana was up 52-41 despite a 4-for-11 performance at the free throw line.  The Sun played so poorly I wondered if they would even break 50 points.

(Reminder:  this is the team that Atlanta had its most recent win against.)

It's a good thing they played four quarters, because the fourth quarter made up for the other three.  Indiana wilted in the fourth, at the Sun went on a 15-0 run that the Fever had no answer for. The run brought Connecticut down by 1, 52-51, and the home magic - of the Sun's five wins, four are at home - was enough to save the day.  It was a case of a team snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.  Tan White and Allison Hightower scored most of their game points in that fourth quarter and really stepped up to provide a win for a team desperate for them.

I thought I had seen Indiana wilt in the fourth quarter before.  So I ran some quarter-by-quarter averages.  Here's what you get:

	1q	2q	3q	4q	1ot
ATL	21.5	19.3	19.3	17.1	0.0
CHI	21.5	21.5	18.2	19.9	0.0
CON	15.9	17.3	18.6	18.9	0.0
IND	17.4	18.1	17.7	15.6	0.4
NYL	18.3	15.3	16.9	18.9	1.7
WAS	18.8	17.6	20.6	19.3	0.8
LAS	21.2	21.7	20.6	19.0	0.6
MIN	21.5	21.1	21.6	18.7	0.0
PHO	18.4	21.9	21.6	20.2	0.8
SAS	18.6	16.8	17.9	18.2	0.6
SEA	15.4	18.4	18.1	17.3	1.0
TUL	17.5	19.9	18.9	19.5	1.1

The numbers don't really prove anything.  Yes, Indiana's production really drops quarter by quarter, but so does Atlanta's.  Connecticut gets better quarter by quarter, but that's probably because the other team is well ahead and can throw in its scrubs. 

However, I feel (but cannot prove) that Indiana just ran out of steam in the fourth.  You had five players on the Indiana team playing 30 minutes, with Shavonte Zellous and Briann January playing 35.  These players came from colleges that were probably 13-15 players deep, so I'm sure that Indiana's starters were pretty gassed.

There's an argument about roster expansion which says that there's no point in going to a 12-player or 13-player roster because the talent isn't there.  What the proponents of that point don't realize is that when you don't, you not only sap the talent out of players who have to play 30+ minutes a night because they have no help, but you endanger their careers. 

Yes, no one wants to see players 9 through 13 play the other squad's players 9 through 13.  But those players 1 through 5 have got to have a chance to catch their breaths.  Furthermore, when you have less than 10 healthy players, it adversely effects practices because you can't play squad on squad. 

My prayer during the CBA negotiations is that the WNBA sucks it up and adds at least one more player to the roster.  This 11-player cap is just ridiculous.  Somehow, the league has got to make it happen.  Else, you get Indiana vs. Connecticut.

(* * *)

Interesting quote by Charles, from Hoopfeed and David Siegel: 

“It’s a frustrating season,” said Charles. “When you know your teammates’ capabilities, and when they’re not doing it, you get frustrated. When you see them in practice perform to the best of their abilities, and when it’s time, when it’s on the line, for them to perform and do their job, it gets really frustrating.”

(* * *)


Had my second WNBA dream last night.  Why am I dreaming about the WNBA so much?

Anyway, I dreamed that I had been invited to pregame with the Atlanta Dream - I'd get to go into the locker rooms and everything.  But when I got there, no one was there.  I mean the place was empty.  So I decided to hang around to wait for the Dream vs. Sky.  But as it turned out, Atlanta was playing Chicago at Chicago, so I was waiting for nothing.

Then the Sky/Storm showed up and started having a team meeting. (It was the Sky, but with Brian Agler as head coach.  There's Brian Agler again.)  Everyone was sitting in a circle, and by some unnamed protocol that everyone knew but me, they started giving reports.  I was in the circle, and didn't know what to say.  So all I was left with to say was that I was an idiot who had been invited backstage with the Dream but the Dream were in Chicago.

I was also supposed to give Swin Cash some insulin.  How that fits into the dream, I have no idea.  If Swin Cash is reading this blog, I suggest that you have some blood work drawn up.  Type II Diabetes is no fun.

New York @ Washington

Yesterday, my wife and I went to Oriental Pearl, a great Chinese place in Chamblee for our 11th anniversary dinner.  We were talking about how at our wedding, we barely had a chance to eat - Ruth had gone crazy preparing the wedding and the order of the day was to keep the party moving.  (I'll always remember the Dulce de Leche Pina Coladas.)  Back in 2002, we got to the restaurant, had a quick meal, and then it was dance, dance, dance and say hello to everybody.

Now, we're trying to save some cash to get ready for the move that's going to take place on August 15th.  (That reminds me - change my work calendar.)  If you want to know what I'm doing on August 15th through 16th, it probably involves lifting boxes, opening boxes, and (fill in the verb) boxes.

(* * *)

So while I was enjoying won ton soup, barbecue pork fried rice and sweet sesame chicken, the first quarter of New York @ Washington was going on.  I missed the first quarter where Kara Braxton has some sort of ungodly shooting accuracy (or so they tell me) but I stayed for the rest.

The rest sucked.  Washington shot under 30 percent in the first half and decided to while away the time by chucking up no-chance 3-pointers in the second quarter.  It looks like the Mystics fans could smell the stench from miles around; the Verizon Center looked practically empty.  (The 6,711 in reported attendance must have been in the bathroom.)  They went 6-for-23 in the second quarter and 1-for-6 from 3-point range.

New York had 22 assists, Washington has 12.   The Libs scored 56 points in the paint and it was a horrible game to watch, a 2 on a scale of 1-10.   I managed to keep my eyes on the screen, if not necessarily processing the data.

Even so, Washington managed to tie it within the 4th.  When the enemy is shooting 36 percent and you're winning the rebound battle, that shouldn't happen.  Not exactly a testimony of New York Liberty dominance.

Let's forget talking about defense and points in the paint and look at more important matters, like:

* Why is Tierra Ruffin-Pratt's name spelled as RUFFIN_PRATT on her jersey?  Not a dash, but an underline.
* Samantha Prahalis watch:  2:44 played, 1 assist, 1 PF.
* They chatted with the new coach of the Washington Wizards (MNBA) during a lull in the action, which was pretty much the entire game.  He pretty much came out to support the women's team.  I wonder how often MNBA coaches/players are ordered to show up, like it's doing community service.  I'm sure that if Randy Wittman was one of those unfortunates who had a negative opinion about the W going into the game, then that debacle didn't move the meter any.

(* * *)

Have done some more work on the Historic Teams and Coaches Register.  I'm working with someone who has suggested that it be put in database form.  It sounds like a good idea, so I'll be working on that for a little while.

My article at Swish Appeal seems to be getting a nice number of hits.  I feel good about that.

Got some interesting news from a Twitter friend in New York.  Man, the things you learn about the world that you never imagined were possible.

(* * *)

Interesting article:  UW women's player faces charges in house party.  If this was Pat Summitt's team, Pat would not be "closely monitoring" the situation.