Women's NCAA

[carlo]

Turkish forward Tugce Canitez is again one of the stars at the NAIA (small colleges) national tournament, after she was named Player of the Year in 2012.

Canitez played in the Turkish NT at the 2012 Olympic qualifier and in London when she was just 21.

[carlo]

Led by Tournament MVP Tugce Canitez, Westmont won its first NAIA title defeating Lee 71-65 in the final.

Turkish star Canitez posted her 17th double-double of the season, with 25 pts + 20 reb.

http://www.fullcourt.com/ncaa/22899/westmont-defeats-lee-claim-their-first-naia-national-championship

[carlo]

In her final home appearance, Britt Griner had 33 pts + 22 reb and dunked 3 times in the same game (a record). Third smash was really fine imo. Griner also had 4 ast and 4 blocks. Her double-double was the highest in a women's championship game, reaching a restricted men's circle of former super stars such as Wilt Chamberlain and few others.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncw/recap?gameId=330850239

Another big caliber, Elena Delle Donne, scored 33 pts, reaching more than 3000 in her career.

[carlo]

Another 33-point performance wasn't enough today for Elena Delle Donne to overcome the strong defense of University of Kentucky in the NCAA tournament. Delaware lost 69-62, after cutting the Wildcats lead to 62-60 in the final minutes.
That was the final college game for Delle Donne, who ended her incredible collegiate career with 3039 pts (26.6ppg), an amazing achievement considering that she sat out 22 games due to a recurrent illness. The Delaware ace ended her career as the 5th all-time scorer, passing such stars as Cheryl Miller, Chamique Holdsclaw and Maya Moore, short just 354 pts from reaching the all-time NCAA scoring record.

[carlo]

With Baylor out of the tournament after the incredible upset suffered by Louisville, now Notre Dame looks the favorite among all competitors.

End of an era in college for Britt Griner, but an unlucky one.

[Khalid80]

With Baylor out of the tournament after the incredible upset suffered by Louisville, now Notre Dame looks the favorite among all competitors.

End of an era in college for Britt Griner, but an unlucky one.

Skylar was looking forward to facing Baylor and Griner but at the end of the day this won't happen.

[carlo]

In fact, a final Baylor-Notre Dame would have been more appealing imo.

[carlo]

Britt Griner and Skylar Diggins were the unanimous AP All-American selections for 2012-13 NCAA D1 season, followed in the 1st team by Chiney Ogwumike, Elena Delle Donne and Odyssey Sims. Ogwumike and Sims are both juniors.

Complete list here .

[Khalid80]

Quite sad that Skylar and the Irish lost in the final 4 .... But i'm sure she will hopefully have a great career in front of her in the WNBA. Skylar also managed to accumulate 2,357 points over her career with the Irish which is the most in school history.

Final score UConn Huskies 83 -65 Notre Dame Irish

In the other semi Louisville managed to continue with its' awesome performances and were able to beat California 64-57.

The last time a team had both their men's and women's team winning their respective NCAA tournaments was back in 2004 when UConn managed to do this.

[carlo]

UConn Huskies reversed a negative tradition (3 losses in a row) against Notre Dame in their most important game of the season, mainly thanks to the awesome play of freshman Breanna Stewart, who had a career-high of 29 pts (4/5 threes), 5 reb and 4 blocks.
For Skylar Diggins, again a bitter end for another great college player few days after Baylor's Brittney Griner.

P.S. ...and Louisville Cardinals with both teams in the Championship game !

[carlo]

Leading UConn to a big win in the championship game, Breanna Stewart became just the 4th freshman named Final Four's most outstanding player and the highest scorer in the tournament since 2000 with 104 pts.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncw/recap?gameId=330990041

[carlo]

Whilst Britt Griner is everybody's pick as PoY, more names have surfaced as top freshman, f.i. Jewell Loyd by AP and Bashaara Graves by ESPN.
After her Final-4 heroics, Breanna Stewart is imo the undisputed freshman of the year, finishing as the Huskies 2nd scorer & rebounder as well as #1 in blocks.

[carlo]

What happened to Krystal Forthan ?

Ranked #5 overall in the HS class of 2011 and a McDonald's All-American, 6-4 (193 cm) Krystal Forthan was a sure hit in college recruiting.

She went to play for LSU, becoming one of the top freshmen for the 2011-12 season.

After an unimpressive season, Forthan transferred to West Virginia but after just one month she decided to quit basketball. Few weeks later, she changed again her mind resuming her basketball career at Utah. She was in the Utes 2012-13 roster, where she would have to sit out the 2012-13 season as per NCAA rules, but she disappeared from Utah players roster before the start of the season.

http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/4077797-123/hotard-decision-by-krystal-forthan

http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/?p=2580654

In November 2012 it was announced that Forthan would join the following spring Academy of Art University of San Francisco, CA, a NCAA DII college, where she would start playing in spring 2014.

http://artuathletics.com/news/2012/11/12/WBB_11144123251.aspx

After that no further news on the confused career of this player have been recorded, afaik.

From a Google-search, it seems that she currently lives in San Francisco.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qdaSsmJu91gJ:badoo.com/01240480578/+krystal+forthan&cd=16&hl=it&ct=clnk&gl=it

[carlo]

Notre Dame's Euro tour started triumphally, as Fighting Irish disposed of English League club Barking Abbey 101-54.

Remarkable performance of Soph Michaela Mabrey with 24 pts and 6/12 3-pointers. Double-doubles by Freshmen Taya Reimer (16 pts + 12 reb) and Lindsay Allen (16 pts + 12 ast).

http://www.und.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/080113aaa.html

[carlo]

Around 10 major colleges (number could be underestimated) are/will be touring abroad this month.

NCAA rules allow each college to go on tour abroad during off-season every 4 years.

Preferred destination is still Europe (France, Italy, Spain, UK) but other extra-EU countries are also chosen. Touristic sightseeing and exhibition games are usually planned.

Here's a list of some of the touring universities:

Notre Dame - currently in Europe (UK/Esp), games record is 2-0 so far, last win over a French All-Star team 75-57.
Florida State - currently in Africa (Sen), record is 0-2, two narrow losses to the Senegalese NT.
Georgia Tech - currently in Spain, record is 0-1, lost 78-74 vs French All-Star team.
Arkansas and Dayton - currently in Italy, will start play exhib games this w-e on a similar tour.
Louisiana State U. - Spain tour 11-21 Aug
Colorado - Italy tour 12-21 Aug
California - China tour 17-26 Aug
Michigan - Fra/Ita tour 19-28 Aug