Cotton Country, Italy, Uptown, Draft, & Chemistry

#2 posting 7.3.2008
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

COTTON COUNTRY
According to the StarTribune yesterday, the Gophers have received a verbal from Leah Cotton of Olathe Christian in Kansas. Here is a photo and story when Cotton and her school won the NACA title. Here is last season's game by game schedule of Olathe Christian (32-2) from MaxPreps. Cotton averaged 17 ppg (again from MaxPreps).

Olathe Christian is a school of 220 from preschool to 12th grade. Olathe Christian is not a member of the KSHSAA (their MSHSL). The equivalent schools in Minnesota would be along the lines of Rochester Faith Christian, Immanuel Lutheran in Mankato, Mountain Lake Christian, or Christian Life in Farmington. You haven't heard of these schools? They don't get a lot of publicity. Cassie Busse of Prior Lake Christian (another school way under the radar) went to the Gophers to play volleyball. She ended up to be an All American and is on the Olympic volleyball team. She was 6-3. Cotton is 5-8.

ITALY BOUND
The Gophers' women's basketball team is headed to Italy August 18-28.

UPTOWN YWCA RESULTS
Here are the results from the college league at the Uptown YWCA League
Anoka-Ramsey 48, UW Superior 42
Concordia St. Paul 56, The Mixx 43
MSU Gold 57, St. Thomas #2 42
Bethany Lutheran 66, Sweet Sensation 25
UW River Falls 30, St. Mary's 29
St. Benedict 52, Augsburg 46
St. Cloud State 77, St. Olaf 29
Hamline 62, Northern State 59

SCHEDULE
Ohio State has released their 2008-09 schedule.

FREAKONOMICS AND DRAFT REGRESSION
Here is an interesting story from the Freakonomics blog on the recent NBA draft and whether college stats explain their subsequent performance in the NBA. It is the age old question of numbers vs guts. Numbers wins. If it works for the NBA it can translate to the women's game.

CHEMISTRY, STRATEGY, & STAR DEPENDENT TEAMS
Rethinking basketball touches on all these topics in a look at the LA Sparks.

Next up: later today with the Week That Was (a day early)