Sports Radio Service


		Women’s teams ramp up for Tourney and WNBA Draft By Michelle Touson March 9, 2004
	Boston College players Amber Jacobs, left, and Maureen Leahy hold the winners' trophy aloft after Boston College defeated Rutgers 75-57 in Hartford, Conn., Tuesday, March 9, 2004 to win the Big East Championship title.. (AP Photo/Bob Child)
	ALBUQUERQUE----Things seem to have solidified at the top of the NCAA seeding-Duke at the top of the East and Stanford in the West. Texas will probably earn the Midwest and LA Tech in the Mid-South, thought that one is hard to call since it’s Women’s basketball and we don’t get a lot of exposure to them. Definitely Duke is the team to beat. It probably will come down to a Duke-UConn match up because no matter how many games that UConn lost and their streak was broken and all that, they’re still UConn and I believe this is Diane Taurasi last year. She's not trying to go out a winner, like she's been doing her whole college career. I see a lot of good things from UConn, plus Duke has a couple of seniors who will make a big noise before the WNBA draft comes up. It’s going to be kind of crazy out there. You have teams like Texas, Purdue who can creep up, but they want to stay underneath the radar. They really don't want to be the team that everybody wants to beat because that’s too much pressure. If you go into the tournament without any pressure it’s much better for you because if you loose it not like you have the weight of the world sitting on your shoulders. WNBA Draft This year in the 2004 WNBA draft, which is in April, look at Alana Beard out of Duke and Taurasi from UConn coming out. There is a lot of talent, this is the most college talent the Women's NCAA has had in a while. It will be nice to see Taurasi and Beard topping that list. Taurasi should be the number one draft pick. So look for Beard out of Duke, Kelly Mazzante out of Penn State, Nicole Ohlde out of Kansas State and Nicole Powell out of Stanford. Powell is a beast and should be coming out this year. Stacy Stevens out of Texas, Lindsay Whalen from Minnesota, Ebony Hoffman out of USC-there is a lot of power here. . There's a lot more and a lot more talent more than we've had in a few years so this will be interesting to see whose coming out and making a big splash for the WNBA draft. Catch Michelle Touson's coverage of March madness right here on this site. Michelle will be covering the NCAA final four as well.