USC Duo Impress in Comet Title Win
Moments after his Houston Comets had demonstrated decisively that they were the WNBA’s best team, Coach Van Chancellor talked about his two former USC players who led the way.
Cynthia Cooper, 32, showing again she is this eight-team league’s only genuine superstar, made artful plays for 40 minutes, finishing with 25 points and the MVP award.
And Tina Thompson, a 22-year-old rookie, did well in the game’s most important defensive assignment, guarding New York’s Rebecca Lobo, and chipped in 18 points. Thompson also played all 40 minutes.
Thus, in a championship game that was rarely in doubt Saturday, Houston beat New York, 65-51, before a sellout crowd of 16,285 at the Summit.
“Telling Tina Thompson she can’t do something is like pouring gasoline on a fire,” Chancellor said.
“So I said to her: ‘Look, just don’t let Lobo kill us, OK?’ ”
And so it went, as Chancellor wished.
In New York’s semifinal victory, the 6-foot-4 Lobo had a peak performance, but Thompson’s powerful effort held Lobo to nine points, three under her average.
Cooper sat down at the postgame interview table and was handed a hot-off-the-presses Kellogg’s cereal box--with her picture on it.
“Hey, you guys,” she told reporters, “I look goooood on this box.”
And then she had a long, well-earned laugh.
After years of playing professionally in Europe, she finally played season in America. She did it for her mother, Mary Cobbs, who is battling breast cancer and was in attendance Saturday.
“I’ve been in Europe 11 years . . . this is the first year I’ve been able to share my pro basketball life with my mom,” she said.
Chancellor said he was touched by something Cooper said to him, seconds after the final horn, in the din of the on-court celebration.
“Cynthia hugged me and said: ‘Coach, I couldn’t have done it without you.’ I feel for her, to say something like that to me at that moment. . . . Well, she’s a special person.
“Cynthia is all about grit, desire, determination. She can guard, she can shoot, rebound and she can pass.”
For his part, Chancellor walked away from 19 seasons as coach at Mississippi to lead the Comets.
“You know, four times I came so close to getting my teams to the Final Four, only to lose on someone else’s court,” he said.
“I just can’t tell you what this means to me. I don’t want to say I’m happier than the day I married my wife, because she’d kill me. But you know what? It’s darn close. Shoot, she’ll probably kill me for that.”
Except for a 2-2 score in the first minute, Houston led all the way.
The Comets had a 28-24 halftime lead, then jumped all over Lobo and the Liberty in the first seven minutes of the second half. On successive plays, Cooper drove over Lobo, Tammy Jackson had a double-pump put-back over Lobo and Thompson made a 10-foot jumper for a 38-28 lead.
WNBA Notes
Mwadi Mabika of the Los Angeles Sparks, who is from the Congo, will tour South Africa beginning next week with several NBA players, including Dikembe Mutombo. The players will stage youth basketball clinics. . . . In a pregame news conference, WNBA President Val Ackerman said the league would consider a three-game championship playoff next season. She also said the WNBA would add two teams, but wouldn’t say where. Rumor: Washington and Orlando. . . . A WNBA all-star team that includes Lisa Leslie of the Sparks will tour Germany, Italy and France in October, playing European club teams.