StingRay Fans Have Seen This Style Work Before

Maura McHugh didn’t plan on being the coach of the Sacramento Monarchs this season. But she is no novice when it comes to coaching winning basketball.

After her playing days at Old Dominion, McHugh worked five years at Penn State as a graduate assistant and assistant coach. As coach at Penn State, Oklahoma and Arizona State, she compiled a 249-157 record.

In 1997-98, she coached the Long Beach StingRays of the women’s American Basketball League to a 32-22 record, leading her expansion team, with Yolanda Griffith, to the finals.

On June 25, the day coach Sonny Allen abruptly resigned, the Monarch owners didn’t hesitate to give her the job. Griffith again was her star player.

McHugh’s first game Thursday was a smash.

The former assistant to Allen got a standing ovation before the game began and another after it ended with a Monarch victory that stopped the Houston Comets’ win streak at nine.

Sacramento (9-6) hasn’t lost since.

The Monarch win streak is now four, three under McHugh, including a 91-52 victory Saturday that set the franchise record for largest margin of victory and tied the WNBA record for largest halftime lead (46-15).

Not only were the statistics impressive, the players were sold.

“We didn’t play our bench much in the beginning of the year,” starting guard Kedra Holland-Corn told the Sacramento Bee. “We’re using our bench a lot more now, and they’re gaining confidence.”

The Monarch bench outscored its starters, 47-44, and Cindy Blodgett, a reserve who had scored only three points in 21 minutes all season, finished with a career-high 19 points in 14 minutes.

This from a team that was struggling on offense, that was criticized for the weave Allen favored and that was labeled underachieving with a 5-6 record before McHugh took over.

“I had enjoyed working with Sonny over the last 2 1/2 years,” said McHugh, who expressed confidence that her staff of Jim Les and Steve Shuman would help her make the transition. “I know this will be a big challenge; it’s a very tough league this year.

After Saturday’s victory, she downplayed her role.

“I’m not trying to get this thing turned around by myself,” she told the Bee. “The players are all with me. They want to get this thing turned around too.”

On the other hand, Cynthia Cooper, two-time league most valuable player with the four-time champion Comets, is finding that playing in the WNBA was easier than coaching in it.

Cooper’s Phoenix Mercury is in last place in the Western Conference with a 4-9 record. With Sunday’s loss at Indiana, the Mercury has lost four in succession, five of six, and has yet to win two consecutive games.

It hasn’t helped that Brandy Reed, the team’s leading scorer last season, was suspended for the season for conduct detrimental to the team. Or that Phoenix is 0-3 in games decided by three points or fewer, and 1-4 in games decided by 10 points or more.

Observers say Cooper is trying to weather the Mercury’s drought without losing her composure. And Phoenix officials still are hoping the team can reach the playoffs.

But Phoenix has five games left with the Sparks and Houston, and a five-game, coast-to-coast trip in August.

This could be the first time in five years Cooper can go home when the regular season ends.

In “The World According to Me,” an Internet column Rebecca Lobo writes, the New York Liberty forward shared a priceless moment between teammates Sue Wicks and Becky Hammon.

Hammon was admiring a diamond bracelet and wondering if she should buy it. Wicks suggested instead of paying the full price then, Hammon should put the bracelet on layaway.

Replied Hammon, without blinking an eye, “What’s layaway?”

Cleveland is proving there’s no place like home.

The Rockers have won 11 in a row in Gund Arena, dating to July 22. With Sunday’s 54-53 victory over Minnesota, Cleveland is two home victories shy of tying Houston’s record, set between July 1, 1999, and May 29, 2000.

No team has gone through a season unbeaten at home. Houston in 1999, and the Sparks in 2000 came the closest, each going 15-1. The Sparks are 6-0 at Staples this season.