It Can’t Get Much Worse for UCLA, USC

How bad a season has it been for the UCLA and USC women?

Very bad. History-making bad.

Since the first Pacific 10 Conference women’s season, 1986-87, UCLA and USC have finished under .500 in the Pac-10 in the same season three times, and not since 1995-96, when both were 8-10.

The worst combined UCLA-USC seasons occurred in 1994-95 when together they won 15 games.

Right now, each is holding at 15 as they close their forgettable seasons at home this weekend against the Washington teams.

USC Coach Chris Gobrecht, armed with a five-year contract extension, has her team at the top of its game, but too late in the season to count for much. Her Trojans swept Stanford and California up north last weekend for the first time in 15 years.

They can’t reach .500 but they can create misery for Gobrecht’s old team, Washington, which comes to Los Angeles as the Pac-10 leader at 12-4.

UCLA’s season was derailed before it started. In Nicole Kaczmarski and LaCresha Flannigan, the Bruins had perhaps the league’s best backcourt. Then Kaczmarski transferred to Georgia--after having been the cover girl on the Pac-10 media guide--and Flannigan flunked out.

It fell to 5-foot sophomore Natalie Nakase to run the offense and she responded in workmanlike fashion, but provided little offense. She ranks in the conference’s top five in assists and steals, but averages fewer than five points.

Nakase, lest anyone forget, made an incredible play two weekends ago, a leaping block of a shot by 6-5 Oregon center Jenny Mowe, a player 17 inches taller. It was the first block of Nakase’s college career.

UCLA’s collapse couldn’t have occurred at a more inopportune time. Attendance had been climbing markedly and had reached an average of 3,713 a game last season. Now, it has plummeted to less than 1,800.

The Trojans spent all season trying to find a point guard who could make their offense work and finally might have found one last week in freshman Jessica Cheeks. In the sweep of Stanford and Cal, she had nine assists and committed only two turnovers.

The only steady, bright light is center Ebony Hoffman, a candidate for conference freshman of the year, as is Stanford’s Nicole Powell.

Hoffman is a dominating low-post player--stuck with under-skilled teammates.

Wait till next year.

RUMOR DEPARTMENT

Need a hot rumor during the WNBA off-season?

Try this one, from a top-notch source: Seattle Storm General Manager and Coach Lin Dunn, who holds the league’s first pick in the April 20 draft, will consider sending it to the Washington Mystics for Chamique Holdsclaw, another player yet to be named and Washington’s first-round pick, the ninth overall.

The Storm, richly deserving of the first pick after a 6-26 2000 season, needs a complete overhaul, but mostly a big-time center. Turns out the alleged best player in the world not in the WNBA is 6-6 Australian Lauren Jackson, 20.

The other major element here is that the new coach of the Mystics is Tom Maher, also an Aussie. He was the Australian Olympic team coach last year. See how this all fits?

Maher, who inherits a 14-18 team, is in Europe scouting players. Dunn was in Memphis to scout the Southeastern Conference tournament.

She denied she has been approached by Washington with such a deal but she seemed to be sandbagging a bit too.

“You mean I could wind up with Chamique Holdsclaw? Goshalmighty!” she said.

Told the rumor also involved another, yet-to-be named Washington player and the Mystics’ ninth pick, Dunn seemed open-minded.

“I’d talk to them about that, sure,” she said. “I keep hearing Washington is interested in acquiring that first pick, but they haven’t contacted me yet.”

Holdsclaw, in her second season, finished seventh among WNBA rebounders last summer and eighth in scoring. If Dunn surrenders the first pick, Seattle still needs a center in the deal. So would the second Mystic player be 6-5 Heather Owen or 6-3 Tausha Mills?

Said Dunn: “If I had the ninth pick, I think there could be at least one of three good centers still left--Camille Cooper of Purdue, Kelly Schumacher of Connecticut or Tammy Sutton-Brown of Rutgers.”

THIS ‘N’ THAT

The Sparks will play three exhibition games in May, the first in Long Beach, the WNBA said Tuesday. The Sparks play the New York Liberty at Long Beach State’s Pyramid at 7 p.m. May 12. Then they will play the Liberty again May 19 at Madison Square Garden and at Orlando May 22. The regular-season opener will be at Houston on May 28, and the Staples Center opener June 5 against the Cleveland Rockers.

Tennessee may break its own NCAA single-season attendance record of 16,565 a game. The Lady Vols are holding at 16,216 and figure to have two home NCAA tournament games. The next three in attendance are Texas Tech, 12,822; Connecticut, 12,306, and Iowa State, 11,336.

Another much-mentioned name in WNBA trade rumors is Southwest Missouri State shooting guard Jackie Stiles, the new NCAA all-time scoring leader. She is the focal point of guard-needy teams trying to move up high enough in the first round to draft her.