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Jim3k
04-07-2013, 01:21 PM
Hillary Howard (now Hillary Heieck) shows up today in a sweet story about Cal Women's coach Lindsay Gottlieb. Gottlieb's team is one of today's semifinalists in New Orleans. It turns out that she and Howard were childhood friends who played in the backyard together and fantasized basketball excellence. Howard, as Heieck, is now a senior marketing manager at the Pac-12 network. She and Gottlieb remain close friends.

The story itself, here in the Contra Costa Times (http://www.contracostatimes.com/cal-bears/ci_22959205/cal-womens-basketball-coach-lindsay-gottlieb-knew-destination), is a sweet one for Gottlieb, who played at Brown even as Howard came to Duke. Howard later introduced her to an unknown Duke assistant named Joanne Boyle. Boyle later hired Gottlieb as an assistant at Richmond; then took her to Cal. She left to become the HC at UC Santa Barbara. When Boyle came back east to UVa, Gottlieb returned to Cal as her successor. Since then she's become the most successful Cal coach in many years. Nice story about her, but the Howard connection makes it news at DBR, particularly because Howard was an integral part of Duke's very best women's team--the 1999 runner-up to Purdue (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=3651912). On the way, that team beat 5th ranked ODU, 12th ranked Georgia and No. 2 (I think) Tennessee.

brevity
04-07-2013, 05:27 PM
Mods, you could theoretically merge this thread with the one titled "Who to pull for in the Final Four." The answer is the University of California women.

Local to New Orleans, I took my niece to the free events that are part of Women's Final Four weekend. There isn't much for people aged 3 -- I thought she might like the mascot competitions on stage, but she said it was too loud. She got her face painted and played some toddler-sized basketball in the kid section. (She has some dexterity, but she's no Baby Titus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMbm78sEB4).) Then we got a photo with the Cal Bear mascot, who was very gracious, and staged a photo where she appeared to be cutting a hoop net. A Cal cameraman was amused, took some video, and told me to look for it on their athletics website. It's not much, but it's something.

I'll admit that I'd be a lot more interested if Duke made it here, but absent that, Cal is a decent alternative. I enjoyed their win against Georgia, and wouldn't mind seeing them spoil an all-Big East final.

burnspbesq
04-07-2013, 07:31 PM
Cal's Aufre Jemerigbe, who hit a couple of huge shots late in the Bears' Elite Eight win over Jawjah, is a high school classmate and teammate of Duke's Chelsea Gray.

Jim3k
04-07-2013, 08:59 PM
After hitting 58% of their FGs in the first half, Cal cooled off and Louisville caught them in the last 3 minutes, going on to win by 7. Louisville's treys and Cal's 1-7 from the FT line made the difference. (And Louisville got away with a out-of bounds push near the end when the outcome remained uncertain, thought it probably didn't affect the game's outcome, since in the last 3 minutes Cal couldn't find a shot before the shot clock ran down, forcing bad heaves.)


Still, Gottlieb's charges fared very well. She should be proud. So should Boyle. And so should Hillary Heieck.