Naismith Award

Site--Great Western Forum. * Radio--KEZY (1190). * Records (1998)--Sparks 12-18, Monarchs 8-22. * Update--It has been literally years in the making, the matchup tonight of arguably the two best low-post players in the women's game, Lisa Leslie and Yolanda Griffith. When she played for the ABL's Long Beach StingRays in the 1997-98 season, the 6-foot-3 Griffith was the league's No. 4 scorer at 18.8 points per game and the No. 2 rebounder, at 11.2.

Alana Beard capped her season and college basketball career by being named the inaugural winner of the women's John R. Wooden Award on Friday. The Duke senior guard, who averaged 19.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists and led the 30-4 Blue Devils to a fourth consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference championship, was selected over Penn State's Kelly Mazzante, Stanford's Nicole Powell, Connecticut's Diana Taurasi and Purdue's Shereka Wright. Voting was completed March 29.

* 1964-1969--Harrick begins his coaching career as an assistant at Morningside High in Inglewood. * 1969-1973--Harrick is head coach at Morningside and compiles a 103-16 record. * 1973-1977--Harrick becomes an assistant at Utah State. * 1977-1979--Harrick leaves Utah State to become an assistant under Gary Cunningham at UCLA. * 1979-1988--Harrick leaves UCLA for a head coaching job at Pepperdine.

Cherokee Parks of Huntington Beach Marina High and Tamika Phillips of Chaffey High have been selected the top boy and girl high school basketball players of the year in Southern California by The Times. The two were honored Sunday at a banquet at the Anaheim Sheraton. Parks, a 6-foot-11 center, was presented the George Yardley Award, and Phillips, a 6-foot center/forward, was presented the Cheryl Miller Award. This is the first year those awards have been given.

YouTube offers the cringe-inducing footage: Ohio State star Evan Turner takes off for a two-handed slam — and awkwardly lands flat-backed on the hardwood, breaking bones in his spine. "It was horrible," he said of his December injury against Eastern Michigan. "I couldn't move. But the worst thing was, I knew I was going to miss some games." He missed a month's worth but came back to lead the Buckeyes to the Big Ten regular-season and conference championships, as well as the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.

The winning point for Tiger Woods . A perfect record for Jim Furyk . And validation for U.S. captain Fred Couples . The Americans won the Presidents Cup as a team, 19-15, avenging their worst loss ever in any cup competition 13 years ago on a Royal Melbourne course that lived up to its reputation as among the greatest tests in golf. Yet even as they gathered around the gold trophy at the closing ceremony Sunday afternoon in Melbourne, Australia, all of them dressed in red shirts and blue blazers, it was hard to ignore the singular achievements.

The similarities between Michael Jordan and Cheryl Miller are striking. They both were consensus All-Americans who led their teams to National Collegiate Athletic Assn. titles as sophomores and were named James Naismith Award winners as juniors. And both won gold medals in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. But here is where the similarity ends. Jordan was able to parlay his collegiate success into a career in the National Basketball Assn.

About this business of Sam Crawford sleeping inside a car, sleeping outdoors, spending his nights feeling abandoned and alone, saying that if not for basketball he would have been suicidal . . . please, he says, let's get this story straight. "I never slept in a car. Never. I slept outside once-- once --but it was at my choice. My aunt forgot I was coming and locked me out. So my friend and I stayed out all night. But I wasn't by myself. I wasn't homeless.

A few weeks after he was hired as the Cal State Northridge women's basketball coach, Michael Abraham went to a summer league game to get a look at some players he would inherit. But it was Tammie Mills, a 5-foot-3 fly of a player--too small and too quick for opponents to swat away--that caught his eye. "I'm watching this little kid out there with Lisa Leslie and Nikki McCrimmon and Tricia Stafford and Cindy Brown, she was playing with all the big names," Abraham said.

Glenn Robinson, the nation's leading scorer and Naismith college player of the year, indicated Sunday that he will stay at Purdue for his senior season rather than turn pro. "I know it's hard to turn down money like that, but the money will be there when I want to leave," Robinson told CBS after being selected the Naismith Award winner. Robinson, who led the nation with a 30.3 scoring average, would probably have been the No. 1 pick in the June 29 NBA draft.