Oh, she didn’t do a whole lot in her WNBA debut… she only scored more than any other league player’s debut ever.

• Candace Parker scored 34 in her debut with the Los Angeles Sparks, a 99-94 victory over the defending champion Phoenix Mercury on their home floor. Cappie Pondexter did everything to keep the Mercury in the game, scoring 32 even after arriving in the country the day before.
• Get ready for a lot of scores like the 100-67 loss, Atlanta Dream fans. The Connecticut Sun used a 32-8 run in the first quarter to lead by 17 at the start of the second quarter and didn’t look back.
• I don’t know if this means the Houston Comets are worse than we thought they were or the Detroit Shock are better, but the depleted Shock did just that as they defeated the Comets 85-66. Deanna Nolan couldn’t play much on her bad ankle, but Alexis Hornbuckle had a great WNBA debut, scoring 8 and getting 7 steals.
• The All-Star squad Brian Agler has assembled for his Seattle Storm used a 25-9 run in the third quarter to comeback from a halftime deficit and defeat the Chicago Sky 66-61. 2007 WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson led the team with 14 points and Sylvia Fowles had a rough debut for the Sky, scoring 6 and bringing down 7 rebounds.
• Katie Douglas returned to Indiana glory, scoring 24 points in her Indiana Fever debut and leading her team to a 64-53 victory over the Washington Mystics.
• Sophia Young’s 22 points weren’t enough as the San Antonio Silver Stars fell to the Sacramento Monarchs 73-64.

Forgot to show some love to Newscom for the photo of CP.

Ball don’t lie.

Alexis Hornbuckle had missed every shot she’d taken in the game, but on her eighth try, she sent the Tennessee Lady Vols to the national championship game. Hornbuckle scored with less than a second remaining in the game to give the No. 1 Lady Volsa 47-46 victory over No. 2 LSU. From the AP:

“I couldn’t make a shot all night, but honestly, that was the only one that mattered,” Hornbuckle said. “I just wanted to stay positive and I crashed the boards and looked up and I said I didn’t want to pull this down, with my luck I might as well try to tip it in. And luckily it went in.”

I didn’t get to watch this game live and I still haven’t seen the final shot (I did listen to the game on Sirius), so if you have a video link, I’d love to check it out. Comment and let me know where.

Confirmed by the story from what I heard, it seems as though Candace Parker is not up to snuff (but her injury-best is still decently good), but it looks as though the Lady Vols will need either a better Parker or more efficient shooting all around if they’re going to beat Stanford on Tuesday.