Sports
 

Comets hit NYC for All-Star game

WNBA Report

Christian Schmidt

The WNBA All-Star game is Sunday and that means we've reached the halfway point in the league's season. It's time to take stock of where teams are and look at the players who will play in the league's annual celebration of its best and brightest.

Back on track

The Comets have arrived. That team that was wearing their uniforms for most of the first half of the season, and the real players from Houston have finally shown up. The Comets have won their last three games and four of the last five to move back into a tie for second place in the Western Conference.

The Los Angeles Sparks are still cruising with a 13-3 record and look to be substantial favorites to win another WNBA title this season.

All-Star time

The Houston Comets haven't just had success on the floor. Three Comets have been selected as starters for the fifth annual WNBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

More than 2.7 million people cast votes in the selection process, and Houston forward Sheryl Swoopes was the leading vote-getter with 124,575 votes. It's the fourth time she has received the most votes in the election. Houston's Tina Thompson and Cynthia Cooper were also selected as starters. Thompson will be going to her fifth All-Star Game, and Cooper was selected despite playing in only four games this year.

Seattle guard Sue Bird and Los Angeles forward/center Lisa Leslie round out the West's starting lineup.

In the East, New York's Theresa Weatherspoon and Washington's Chamique Holdsclaw will be making their fifth All-Star starts. Indiana forward Tamika Catchings was the leading vote-getter in the East with 112,812 votes. New York's Tari Phillips and Charlotte guard Dawn Staley will also start.

The junior varsity

Charlotte has also made a serious move over the past five games, going 4-1 in that span to move into sole possession of second place in the Eastern Conference, just one game back of the first-place Detroit Shock. But Charlotte isn't alone. The top six teams in the Eastern Conference (everyone except lowly Washington) are separated by a total of three games.

Lousy teams finish last

There are only two teams in the WNBA that have virtually no chance of making the playoffs, and both of those teams are doing their best to be as bad as possible. Washington, led by Chamique Holdsclaw, has lost its last nine games and is an astounding 2-12 on the season. Phoenix, led by, well, nobody really, isn't any better, with a 3-13 record and no signs of improving. Now, the race for the top pick in next year's draft starts to get interesting. Who will be the worst? Only time will tell (I pick Washington).

Not a rookie

Teresa Edwards is a rookie in the WNBA. Of course, some of the other rookies are young enough to be the 38-year-old's daughters, and Edwards has five (yeah, five) Olympic medals from her more than two decades of playing with the U.S. National team.

Edwards is making a return to professional basketball this season after sitting out the past two seasons. She played nine years in Europe and spent three seasons in the American Basketball League, a WNBA rival that went defunct after the 2000 season. The Minnesota Lynx selected Edwards with the 14th pick in the draft this spring. As the team's starting point guard, Edwards averages four assists per game and ranks in the league's top 10 in assists per game and assist-to-turnover ratio.

 Send comments to dcsports@mail.uh.edu