Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 6/30/16

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I wrote a long blog about Courtney Ekmark before she started her freshman year. I gave it my usual pro-UConn positive spin. I loved her three point shooting form and I was sure she would contribute eventually in the regular rotation.

"Courtney has been one of my favorites as soon as I heard she had verballed. Just watching her videos, reading about how hard she works on and off the court. The controversial home schooling she did to finish her senior year was something I admired. I found it hard to believe the harsh comments on several message boards where fans took her to task for leaving her HS teammates in the lurch. Crazy, huh."

"So, how do I see her impact to the team in 2014-15? I believe she will get plenty of time backing up

KML at the 3 and will see some minutes at the 2 as well. Her maturity and game vision will shine though and her minutes will hold, even against competitive teams. I can see her becoming one of Geno's favorites in the Kelly Faris mold. Only with unlimited range....!!"

Yeah, I missed on that one. I still think she can be a starter for almost every NCAA DIV I team and I bet she will be in the regular rotation at ASU.

I have a few links on her leaving in the UConn section.

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I just read this incredibly stupid post on a message board about Ekmark and a terrific response from another poster. Let me share -

Poster 1 (the moron) - "Is anyone REALLY surprised? She never seemed to me like a good fit for UConn. I had questions about her ethic anyway, what with the dropping out of school rather than stay and support her team after the "stars" graduated and she would have had to be the leader of a bunch of underclassmen and maybe actually be on a (GASP!) losing team.....but maybe that was daddy-driven, seems to me like she has a stage dad. Maybe CTT can turn her back into a team player. Good luck to both of them."

Poster 2 (the genius) - "Wrong take on Ekmark and her father. Message board driven, specifically a few posters on Rebkell who seemed to have an irrational response to Ekmark's decision (a response notably absent with respect to other players who quit their high school teams for reasons far less understandable.) Ekmark's "ethic" was and is just fine. She didn't "drop out of school;" she had enough credits to graduate and decided to go down a different, unconventional path. Oh the horrors. There are recruits who annually quit AAU teams or have been to 2-3 high schools and nary a peep from those so quick to jump on Ekmark for foregoing her senior year in high school.

"Daddy-driven?" "Stage Dad?" Where does this stuff come from? What evidence do you have of this? Curtis didn't support Courtney's decision initially. As for his decision to stop coaching, I understand it was driven by his son and being able to spend time watching him play ball after years of devoting time and attention on Courtney. Did anyone hear anything from Curtis Ekmark during Courtney's 2 years at UConn? Any yelling from the stands or twitter rants? As far as stage dad's go he was a real failure. Maybe, though, he'll turn up on the ASU message board and trash Geno the way Jatarie White's dad has been trashing Dawn Staley on the Texas board."

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Please go to this site and vote for Brianna Pulido for "AAC Celebration of the year".

In case you don't remember -

Keep visiting that site. She will need your support to move along in the brackets!

Polly made it to the third round winning 44-26 over Tulsa Women's Softball!!!!!

Now they are up against her former team!!!! UConn women's 2016 championship team beat the UConn baseball team to make the third round. It would have been nice if they had them on opposite sides of the brackets!!!

It's 68-12 for Polly. Keep on voting! Great job!!! Looks like she will be going into the final matchup against the Houston golf team. The good news is they only have 48 votes so far.

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Scores (links in the WNBA link section)

San Antonio 67 Washington 84

Indiana Fever 95 Chicago Sky 83

New York Liberty 95 Minnesota Lynx 92

Connecticut Sun @ Phoenix Mercury

Top Performers/UConn Performers (bold)

Moriah Jefferson San Antonio 4 points 1 assist
Stefanie Dolson Washington 8 points 7 rebounds 1 assist
Bria Hartley Washington 4 points 3 assists 2 rebounds
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt Washington 14 points 3 rebounds 5 assists
Emma Meesseman Washington 14 points 4 rebounds 4 assists
Swin Cash New York 2 points 2 rebounds 2 assists
Tina Charles New York DNP
Kiah Stokes New York 9 points 11 rebounds 2 steals 1 block
Sugar Rodgers New York 30 points
Maya Moore Minnesota 24 points 5 rebounds 3 assists 4 steals
Renee Montgomery Minnesota 14 points 4 assists
Morgan Tuck Connecticut
Kelly Faris Connecticut
Diana Taurasi Phoenix

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