COLLEGES: USC'S MURPHY WANTS TO IMPRESS TROJANS LEGENDS.Byline: RAMONA SHELBURNE Ramona Shelburne is an American sports journalist currently writing for the Los Angeles Daily News. Shelburne was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California where she was a class valedictorian. Staff Writer The USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. women's basketball Women's basketball is one of the few games which developed in tandem with men's. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast, in large part via women's colleges. team will take national preseason rankings and honors into its season opener Friday night against Long Beach State at the Galen Center History USC had planned to build an on-campus indoor arena for over 100 years. Before the Galen Center, USC basketball had been played at a variety of locations, including the neighboring Shrine Auditorium stage, the old Pan-Pacific Auditorium in the Fairfax District, and since . But that's not what senior preseason All-America candidate Eshaya Murphy is worried about. Before the game, USC will retire the jerseys of two of the greatest women's basketball players, Cheryl Miller (31) and Lisa Leslie (33), in conjunction with the (basketball) grand opening of the Galen Center. ``Our main goal is to really impress them,'' Murphy said. ``They had such an impact on the sport of women's basketball and we need to bring back their legacy.'' Miller won the Naismith Player of the Year Award Several sports leagues honor their best player with an award called Player of the Year. In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. The awards with the "player of the year" phrasing include these. threetimes in her career at USC (1984-86) while leading the Women of Troy to back-to-back NCAA NCAA abbr. National Collegiate Athletic Association titles in 1983 and 1984. Leslie was the Player of the Year in 1994. She's since gone on to win two WNBA WNBA Women's National Basketball Association WNBA World Ninepin Bowling Association WNBA Wannabe Nasty Boys Association WNBA Women's National Book Association, Inc. WNBA Warszawski Nurt Basketu Amatorskiego titles with the Sparks and threeWNBA Most Valuable Player awards. Murphy and the current Women of Troy have been practicing in Galen Center for about a week, and the early reviews of the place are good. ``It already feels like home,'' Murphy said. ``I like the court, I like the floor. We have our own locker room. We're all just really excited to play there.'' USC opens the year ranked No. 22 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll. The Associated Press preseason poll will be released today. Meriwether wins again: UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX women's volleyball player Nana Meriwether was honored as the Pac-10 Player of the Week for the third time this year. Only seven other players have been honored as the conference player of the week three or more times in one season. Three of those seven players were later named the conference Player of the Year. Meriwether's top competition for the Player of the Year award is Stanford's Cynthia Barboza and Washington's Christal Morrison. The top award will likely go to a player on the conference winner, and that race will look a lot clearer after this weekend. No. 2 Stanford (20-2, 11-1) hosts No. 6 USC (21-3, 9-3) Friday night at 7 and No. 5 UCLA (24-2, 11-2) at 7 Saturday night. Stanford swept both schools last month in Los Angeles. Pepperdine freshman women's volleyball player Rachel Lumsden was honored as the West Coast Conference Player of the Week after she recorded 27 kills and 26 digs in the Waves' victories over over No. 20 Santa Clara and No. 15 San Diego last week. Pepperdine will take its four-match winning streak into matches at Saint Mary's and San Francisco this weekend. He's worthy: Loyola Marymount senior Brandon Worthy is one of 25 players named to the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major preseason All-American team. Worthy averaged 15.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists as a junior. |
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