SBN Links: K-State "Owns" TAMU, The First Women's College Basketball Team & Why Cal Fans Can Root For Stanford

We at Swish Appeal pride ourselves on trying to cover as much women's basketball - year round, no less - as we possibly can without the use of a transporter.

However, with tournament time upon us, some of SBN's college sites are also catching up on the action of their women's teams.

First, SBN's Kansas State site Bring On The Cats brings us perhaps the funniest by passing on the tweet above from Kansas State professor, "first lady", and nationally recognized expert in power systems engineering Noel Schulz who concluded after a deep scientific analysis, no doubt, that K-State owns #5 Texas A&M (and Texas) after they engineered a surprising 71-67 upset over the Aggies.  I don't know - maybe I just think it's funny when academic types let loose.

On a more serious academic note - complete with references - CalBear81 of California Golden Blogs posted an in-depth look at the first women's college basketball game against an outside opponent, with an interesting twist.

The World's First Women's College Basketball Team: The California Golden Bears - California Golden Blogs
By the fall of 1892, a group of women at the University of California in Berkeley formed a team to represent the University in games against outside opponents. On November 18, 1892, the Cal women's team played a game on the Berkeley campus against a local prep school called Miss Head's School. This was the first women's basketball game played in the western United States. Even more significantly, it was the first game ever played by a college women's team against an outside opponent, making the Bears the first women's team ever to represent their college in a basketball game. Unfortunately, there is no record of the details of the game.

That "local prep school called Miss Head's School" is actually Anna Head School for Girls, which later joined with the Royce School for Boys and is now a co-ed K-12 institution in Oakland, CA called "The Head-Royce School". Head-Royce has had some success in recent years in California's powerful Division V and I know for sure there was a boys team in 1997 that was quite good, although that was in the time before internet records. 

Other stuff:

• California Golden Blogs also has an interview with former Cal player and current Stanford assistant Lauren Greif who explains why Cal fans should *gasp* root for Stanford.
• Nunes Magician (Syracuse) looks at the Orange's tournament chances. 
• Backing the Pack (NC State) gives three good reasons why the Pack might struggle against BC in the first round of the ACC tournament and five games that changed things for their season.
  
• RockyTopTalk (Tennessee) takes a look at who the Lady Vols might take on in the SEC tournament on Friday.
• ...and for the reason that David Hooper of RockyTopTalk expects #5 South Caronlina to upset #4 Georgia in the first round, Dawg Sports (Georgia) hopes #12 Ole Miss upsets SC to avoid any potential barrier to advancement.
• Nunes Magician also looks at a few women's basketball exceptions to an unspoken (or invented?) Syracuse honor code, in light of the BYU's dismissal of a basketball player due to its honor code.