Basketball On The Internet.

BOB'S CORNER: This week, US correspondent and former import Bob Craven watched as the LA Clippers did something a wee bit phenomenal in the NBA, LeBron James revisited some Magic Lakers history, WNBA superstar Breanna Stewart rocked Seattle and a new scoring record was set in NCAA women's Division 1 play. It's all here...

AN amazing finish and a win for the LA Clippers against the Washington Wizards last night, 116-115, after the game started off as a blowout win for Washington.

The Wizards had a 35-point lead (yes, 35 points) in the first half, but the Clips came back.  Still, with less than nine seconds left in the game and the Wizards up by six, Luke Kennard of the Clips scored seven points in a row to win it. 

Coming out of a timeout, he hit a very deep three-pointer from just short of 10-metres out.  Then, the Wizards couldn’t inbound the ball and were called for a 5-second violation and a turnover. 

LA inbounded to the ball to Kennard who made another deep three-pointer to tie the score—and he was fouled.  He makes the free throw, and the game is over.

THE LA Lakers, like many teams these days, are dealing with playing short-handed most games due to injury and/or Covid. 

So, the Lakers pulled something out of an old playbook from the days of Kareem and Magic, and put Lebron James exclusively in the post during the 2nd half of a game against the Orlando Magic in Orlando. 

The Lakers were down by eight at the half, but with LBJ in the middle, came back for a 116-105 win. 

James led the Lakers with 29 — not quite the 42 points that Magic in his rookie year scored for the Lakers in the 1980 championship-clinching playoff road win when he played point-centre for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

(That's Earvin Johnson getting it done four decades ago.)

POTENTIAL earthquake in Seattle for the Seattle Storm and the WNBA. 

New York Liberty ownership and, presumably, new Liberty head coach, Sandy Brondello, seemingly are in fullcourt press mode to try to make this happen. 

As noted, Stewie also would be joining two former Storm teammates - including possible Opals captain Sami Whitcomb - who were dealt to the Liberty last year.

AYOKA Lee, a 198cm centre for Kansas State U., put herself in the NCAA women’s basketball record book this week for the most points ever scored in a Division I game:  61, in a home game against #14-ranked U. of Oklahoma. 

Lee scored almost as many points herself as Oklahoma did as a team in the 94-65 win.  Lee entered the game as the #3 scorer in Division I and was shooting 58.3% from the field.

In 35 minutes, she went 23-of-30 from the field and 15-of-17 from the line, and added 12 rebounds, a steal, and three blocked shots. 

Oklahoma is small and very guard-heavy, starting four guards and a 188cm forward, and that forward fouled out after playing nine minutes trying to deal with Lee.

The previous D-1 record was 60, first set in 1987 by Long Beach State U. centre Cindy Brown and equaled in 2016 by U. of Minnesota guard Rachal Banham.

THERE was a big game this week in NCAA D-1 Top Five women’s hoops that ended surprisingly, and there will be some potentially huge changes taking place in the NCAA itself going forward.

In the women’s game, #3 U. of Louisville took on #4 North Carolina State U. on the road.  Somewhat surprisingly, Louisville controlled the game from the get-go and threatened to run away with it—they were up by 16 in the 2nd half and were still up by 14 early in the 4th quarter. 

And then, even more surprisingly, the wheels fell off for Louisville.  NC State outscored them in that quarter 31-8 to win it 68-59. 

It was NC State’s 3rd win this season over a Top Ten-ranked team, and the loss ended Louisville’s 15-game winning streak, the longest in women’s D-I so far this season.

REGARDING the NCAA, this is big news. 

At their annual convention, the member schools ratified a new, streamlined constitution, paving the way for a decentralised approach to governing most of college sports that will hand much more power to the schools and conferences. 

The President of the NCAA, Mark Emmert (formerly the president here of the U. of Washington), called the new constitution “more of a declaration of independence”. 

Now each of the NCAA’s three divisions will be empowered to govern itself.  No idea at this point what this might mean going forward, but I can envision the possibility of strange things happening, such as different rules for a sport, depending on what division a school is in or in what conference they play. 

Stay tuned—this could get really interesting.