Awesome!  In Bonnie Henrickson's first year as coach, with a roster packed with young players, the Hokie women's team won their 20th game of the season, defeating GW 73-72 and advancing to the A-10 tournament final against UMass.

The bad news is that the final is at UMass, on the Minutewomen's home floor.  The good news?  The game will be telecast nationally at 5:00 p.m. Monday (today!) on ESPN2.  I've got a meeting after work, so I'll have to miss it, but if you've got ESPN2, tune in and watch the Hokies gun for the NCAA tournament!

I don't usually watch women's basketball, but I have to admit that this game, which was joined in progress at half time by HTS, was incredibly thrilling.  It went back and forth, and in the end, GW committed two offensive fouls in the last 30 seconds to help Tech seal the win.  The Hokies shot an amazing 34-39 (87%) from the free throw line, and they needed every bit of it, as GW hit a three-pointer at the buzzer for the final margin of one point.

In addition to the great free throw shooting, the Hokies got a remarkable 40 points from their bench.  Tech was led by Michelle Houseright, who had 20, and Tere Williams, who had 16, if I remember my stats correctly.

For you New River Valley Hokies, the radio broadcast of the A-10 championship game will be on 1460 AM, WRAD in Radford.  I listened to the radio during this game, and I thought Tech's broadcaster, whose name I don't know, was pretty good.

It turns out that the Tech men will not play St. Bonaventure in the first round of the A-10 tournament Wednesday night, as Bill Roth said in the post game Saturday, and as I repeated in my game report.  Instead, the Hokies will face UMass at 2:00 on Wednesday.

The confusion came about when the A-10 informed Tech Thursday that if the Hokies won against Duquesne Saturday (they did, 93-79), Tech would win a tiebreaker with Duquesne and would become the West No. 5 seed, earning the chance to play East No. 4 seed St. Bonaventure.

In a way, the A-10 was right.  Tech won a two-way tiebreaker with Duquesne.   What the Hokies did not do was win a three-way tiebreaker with Duquesne.  Tech, La Salle, and Duquesne all finished 5-11 in the A-10 West.  In the case of a three-way tiebreaker, the teams are seeded according to their head-to-head records against each other.  La Salle was 3-1 in the group, Duquesne was 2-2, and Tech brought up the rear at 1-3.

The A-10 apologetically informed Tech that what they (the A-10) had told the Hokies on Thursday was wrong.  Instead of being the West No. 5 seed and getting to play the Bonnies, Tech will be the West No. 6 seed.  In this case, that means the Hokies will draw East No. 3 seed UMass (if my sources on the message board can be trusted).

Bummer.  The Hokies start with UMass, a big team, and if Tech can get past the Minutemen, the Hokies will face GW in the second round.  Break out the boxing gloves, folks, it's going to be bumpy ride.  And probably a short one.

The San Francisco 49ers surprised Hokie fans on Sunday by signing Eagle quarterback and sometime starter Ty Detmer as a free agent.  This now gives the Niners four quarterbacks:  starter Steve Young, and backups Detmer, Jeff Brohm, and Hokie legend Jim Druckenmiller.

What does this mean for Druck, who was drafted last year and anointed as the Niners "quarterback of the future"?  It's hard to say.  Frankly, after watching Steve Young run around the field like a maniac last year, I was left wondering what in the world the Niners were thinking when they drafted the relatively immobile Druckenmiller to play in the "West Coast offense," which requires the quarterback to move around a lot.

But fear not, Druck fans.  Cream always rises to the top, and Druck has the talent and the demeanor to be a big-time NFL QB.  Bottom line?  If this somehow means the end of Druck's career in San Francisco, it could be the best thing that's ever happened to him.  So don't worry about it.

And you never know ... the Niners may have picked up Detmer to back up Druck!

Click here to check out the story at ESPNet.

Let me take a second to apologize publicly to my 1998 members for not yet delivering the Members Only web site.  It has been two months now since I promised it to you, and still, no web site.  What gives?

The hang-up is with my web hosting service, which has not been able to set the site up because they, too, are at the mercy of someone else to provide some help with it (it's the username-password protection of the site that is holding things up).  My web hosting service, a great bunch of people who never give me a lick of trouble or grief, are just as embarrassed about this as I am.  Trust me, everyone is working hard on it, and it should be here soon.  And when it arrives, you will have a full year of access to it.

Please be patient and don't send in the hit squads!

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