Just two days after the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team won the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, they grabbed another top-flight recruit in Lauren Engeln, a 5’11” guard, from Laguna Hills, CA who Geno Auriemma an oral commitment today.

Engeln joins ESPNU HoopGurlz #2 recruit Samarie Walker, #13 Stefanie Dolson and #19 Michala Johnson. Next up on the Huskies radar is #4 Bria Hartley, a 5’7″ point guard out of North Babylon, NY in the class of 2014. UConn has just one recruit in Kelly Faris coming in next season.

UConn Dials Cali [ESPN HoopGurlz]

No matter what’s happens with the recruiting allegations, one thing’s for certain. Jim Calhoun will be back to coach the UConn Huskies men’s basketball team in 2009-2010.

“It is my full intention to return for the 2009-10 season,” said Calhoun. “I look forward to coaching next season and to continuing as the head coach at Connecticut into the future. In many ways, the journey of this past season has made me realize how much I love coaching this game, how much I love my kids and how much I enjoy being at Connecticut.”

This is great news because I don’t think anyone could really see someone else taking over for him.

Jim Calhoun to Return as UConn Head Coach in 2009-10 [UConnHuskies.com]

Just a few hours after throwing six scoreless innings for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last night, Nick Adenhart was killed in a car crash. Adenhart was just 22 years old.

He is survived by his parents, Jim and Janet. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends and the whole Angels organization on this tragic loss.

I haven’t been home all day nor near a TV or a computer so this is first I had heard of it. It was definitely a shock to see this because I was actually watching the game last night on MLB Extra Innings.

Please take a moment and pray for him, his family and friends.

Angels pitcher killed in crash [ESPN.com]

It only took two games but we now have our first dancing fool at Fenway Park. The song of choice during the 9th inning of last night’s Boston Red Sox game was Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself”.

[flash http://ianbethune.com/video.flv w=416 h=279]

Introducing your first Fenway Park dancing idiot of 2009 [Red Sox Monster]

The last time that Scott Kazmir faced the Boston Red Sox, he staked his team to a big lead. Tonight was no different as he gave them 6 strong innings and the bullpen held the lead for him as the Tampa Bay Rays went on to win 7-2 in front of 37,552 cold fans at Fenway Park.

Jon Lester wasn’t great for the Red Sox in his first start of the season although home plate umpire Bob Davidson wasn’t doing him any favors. Lester allowed 5 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5.

Manny Delcarmen and Ramon Ramirez both worked perfect innings with Ramirez adding a strikeout. Takashi Saito made his Red Sox debut and gave up a run on a hit. Javier Lopez worked the 9th allowing a run on a 4 hits.

Kazmir gave up 1 run in 6 innings on 5 hits and 3 walks while striking out 4.

Kevin Youkilis was the man at the plate for the Red Sox going 3-for-4 with an RBI. Jason Bay had the other RBI for the Red Sox and added a double while Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Rocco Baldelli had the other hits.

Lester worked around an Evan Longoria double in the 1st and he struck out the side in the 2nd inning. It was the 3rd inning when things started to go south.

Akinori Iwamura led off with a double and then Jason Bartlett reached on an infield single with Iwamura holding put at second. Carl Crawford followed with a shot between first and second that was gloved by Youkilis but his throw to second went into the outfield and allowed Iwamura to score to give the Rays a 1-0 lead. That would be all the damage though as Lester got Longoria to ground into a double play and Carlos Peña to ground out to second, his first out that wasn’t a strikeout (struck out in 1st).

Ellsbury popped out to start the bottom half of the inning and the reigning AL MVP followed with a double. Kazmir got the second out with a strikeout of Big Papi but Youk singled in Pedroia to tie the game at 1. Youk was thrown out trying to get back to the bag when Peña cut off the throw.

Former Red Sox outfielder and minor league manager Gabe Kapler worked a walk to start the 5th and went to third on a Iwamura single. Bartlett then laid down a safety squeeze that Lester could only weakly throw to Jason Varitek as Kapler crossed the plate to make it 2-1 Rays.  Crawford followed with a single to load up the bases for Longoria who ended up grounding into a double play that saw Iwamura score.  Peña then finally came through with first hit of the season and it was a big one as he crushed a Lester offering for a 2-run homer to center making it 5-1 Rays.

Longoria pushed the lead to 6-1 when he led off the 8th with a solo home run off of Saito.

The Red Sox had a chance to tie the game up in bottom of the 8th but only came out of the inning with a run.

J.P. Howell started the inning with a strikeout of Pedroia and then allowed back-to-back singles by Big Papi and Youk. Howell struck out his former teammate Baldelli for the second out but a Bay double knocked in Papi to make it 6-2. Howell then hit Mike Lowell in the elbow to load up the bases for Jed Lowrie. Grant Balfour took over for Howell and struck out Lowrie to end the threat.

The Rays would add an insurance run off of Lopez in the 9th and Balfour sent the local nine down in order in the 9th to preserve the win for the Rays.

These same two teams are back at it again at 1:35 PM in the rubber match of this three game series. Daisuke Matsuzaka starts for the Red Sox and will be opposed by Matt Garza.

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Coming into tonight’s game with the Stanford Cardinal, the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team had one goal in mind. That was to win and make it to the championship game on Tuesday night. This wasn’t supposed to be an easy task for the Huskies as they would need to contain Jayne Appel and her recent dominance in the post. And oh by the way, Stanford was the last team to beat the Huskies.

It wouldn’t matter though as Renee Montgomery put her team on her back leading the way with 26 points to give UConn an 83-64 win over the Cardinal in front of 18,621 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis to advance to the NCAA Women’s National Championship game on Tuesday night against their friends from the Big East, the Louisville Cardinals who advanced by upsetting the Oklahoma Sooners.

Besides her 26 points, the senior co-captain added 6 assists and 4 steals. Maya Moore had a quiet 24 points and 8 rebounds while freshman Tiffany Hayes added 11 points. Kalana Greene chipped in with 10 points and 5 rebounds and Tina Charles added 8 points and 12 rebounds.

The only real offense the Cardinal had tonight came from Appel  who had 26 points and 7 rebounds. Nnemkadi Ogwumike added 13 points and 12 rebounds while Kayla Pedersen had 10 points. Jeanette Pohlen led Stanford with 6 assists.

Hayes got the Huskies started off on the right track with a 3-pointer that was part of an 11-4 run to start the game. Appel then almost single-handedly brought the Cardinal back with 8 points that was part of a 10-2 run to give themselves a 1-point lead at 14-13.

Over the next 7 minutes, Montgomery had seen enough as she hit a 3-pointer to give the Huskies the lead back for good and it also sparked a 22-6 run to give them a 35-20 lead with just over 3 minutes to go in the half. Stanford would outscore the Huskies 4-2 the rest of the half but UConn held a 13 point lead at 37-24 going into the locker room.

The Huskies put to bed any thought of a Stanford comeback in the second half as they went on a 13-0 run over the first 5:36 before Appel ended the bleeding and a span of 7:49 without scoring with a layup. UConn continued to build it’s lead as it got as high as 31 points with 12:06 to go.

Give credit to Stanford though, they could have just sit back and taken the beating but instead they kept playing hard and got it down 19 points which drove Geno Auriemma insane on the UConn sidelines. He was definitely not pleased and did most of his yelling in the direction of Charles.

The Huskies now need one more win to complete the perfect season and take home their first national title since 2004. To do that though, they will have to beat Louisville, a team that they have beaten twice and I mean beaten badly. UConn beat the Cardinals by 28 points and 39 points this season.

But this is a different Louisville team. Their head coach Jeff Walz has them playing at an unbelievable level right now and they have all the confidence in the world right now. No one expecting them to be there while this has been UConn’s destiny since the first practice.

Can the Huskies do it or will Louisville pull off the upset? We won’t know until about 10:45 PM on Tuesday night.

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Welcome to Fenway Park

Monday, April 6^th @ 2:05 PM

James Shields (R) (First start) vs Josh Beckett (R) (First start)

TV: NESN, ESPN2, MLB.tv

Radio: Red Sox Radio Network, MLB Game Day Audio

Wednesday, April 8^th @ 7:10 PM

Scott Kazmir (L) (First start) vs Jon Lester (L) (First start)

TV: NESN, ESPN2, MLB.tv

Radio: Red Sox Radio Network, MLB Game Day Audio

Thursday, April 9^th @ 1:35 PM

Matt Garza (R) (First Start) vs Daisuke Matsuzaka (R) (First start)

TV: NESN, MLB.tv

Radio: Red Sox Radio Network, MLB Game Day Audio

After the 82-73 loss to the Michigan State Spartans in the Final Four, UConn Huskies head coach Jim Calhoun said that he will think about retiring a little more than he normally does each year.

Jim Calhoun says he will think about getting out of coaching because of “some things thrown around for the past couple of weeks” that have disappointed him.

“Those kind of things, that’s why Dean Smith told me at 67 he got out,” Calhoun recalled, referring to North Carolina’s retired Hall of Fame coach. “It wasn’t basketball. It was the other things.

“I love the kids, love the game. I don’t plan to go anyplace. But I’m going to give a lot of reflection, maybe more reflection than normal, because of that.”

If Calhoun were to leave, he would leave behind a great legacy at UConn despite whatever happens with the recruiting allegations. It’s a shame that it even has to come to this for Calhoun.

The big question is who would coach the Huskies should Calhoun leave? Associate head coach George Blaney is a three years older than Calhoun and assistant coach Andre LeFleur is also involved. Former assistant Tom Moore is now at Quinnipiac and is also heavily involved with the recruiting scandal.

There’s not a lot of big names out there other than Bob Knight right now that are available and while he’s expressed an interest in the right situation, the question remains would UConn be the right situation.

So if Calhoun retires, I could honestly see Central Connecticut State University head coach and former UConn assistant Howie Dickenman coming back to Storrs and guiding the Huskies.

UConn’s Calhoun to contemplate future in coaching [CBSSports.com]