Broken News? Hartford Courant staff writer Lori Riley reported that in yesterday's game "with 18.7 seconds left Sun center Margo Dydek blocked Zane Teilane's shot and was called for a foul. The fans showered official Darla Foutz Stevens with boos. Teilane hit both shots, but reserve center Le'Coe Willingham muscled into the lane and hit a shot, giving the Sun a 41-36 lead and momentum going into halftime."

Now perhaps our readers are wondering why the BasketCases with all their Latvian connections weren't the first to break the news about Zane's WNBA debut. There's a simple reason: It Did Not Happen! Margo actually fouled Nakia Sanford, who admittedly does bear a striking resemblance to Zane Teilane. For example, they are both tall.

Being the investigative bloggers that we are, the BasketCases wanted to get to the bottom of this matter, so we Googled Lori Riley and, interestingly enough, found that a Connecticut area Girl Scout by that name recently earned a merit badge for Journalism and that very same scout was also her troop's Cookie Queen of the annual fundraising drive. As her reward for both of these outstanding accomplishments, she received free tickets to a Sun game and a media all-access pass! Now, the BasketCases can't be certain that the Lori Riley who writes for the Courant and Lori Riley the Cookie Queen are one and the same, but in the event that they are, the BasketCases say to their loyal readers: let's not be too hard on Lori Riley. Any journalist can make a mistake (except, of course, our favorite basketball reporter, Mechelle Voepel), and in Lori's case all those Thin Mints could have impaired her ability to follow the game the same way Twinkies have been known to cause violent behavior. So, Lori, don't get discouraged. Keep working at being a sportswriter. Someday you may get it right. (By the way, Lori, do you ship cookies out of state? If so, email us. We love Samoas! Thanks!)