Americans Advance. In Moscow yesterday, the USA U21 team flattened their Belgian counterparts like waffles in the quarterfinals of the FIBA World Championship by a score of 104-53. Every American scored, and six were in double figures; no American played more than 20 minutes. Courtney Paris led all scorers with 18 points, while Maryland's Crystal Langhorne had a slow day, putting up "only" 11 points in 14 minutes. The win sets up a semi-final match beween the USA and home team Russia today at 10 a.m. EDT time. (Don't worry, it's much later in Moscow!)

Meanwhile, back in the United States, a far less successful team, the Mystics, will take on the Sky in Chicago this evening at 8 p.m. EDT. The game will be shown on NBA-TV and also web cast on WNBA.com. Apparently, Mystics Interim Head Coach Tree Rollins think it's a good thing to be playing on the road. According to today's Washington Post, Tree feels that "his team seems more focused on the road, away from distractions and without the pressure of performing before family and friends at Verizon Center," where the team is a league-worst 2-7. [Memo to the Mystics: First you were tired? Then you forgot to practice defense? Now there's too much pressure? Other teams don't get tired? Other teams don't need to work on defense? Other teams don't feel pressure to win for their hometown fans? Here's a little tough love from the BasketCases: Get a sports psychologist if you need to, but please stop your whining and please stop making excuses!]

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Today's Washington Times, perhaps not realizing that the Post has already profiled Nakia Sanford's transition from backup center to starter, has a profile of its own, albeit with some very interesting quotes, particularly from Kia's predecessor, Chasity Melvin. So do read.

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Finally, the BasketCases want to give a shout out to Shay's New York Liberty, which beat the Shock in Detroit last night by one point in an overtime game, 82-81, shown on NBA-TV. The Libs are just a ton of fun to watch this year.