Still Going!

Many long-standing Maryland records are falling this season as the 2006 Natty-winner-starters (minus Shay) have now reached their senior and junior years. And most of the record-breaking attention has been focused on stars Crystal Langhorne and Kristi Toliver, who are burning their names in the record books with their on-court prowess.

But today, barring injury, illness, or something else that keeps her from playing in Maryland's 2 PM ACC home opener against Clemson, senior Ashleigh Newman will tie the record for most consecutive games played by a Terp at 123. Ashleigh has played in every single game since her freshman year, a truly remarkable accomplishment. The current record is held by Christy Winters Scott, who also played every game of her college career (1987-90). So pay attention this afternoon when Number 21 enters the game, as she will deserve a big hand!

When it Reins Reigns Rains it Pores Pours.

Memo two too to newspaper editors and writers concerning a very important linguistic principal principle: the English language contains many groups of words called homonyms. They sound the same, but they are spelled differently and they have different meanings. If ewe you use the wrong one in a sentence, the spell-checking software that you rely on to catch your typos will not pick up the error, since the word you have used is a reel real word, just not the won one you should have used.

And so the BasketCases' pet peeve of this morning is waking up to find yet another homonym-impaired article (this one from the Washington Times) about how Assistant Coach Daron Park, now filling in for mother-to-be Coach Frese in away games, has taken over the "reigns" from Coach B, the same message we got in Friday's Winston-Salem Journal. To quote Queen Victoria, who reigned for a really long thyme time and was driven around by coachmen holding the reins on the royal horses, "we are not amused."