Alyssa trying out for Canadian U19 team

Freshman Alyssa Jerome is one of 24 athletes invited to participate in the Canadian U19 National Team tryouts from July 2-4.

Training camp will follow the tryouts from July 5-11, after which the final team roster will be selected.

The team will travel to Italy to compete at the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup 2017 from July 22-30.

Read more from Canada Basketball: 24 athletes invited to attend U19 women's national team tryouts

First day

First day of being a Cardinal for Estella, Maya and Kiana:

(Alyssa is with the Canadian U19 team preparing for the FIBA U19 World Cup.)

Summer basketball at Kezar begins this afternoon

It's time for summer basketball again.

The San Francisco Bay Area Pro-Am Summer Basketball League begins its 38th season this afternoon (June 24) at 1:30 and 3:30pm. Play continues on the following seven weekends unti the championship game on Sunday, August 13.

Sad to say, none of our current Cardinal have signed up, but alums Briana Roberson and Markisha Coleman will be playing — Bri with either Bay City or San Francisco (she's listed on both rosters), Kish for San Francisco.

Don't know where Kezar Pavilion is? Here's the map. See the SF Pro-Am website for the full schedule and all the rosters.

The website warns strongly that parking is a big problem, but it won't be any worse than in previous seasons. The parking lot next to Kezar, although a bit pricey, always has space unless there's a big event in Kezar Stadium and none is scheduled yet during the ProAm season.

Alyssa's busy summer

Incoming freshman forward Alyssa Jerome began her busy summer with the Canadian Senior National team as they played a five-game exhibition series in France and Spain. As the second-youngest member of the team, Alyssa didn't get a whole lot of playing time, but she did get valuable experience playing at the college and professional level.

Alyssa will join the Canadian U19 National team on July 1st as they prepare for the 2017 FIBA U19 World Cup, which will take place in Italy July 22-30.

This will be Alyssa's second summer with the Canadian U18/U19 team. She and Stanford sophomore Mikaela Brewer were members of the Canadian team that won the silver medal in the FIBA U18 Americas Championship in 2016.

Alyssa may return to the senior national team in August for their final training phase for the 2017 FIBA Women's AmeriCup, which will take place in Argentina August 6-13.

Alyssa will end the summer with her new Stanford teammates for their September trip to Italy.

Jacob Rayburn (Cardinal Sports Report) writes more about Alyssa's valuable experience this summer in: Alyssa Jerome playing at elite level before arriving at Stanford

Commencement 2017

Commencement day photos from Stanford Women's Basketball Facebook

Click HERE for more commencement day photos from Stanford Athletics.

Bird had to work on commencement day, so she took care of graduation the night before.

Stanford awards for Karlie, Bird and Brittany

The Stanford Athletics Board held its annual award ceremony last week at which they honored 41 student-athletes in 27 varsity sports.

Karlie Samuelson was presented with a Dick and Anne Gould Captain's Award, given to the senior captain who has exhibited uncommon leadership to their team.

Erica McCall, who was unable to attend, was named a Conference Female Athlete of the Year.

Brittany McPhee was honored for her receipt in Dallas at the Final Four of the NCAA Elite 90 Award, which is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA Division I championships (see story).

Read more in Celebrating 2016-17, which lists all the awards and honorees.

Rule changes for 2017-18

The NCAA Women's Basketball Rules Committee has announced the following rules changes for upcoming season:

• The coaching boxes have been extended from 28-feet (just beyond the 3-point arc) to 38-feet (9 feet short of the center line). The committee believes this alteration will allow coaches to improve communication with their teams.


• The 3-foot restricted area arc inside the paint will now be 4-foot. A secondary defender must be outside the arc and in legal guarding position to draw a charge. If the player is in the restricted area when contact is made, a foul (block) will be called.


• The “use-it-or-lose-it” timeout in the first half has been eliminated. Coaches are allowed to carry all timeouts over to the second half.


• A player must place both feet on the floor outside the lane to avoid a three-second violation.


• Teams will now be able to choose which side of the court to inbound the ball after advancing it to the frontcourt after a timeout in the backcourt. In the past, teams had to inbound the ball at the 28-foot line on the side with the scorer’s table.


• The 10-second backcourt count will not be reset when the offensive team calls a timeout.


• Officials will be allowed to use replay to determine if the release of the ball on a made bucket occurred before the shot clock expired.

Fashionable at Fundraiser

Stanford student-athletes walked the runway last month at the third annual Inside Anne’s Closet fashion show, a fundraiser benefiting the Colon Cancer Alliance, chaired by John Paye (Kate's brother).

These young women, looking considerably more fashionable that we usually see them, were among the participants:

Here's a report of the event from the Mercury News: Not in uniform: Stanford athletes fashionable at fundraiser

Alanna's busy summer

I mistakenly reported a couple of days ago that Alanna won't be trying out for the National Australian Women's Basketball squad that will compete in the 2017 FIFA Women's Asia Cup — wrong!

Although she's been chosen for the Opals' World University Games squad, she's still in the running for the Asia Cup squad.

If Alanna makes the Asia Cup squad, her basketball schedule for the summer is:

June 25 - July 3: Opals selection camp in Phoenix, Arizona.
July 17: Fly to India
July 23-29: 2017 FIBA Womens Asia Cup in Bangalore India,
Aug 19-30: 2017 World University Games in Taipei.

Read more from the Palo Alto Weekly: Stanford's Smith to play a lot of basketball this summer

And the band plays on

It's going to be lively again in Maples next season. Stanford News reports:

Most sanctions lifted on Stanford Band

As a result of hard work on the part of the student leadership of the Stanford Band, the university’s Band Oversight Committee has removed the group’s provisional status, allowing it to again be considered a student organization in good standing.

Read more ...