Demise of Comets comes as surprise to Cooper-Dyke

Prairie View coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke had fond memories of her time in the WNBA playing for the now defunct Houston Comets. She was crushed when she learned of her former team’s demise last Monday when the league announced the team’s suspension and dispersal.

“I was just devastated to hear the Comets were folding,” Cooper-Dyke said after her team lost to No. 14 Rutgers 58-56 on Thursday night.

“With the history that Houston had, it’s just incredible that would happen to a franchise that had won the first four championships of the WNBA.”

“You have to remember I played in Italy for 10 years, I played in Spain one year before that – yeah, I’m old, you guys. So for me to come back to America and be the first MVP, it was amazing,” she said.

Cooper-Dyke said the league will hold all the memorabilia for the next owner if the franchise resurfaces.

Duke days

California women’s coach Joanne Boyle was eager to catch up with her old Duke comrade: first-year Stanford men’s coach Johnny Dawkins.

Boyle made sure to pay a visit to Dawkins in his new second-floor corner office when she was on the archrival’s campus recently for a Bay Area women’s basketball media day.

It’s been more than two decades since they both played at Duke and became friends.

“We were classmates. He’s a great friend. He was a year behind me,” Boyle said. “He came in and we all had to run the mile. He ran the mile and the last lap he ran backward and he was 4 minutes and something – he ran the last lap backward. … He was ridiculous. He was a gym rat and such a great leader. He really embodies Coach K.

On the court

(5) Oklahoma 86, (9) California 75: At San Jose, Calif., Nyeshia Stevenson hit back-to-back 3-pointers and gave Oklahoma its first lead of the game with 3:43 to play, and the Sooners (8-2) made an improbable comeback from a 26-point halftime deficit to shock the Golden Bears (8-2) in the Basketball By The Bay Classic.

Cal led by 17 points, 69-52, before Oklahoma rallied by closing the game with a 34-6 run.