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Thursday, April 18, 2002

By Paul Zeise, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Long before women's basketball was sanctioned as an NCAA sport, long before ESPN and the WNBA, and long before most of the national media even began to offer token coverage of the sport, there was Mel Greenberg.

	WNBA draft WHEN: 11:30 a.m. tomorrow TV: ESPN2 (first round) NO. 1: The Seattle Storm has the first pick Huskies' quartet occupies draft spotlight

Greenberg, a longtime Philadelphia Inquirer sports reporter, is the original "guru" of women's basketball, a man who ran the first national women's basketball poll and has covered every NCAA women's tournament since its inception.

In essence, he has seen the sport blossom and has watched it change over the years. He has seen its past, and he also knows he has seen its future. And the prototype player of the future was in the frontcourt of national champion Connecticut, which featured Asjha Jones, Tamika Williams and McKeesport's Swin Cash.

"What Swin and the other two bring is that versatility, athleticism and speed that hasn't been seen much until the past few years," Greenberg said. "Back in the old days, the game was dominated by guards, and it was much more of a slow, plodding pace because the big players weren't athletic. What you saw with UConn is a player like Cash, who could grab a rebound, toss the outlet pass and beat everyone else down the floor and score a transition layup.

"That kind of athletic forward is going to become the norm, especially given the success they've had. The game will become far quicker and far more athletic than it ever has been."

Cash, a 6-foot-2 forward, was a major reason the Huskies went 39-0 and have been called by some the best women's team ever. A four-year starter, she helped the team get to three Final Fours and win two championships.

Her combination of quickness, rebounding ability and intensity has made her one of the top prospects in the WNBA draft tomorrow. Cash will join former Allderdice star Edna Campbell (Sacramento Monarchs) as the only Pittsburgh-area natives to be selected in the first round of the draft.

Renee Brown, who as vice president of player personnel for the WNBA oversees scouting, said Cash's strength is that she has no weakness.

"The thing about Swin is she is so versatile. She has made herself a top prospect because she learned how to play out on the perimeter as well as in the post. She can beat people off the dribble, and she has worked hard on her midrange game," Brown said. "She has tremendous potential and really she is an excellent passer as well as a rebounder.

"And along with that, she's been coached by one of the most brilliant basketball minds [Geno Auriemma] out there, and she really understands the game and what it takes to win."

There is a chance she will be the first pick, although Seattle, which holds the pick, reportedly covets Huskies point guard Sue Bird. A likely place for Cash is Washington because the Mystics own the third and fourth picks and could use some frontcourt help

No matter where she lands, Cash said she is more than ready for this chapter in her life.

"Growing up, I always dreamed of playing in the NBA someday because there was no WNBA. But the league was formed when I was a junior in high school, and all of a sudden the dream of playing professional basketball became something that I knew I could attain," she said. "So that sort of became a goal and motivated me to work even harder to improve.

"Now, I'm right here on the doorstep and I can't wait to get started. This is another challenge for me [at] a much higher level of basketball, but I'll just continue to do those things that have made me successful to this point."

Cash's success -- she was a Parade All-American at McKeesport and led the Tigers to their only WPIAL Class AAAA championship in 1998 -- has not been an accident. She has always been willing to outwork her opponents.

"One of the only rules I had when I coached was that if you weren't willing to work hard, you didn't play," said former McKeesport girls' coach Gerald Grayson. "I didn't care who you were, and all the girls knew that. But Swin never, ever developed a star mentality. She brought with her an incredible work ethic and really set the example for everyone else.

"I never told her she was good or she was our star, but I never had to. And coaches will tell you, when your best player is also your hardest worker and most humble player, it is a joy to watch and coaching becomes easy. She was never a great shooter, but she is relentless both on the boards and on defense, and she can score because she wants it more than the other player."

Grayson said Cash was a great fit at Connecticut because she understood her role and because Auriemma is a big believer in hard work and sacrifice.

That team-first mentality suited Cash well at Connecticut because the Huskies are loaded with Parade All-Americans and superstars and thrive on playing as a team. That's why Cash and three of her teammates were first-team All-Americans even though none of them averaged more than 15 points per game.

"A lot of great college players never make it at this level for a number of reasons," Brown said. "One of them is work ethic, and the players who come in and really go after it are the ones who make it. The skill is so much higher than college, and that's why work ethic is so important. From everything I know about Swin, however, we can't wait to have her in our league because on top of everything else, she is a wonderful person and has a great attitude."

Depending on which team drafts her, Cash could step into a situation where she might need to score more points than she did in college.

"At UConn, we all sacrificed, but that doesn't mean we couldn't do more if we needed to," she said. "But I won't have to change my game or do things differently, because I have always fit in with the system I am playing."

In the past four years Cash has become the unofficial standard-bearer for younger players in Western Pennsylvania. The highest compliment that can be paid to an area player nowadays is being dubbed "the next Swin Cash."

Cash understands this and understands that her success might have helped the Pittsburgh area blossom into a hotbed for girls' basketball. But she said there were many role models before her.

"Western Pennsylvania is becoming a great place for girls' basketball. I know there are a lot of prospects there now and many of them look up to me. And the more players who come out of the area, the more exposure there will be for the other players. But I looked up to players like Suzie McConnell Serio who were before me. And there were people who compared me to others as well.

"I think that it should be viewed as a challenge, and the players like [Clairton star Kamela] Gissendanner who are compared to me should use it as motivation to be better than me and leave a legacy of their own."