Basketball

A little birdie won't be telling us, but a world-class tweeter will. Rysheed Jordan, a first-magnitude basketball star at Roberts Vaux High, is expected to announce his college decision early Thursday morning via Twitter. Jordan, the Daily News City Player of the Year, darn near lives on Twitter (@sheedjordan), peppering the site with interesting and/or funny comments. The 6-4 guard, who owns a national profile, is down to Temple, St. John's and UCLA, and recently there have been indications he's headed for the school in NYC. A source in New York told the Daily News via email, "We're hearing a lot of rumors, saying he'll go to St. John's .

La Salle made the deepest run of any City Six team in the NCAA tournament, and the Explorers were rewarded with a place in the final ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll of the season. John Giannini's crew is ranked 24th, a spot ahead of Florida Gulf Coast. Atlantic Ten rivals Virginia Commonwealth and St. Louis are also ranked, at No. 23 and No. 16 respectively. The top four teams were the final four teams: Louisville, Michigan, Syracuse, and Wichita State. Temple was the only other local school to receive votes, and finished the equivalent of 37th.

The Connecticut Huskies ran through the NCAA women's basketball tournament en route to their eighth national title. With heralded freshman Breanna Stewart, sophomore Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, and most of the team back, this could be the next great UConn era. Over the last three seasons, UConn has lost 11 games - including twice in the Final Four. The Huskies went 35-4 this season. "We feel like all we can go is up from here," said Mosqueda-Lewis, who scored 18 points in the 93-60 rout of Louisville (29-9)

Joe Mihalich is leaving behind 15 successful seasons at Niagara to take over Hofstra's troubled men's basketball program. The 56-year-old former La Salle player and assistant was announced Wednesday by the Long Island school as its 12th basketball coach. Mihalich replaces Mo Cassara, who was fired following a 7-25 season. Four Pride players were arrested in November on burglary charges stemming from dormitory room break-ins. Hofstra lands an established coach and respected recruiter in Mihalich, who played a big role in reviving the Purple Eagles' proud basketball tradition.

ATLANTA - Rick Pitino got the phone call of a lifetime and an incredible text at the same time. On Wednesday, John Doleva, the president of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, called seven people to tell them they would be in the class of 2013. Pitino was one of those seven calls. "When I got the call I was trying to call my wife over so she could hear it and I'm trying to put it on speaker phone and a text keeps beeping as I'm getting this special call," Pitino said Monday, just hours before he led Louisville over Michigan, 82-76, for the national championship.

There are the pioneers and then there are the perfecters. Dawn Staley did not come along early enough to be one of the pioneers of women's basketball, but she honored their struggles with her own dedication to the craft. There were better scorers than Staley, better ballhandlers, better defenders, better passers, better rebounders. But not wearing the same pair of shoes. The word for what Staley was on the court is simple: Player. She combined all of those individual skills - and was awfully good at some of them - into something that approached a perfect balance and harmony for the beautiful game.

BY THE TIME she'd finished her playing career, Dawn Staley had likely snapped that rubber band around her wrist thousands of times. No matter how talented she was, Staley was still a point guard, and, just like creating assists, point guards inevitably will commit turnovers. Staley popped those rubber bands on her wrist as a physical reminder for each time she got sloppy with the basketball. But that wasn't why Staley originally slipped rubber bands around her wrist. She grew up playing basketball in Philadelphia in the 1980s, and if you were a Philly point guard during that era, there was only one player you looked up to - 76ers floor general Maurice Cheeks.

NEW ORLEANS - Philadelphia basketball star Dawn Staley is expected to receive the highest honor in her storied career as a Class of 2013 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The official announcement will be made Monday morning at the NCAA men's Final Four in Atlanta. But several sources with knowledge of some of the inductees confirmed that she will be in the group. The 12 finalists, who include former 76ers player and coach Maurice Cheeks, were announced at the NBA All-Star Game in February.

WHEN ST. JOE'S Hawks shocked the college-basketball world in 1981 by squeaking out a victory over top-rated DePaul University in the NCAA tournament, Andy Dougherty was there. Andy was the Hawks' manager, and he shared the thrill when John Smith popped in a layup, what he called his "4th and Shunk" shot, to clinch the 49-48 win in the final seconds. (Smith named his shot after the playground where he learned the sport.) "It was certainly the highlight of his college days," said Andy's brother Larry Dougherty, sports information director of Temple University.

NEW ORLEANS - Breanna Stewart put on quite a show to help Connecticut finally vanquish Notre Dame. The stellar freshman scored a career-high 29 points to go with four blocked shots, leading the Huskies to the national championship game with an 83-65 win over Notre Dame on Sunday night. The Huskies will face Louisville in the championship game Tuesday night in an all-Big East final after the Cardinals rallied to beat California, 64-57, in the other NCAA semifinal. UConn will be going for its eighth national championship to match Tennessee for the most in women's basketball history.