Great Game

CHICAGO -- Kay Yow lowers her voice to just above a whisper, and you picture her slipping on a pair of dark shades and an overcoat, maybe drawing the blinds.Yow, the North Carolina State women's basketball coach and coach of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, knows what she is about to say is not a popular opinion. She knows, in fact, that the very idea infuriates many of her colleagues.But here's the thing.She wants to see the slam dunk in the women's game. And she doesn't feel like waiting much longer.

Now that the big guys have completed their nine-week warm-up for The Game, it's finally time to get it on.Saturday's 1:30 p.m. clash at Oakland Mills between the 9-0 Scorpions and 9-0 Wilde Lake promises many things, the most certain of which pertains to history. It marks the 12th consecutive time these two have butted helmets on the regular season's final day, and the 10th time during that stretch a county title has ridden on the outcome.And, temporarily at least, that piece of the rivalry will end. The county schedule will undergo some random, computerized changes next year, meaning the Wilde Lake-Oakland Mills game will take place on another unknown fall weekend.

In February, Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said she wasn't sure any women's lacrosse team was better than Maryland. After Saturday's NCAA quarterfinal, she seemed pretty well convinced. The No. 1 Terps (21-0) had their lethal offense rolling and also forced 15 turnovers en route to a 14-9 victory and a berth in their fifth straight NCAA final four. Looking for their 12th national title and their first since 2010, the Terps are in the final four for a record 21st time. Taking their second win this season over their Atlantic Coast Conference rival at Maryland's Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex, the Terps continue to make it difficult for defenses to contain an attack that always has seven players ready to score.

Troy Aikman has spent a lifetime in the crosshairs of finger-pointers. At Oklahoma, UCLA and with the Cowboys, the quarterback always seemed to be in people's sights. In the wake of three Super Bowl championships and induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the targeting has continued. But now, a new generation of fingers, who knew not Aikman the quarterback, are beginning to take aim. Friends of Aikman's elementary school-aged daughters, Jordan and Ally, recognize him not as the passer but rather as a broadcaster and television pitchman.

FOXBOROUGH, MASS. Clearly, this was the Ravens performance everyone has been waiting to see - an efficient, physical, dominating game against a very good team in a very hostile environment. They can say it's just another game ... just another stop on a road that could lead to Miami. But their 33-14 victory over the New England Patriots was so much more than that, for so many reasons. Why else would John Harbaugh get so caught up in the moment that he took half of a Cal Ripken victory lap at the end, high-fiving the Ravens fans who ringed the field while what was left of the Patriots faithful trudged out of chilly Gillette Stadium to find something else cold to drown their sorrows?

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Here's a geography quiz. In what region of the world did Alexander the Great score great victories, the Silk Road flourish, Islam produce some of its most renowned scholars and Tamerlane build the fabled monuments of Samarkand?Hint: Russia and Britain staged their 19th-century ''Great Game'' of spies and skirmishes across this region's forbidding deserts and mountains.Don't feel bad if you can't come up with a name. This region is just emerging from 70 years of Rip Van Winkle-like isolation from the world under Soviet rule.

BILL Clinton says one thing and does another. He is the most deceptive salesman to enter national life since Richard Nixon (who ran as a conservative but expanded the bureaucratic state and imposed wage and price controls). Mr. Clinton is more deft than Nixon, though. He can sell you a noose while persuading you it's a diamond necklace.The pattern was apparent during the transition. Mr. Clinton publicly chided feminist "bean counters" -- giving the impression of distance from their agenda -- but then proceeded to enact their quotas with exactitude.

IT'S official: The '90s is the Decade of Inclusion.Bill Clinton has made "inclusion" a hallmark of his permanent campaign, offering balm, bucks and solemnities to all.And some Republicans, eager to prove they are not Bible Belt Torquemadas, also pose as partisans of the open door.The battle for inclusion represents the latest installment in both parties' struggle to seize the great American middle ground. For them, "inclusion" provides a much-needed nonce word -- a cozy, empty, inviting euphemism for "pandering."

Less than 24 hours after winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament and securing its first NCAA tournament berth since 1994, the Loyola men's basketball team arrived at BWI-Marshall Airport this morning looking tired and happy following its 48-44 win over Fairfield on Monday night. Shane Walker, Loyola's senior big man who sank a free throw with less than five seconds to go to seal the win, walked off the plane with the gleaming gold MAAC 2012 championship trophy. "It's been hard to get it away from me," Walker said of the trophy.