After three years away from basketball as she played professional beach volleyball, former UConn center Kelly Schumacher will be returning to the basketball court. Schumacher, a member of the Huskies' 2000 national championship team, signed with Rivas Ecopolis out of Madrid, Spain.

Schumacher was a first-round pick of the Indiana Fever in the 2001 WNBA draft and played in the WNBA for four different teams from 2001-2009.

Speaking of former Huskies, Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi put on quite a show last night.

Moore had 26 points, 16 rebounds, five assists and two steals to lead the Minnesota Lynx to an 80-69 win over the Phoenix Mercury. Taurasi had 28 points and three assists. Taurasi and Moore are running 1 and 2 in the WNBA scoring race. After averaging 14 points in Phoenix's first two games of the season Taurasi has scored at least 21 points in every game since as she leads the league with a 23.7 scoring average.

It's pretty much a given that Maya Moore will be taken with the first overall pick in Monday's WNBA draft. Still, the all-time leading scorer in UConn history is going to bask in the moment and soak up what figures to be an emotional scene when her name is called tomorrow.

She will be the fourth UConn product to be taken with the top pick in the WNBA's college draft. Tennessee, with Chamique Holdsclaw in 1999 and Candace Parker in 2008, is the only other team with more than one top picks in the WNBA's college draft. (Tennessee grad Dena Head was taken with the top pick in the Elite Draft in 1997 with Tina Thompson taken with the top pick in the regular draft that year). She was also be the record 12th first round pick out of UConn. Making that accomplishment all more impressive is that no Huskies were taken in the first round until the 2001 draft when both Svetlana Abrosimova and Kelly Schumacher were picked in the opening round.

The two players who could hold the key to how the first round plays out could be Gonzaga's Courtney Vandersloot and Jantel Lavender of Ohio State. The scuttlebutt is that Gonzaga will be the first guard off the board but will she go to No. 3 to Chicago? Or perhaps to Minnesota to No. 4 or Los Angeles with the fifth pick? Lavender is an intriguing prospect, a very productive player for the perpetually underachieving Ohio State program. If Chicago goes big at No. 3, will Minnesota opt to grab Lavender at No. 4 to replace the recently traded Nicky Anosike. If either Vandersloot, Lavender or Xavier's Harris happen to fall out of the top five, San Antonio will be more than happy to grab them at No. 6, I would guess.

HOUSTON STARS IN ISRAEL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Former UConn star Charde Houston had 18 points and 16 rebounds as Elizur Ramle defeated Maccabi Ashdod 76-58 to sweep the best of five game championship series in Israel's first division. Houston averaged 20 points and 9.3 rebounds in the three games.

Renee Montgomery, her former teammate at UConn, had 61 points in the series for Ashdod including 25 in Sunday's final game.

With Seattle completing a sweep over Atlanta with a 87-84 over Atlanta in the best of five WNBA championship series on Thursday, here are a few notes about the UConn's impact on the WNBA.

This is the fifth straight year and seventh time in the last eight years that the WNBA champions had a UConn graduate on the team. The 2005 Sacramento Monarchs are the last title winning team with no former Huskies.

Swin Cash becomes the first UConn grad to win three WNBA titles as she was a member of Detroit's 2003 and 2006 championship squads.

Svetlana Abrosimova becomes the eighth UConn product to win it all in the WNBA and the three ex-Huskies (Sue Bird, Cash and Abrosimova) is the most for a WNBA championship squad.

Bird, also a member of Seattle's 2004 championship team, joins Jen Rizzotti (a part of the 1999 and 2000 Houston Comets title winning squads), Diana Taurasi (who led Phoenix to the 2007 and 2009 titles) and Kelly Schumacher (who won consecutive titles with Phoenix in 2007 and Detroit in 2008) as two-time champions.

The 2000-01 UConn squad features five players who have combined to win 10 WNBA titles as Abrosimova and Schumacher were seniors, Bird and Cash juniors and Taurasi a freshman on UConn's Final Four squad.

The other former Huskies to win titles were Kara Wolters with Houston in 1999 and Ketia Swanier, a member of Phoenix's 2009 title-winning team.

SHERWOOD TO LOUISVILLE
It's still a couple of days before we find out whether Sara Hammond picks Louisville or UConn for her college of choice but Louisville did add former UConn forward/center Liz Sherwood to the coaching staff as a graduate assistant. Sherwood's stay at UConn was a brief one as she transferred to Vanderbilt after playing 25 games as a freshman during the 2003-04 season.

SCHEDULE STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS
The latest is that a draft of the schedule is being sent out tomorrow (Friday) and it still has to be given the final OK before it gets released. While that could happen tomorrow, it's more likely that it will come next week.