A little woofin' in WNIT land!

Oh, it is on now. Or at least it soon will be.

In a sign that WNIT fever is growing in the city, Lawrence Mayor Mike Dever made a wager with Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.

For those of you who haven’t quite read through all of your WNIT program, Tampa is home to the University of South Florida. In case you really haven’t read your program, South Florida is KU’s opponent in Saturday’s WNIT National Championship game at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday.

Dever and Iorio made their friendly wager: The loser has to wear the other team's colors during a day at work.

Also, A fitting finale: Unselfish Serbian all about her teammates (which might remind you of Mechelle's piece)

Five years later, listen to Serbian native Ivana Catic of the Kansas women’s basketball team recount her first day in America. Then listen to her high school coach’s perception of Catic on that day and see if you don’t reach the conclusion she is ideally suited to play point guard.

“I didn’t know anybody,” said Catic on Thursday from her seat on an Allen Fieldhouse bleacher moments before practice. “I didn’t know who was going to wait for me at the airport. They had a little sign: ‘Ivana.’ It was weird to meet people, not know anything about them, and the next day have to be at practice. That night, when I got there, met all my teammates, got settled in a dorm and I was like, ‘Wow, this is where I’m going to be the next year,’ I kind of panicked. I didn’t know anybody. I was new in the environment that was so different for me. ... I cried myself to sleep. Not just that night, for about three weeks.”

KU fans hope buzz about WNIT fills the fieldhouse

Bill Hougland says there’s been a change in his coffee conversations.

The Lawrence resident, who gathers with friends each morning at McDonald’s at Sixth and Michigan streets, said the group has started talking about the Kansas women’s basketball team.

“They’ve gotten better all the way along,” said Hougland, who played basketball at KU from 1950 to 1952 and won an NCAA title in ’52. “From the start of the season to today, they just keep improving and keep playing harder. They just seem to have more intensity than they did earlier in the year.”

Finally, Mechelle takes a moment to remind us why the WNIT matters.

Kansas came into the Big 12 tournament with hopes that it could somehow win a couple of games (which would mean beating top-seeded Oklahoma) and earn at at-large bid into the NCAA tournament. That didn’t occur … and it’s the best thing that could have happened to the Jayhawks.

Wednesday night, they drew 8,360 fans to Allen Fieldhouse for the semifinal of the WNIT, in which KU beat Illinois State 75-72. Danielle McCray continued a brilliant postseason with 31 points; she is averaging 30.8 and 9.0 rebounds in the Jayhawks’ four WNIT games.

What's cool about all this is the build. Remember the amazing 2007 WNIT?