Russian Champions!

Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson are champions of the Russian Superleague. Their Spartak Moscow Region squad defeated CSKA Samara 88-72 today in a winner-take-all Game 5 of their Finals series.

Jackson, along with Tina Thompson, paced a balanced Spartak scoring attack with 17 points. LJ hit three three-pointers and pulled down 13 boards. Sue Bird scored 13 points and added three triples of her own.

Trailing after one quarter, Spartak dominated the middle quarters, outscoring CSKA 43-24 to take a 16-point lead to the final period. CSKA was unable to rally.

Jackson finishes her off-season having won the FIBA World Championship, finished as the runner-up in Korea and winning in Russia.

Bird, meanwhile, adds the Superleague title to the Euroleague crown Spartak won earlier this season, her WNBA Championship, a gold medal in the Olympics, two NCAA titles at UConn, a National High School Championship at Christ the King, a contest she won in the fourth grade where the prize was a phone shaped like a yellow tennis ball and too many others to count. What can you say? Sue's a winner.

(Okay, this phone story (which is all too real) is too good to leave alone. I'm told that not only was the phone shaped like a tennis ball, the receiver was shaped like a racket. Apparently, Sue was not allowed to use the phone for real ... but it broke from pretend usage. Hilarious.)