Starzz officials aren't panicking

Not from the team or its support group, but from the media, who always know better than anyone else, and, worse, from the fans who are not filling the Delta Center to see the 7th Wonder of the WNBA, 7-foot-2 Margo "Mega" Dydek.

Dydek was well worth an NBA admission price on Tuesday when she had WNBA career highs of 27 points and 16 rebounds, and she gets more comfortable daily.But a six-game losing streak and 2-7 record that is the same as it was after nine games last year, when the Utah Starzz were the very worst the WNBA had to offer, have kept fans away and given the press time to whisper the "C" word - "change."

But the two men most in charge of the Starzz, VP of basketball operations Scott Layden and general manager Tim Howells, though they've heard the rumblings, remain patient, as is custom with the Jazz/-Starzz organization.

No changes are imminent, they say.

Howells seemed surprised to be asked. He said he and Layden would be the ones to make those decisions, but he indicated it wasn't a high-priority topic.

In fact, after attending Tuesday's double-overtime 75-73 loss to the reigning WNBA-champion Houston Comets and reigning league MVP Cynthia Cooper, Howells and Layden both went on separate vacations that will last through Monday or Tuesday.

That indicates nothing's imminent, doesn't it?

Layden says, as always, that he and the organization won't make any public comment on individuals, though he does rule out player shuffling.

"The feeling is we made a lot of personnel changes in the off-season, and so this is the team that we'll have and we'll stay with. I don't anticipate any changes," Layden said. The Starzz got a new assistant coach (Fred Williams) when Greg Williams took a similar position with the expansion Detroit franchise, and only five of 12 players from last year are back (Elena Baranova, Wendy Palmer, Tammi Reiss, Dena Head, Kim Williams) on this 11-player squad.

"We're young into the season (30-game schedule), and we've got a young team that's working at trying to improve. I think this - not related to the coaches but to the team collectively, and that's pretty much how we always treat things - certainly we'd like to win more games," Layden says. But he notes youth and progress and Palmer's broken toe that's kept her from being a league power like she was last year when she was second-team All-WNBA.

"We've had some tough losses as (Tuesday) night was," Layden says, calling the 2-OT thriller "disappointing. Certainly you'd like to win."

Layden adds that the front office is trying to address a disappointing attendance, most likely from a marketing stand-point, and he says, "as an organization, we've tried to stay patient and tried not to panic."

Taking vacation seems anti-panic.