The Week In Tv Sports

Saturday 8/30
PRO BASKETBALL
WNBA Championship Game
Astronomy lessons, 1997: 1) Elton John was right—Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids; and 2) If you're going to follow a Comet to nirvana, better to hitch your wagon to Cynthia Cooper than to Hale-Bopp. At week's end Cooper, Houston's smooth-shooting guard, was poised to lead her team into the WNBA's first title game. Having achieved the league's best regular-season record (18-10), the Comets were assured of playing any postseason games at The Summit. There, going into the Aug. 28 semifinal against the Charlotte Sting, Houston was 9-5. This was looming as a doubly big week for Cooper: The league's leading scorer (22.2 average) was the overwhelming favorite to win the WNBA's MVP award that was scheduled to be announced on Aug. 27.
•NBC, 4 PM

Monday 9/1
BASEBALL
Orioles at Marlins
Surprise! Baltimore third baseman Cal Ripken (left) plans to work on Labor Day. Besides having baseball's best record (83-44) at week's end, the Birds are 7-0 this season against last fall's World Series participants, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees. Florida is 10-5 against the same foes, which augurs well for the possibility of another interleague series in October between the Orioles and the Marlins.
•ESPN, 4 PM; TUESDAY, FX, 7 PM

Wednesday 9/3
DOCUMENTARIES
Hoop Dreams
If Upton Sinclair had been born a century later, he might have turned his muckraker's eye from Chicago's stockyards and toward its playgrounds to depict the seamy underbelly of the American dream. Arthur Agee and William Gates are real-life Chicagoans, high school basketball stars whose divergent odysseys are chronicled over a four-year period. Since Gates and Agee live in the shadow of the arena where Michael Jordan earns his fame, can anyone fault their families for their myopic pursuit of hoops success as an escape from poverty? Two other Chicagoans, film critics Siskel & Ebert, selected Hoop Dreams above Pulp Fiction and Academy Award winner Forrest Gump as the best film of 1994.
•PBS, 8 PM (CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS)

Thursday 9/4
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Auburn at Virginia
What do the Terry Bowden (left) era at Auburn and NYPD Blue have in common? Each program made its debut in September 1993, and neither could be seen on TV in Alabama. On probation, the Tigers hosted Ole Miss on a Thursday night but were banned from appearing on TV. As for the ABC cop series, Alabamians simply feared a full-moon view of David Caruso. (Say, what do Caruso and Peyton Manning have in common?) Cavaliers sophomore tailback Thomas Jones must secure the pigskin against a Tigers defense that has 10 starters back in a unit that forced a Division I-high 36 turnovers in '96.
•ESPN, 8 PM

Friday 9/5
TENNIS
U.S. Open: Women's Semifinals
If form has held, today two of the sport's queens, top-ranked Martina Hingis (above) and No. 2 Monica Seles, will be playing in Queens, though not against each other. That matchup would have to wait for the Sept. 7 final (CBS, 2 p.m.). So far this year, wunderkind Hingis, a mere 16 years old, has a 4-0 record against former wunderkind Seles, seven years her senior.
•CBS, 11 AM

All times Eastern. Schedules are subject to change.