Women...

[mikewebb68]

Split their homestand, losing 61-54 to Minny on Thursday, which would seem like a bad loss but for the fact that Minny followed it up with by handing first-place Rutgers only their second conference loss of the season today, so clearly they are playing better. Regardless we probably would have beaten them if we were at full strength, ad Abi Scheid sat for her 6th straight game and Jordan Hamilton did not start and played sparking. Without JH, Minny's press absolutely skewered us, forcing 18 turnovers which was the difference in the game.

Today was much different vs. 9-10 OSU, as we were up by as many as 30 in the second half before emptying the bench and eventually winning 76-59 for our fifth win in our last 6 BIG contests. The big new was that Abi returned to action, albeit with a full-length leg wrap, but played 28 minutes (would have been more if it wasn't a blowout) so it does not seem that she was on any minutes restriction. Jordan also started, which means our full starting lineup was together for the first time in a month.

And it showed! Our defense was relentless as usual, forcing OSU into 20(!) turnovers (14 steals by us!), 39% shooting, and 27% from 3. Pallas had her seventh consecutive double-double (and 14th this season), with 17pts and 13 boards (8 offensive rebounds) to go along with 4 steals (!) and 2 blocks. She also was 9-10 from the line, continuing to improve her free throw game throughout the season, which is good, since she gets tackled a lot. Lindsey Pulliam had a monster game with 23 pts, making some shots that had to be seen to be believe. OSU tried several different defenders on her, at one point resorting to having their 6-4 center (who is their leading scorer) guard her because everyone else they tried was schooled by LP. Jordan Hamilton had some foul trouble but still ended up with 12 pts on 5-6 shooting. Was great to see us at full strength; we are among the best in the BIG when we are healthy!

With the win, we improve to 14-8, and 7-4 in the BIG, and remain in sole possession of 4th place in the BIG. Big test coming up this Thursday on the road against #10 Maryland, but we are well-position for a Tournament birth at this point.

 

[torque-cat]

Split their homestand, losing 61-54 to Minny on Thursday, which would seem like a bad loss but for the fact that Minny followed it up with by handing first-place Rutgers only their second conference loss of the season today, so clearly they are playing better. Regardless we probably would have beaten them if we were at full strength, ad Abi Scheid sat for her 6th straight game and Jordan Hamilton did not start and played sparking. Without JH, Minny's press absolutely skewered us, forcing 18 turnovers which was the difference in the game.

Today was much different vs. 9-10 OSU, as we were up by as many as 30 in the second half before emptying the bench and eventually winning 76-59 for our fifth win in our last 6 BIG contests. The big new was that Abi returned to action, albeit with a full-length leg wrap, but played 28 minutes (would have been more if it wasn't a blowout) so it does not seem that she was on any minutes restriction. Jordan also started, which means our full starting lineup was together for the first time in a month.

And it showed! Our defense was relentless as usual, forcing OSU into 20(!) turnovers (14 steals by us!), 39% shooting, and 27% from 3. Pallas had her seventh consecutive double-double (and 14th this season), with 17pts and 13 boards (8 offensive rebounds) to go along with 4 steals (!) and 2 blocks. She also was 9-10 from the line, continuing to improve her free throw game throughout the season, which is good, since she gets tackled a lot. Lindsey Pulliam had a monster game with 23 pts, making some shots that had to be seen to be believe. OSU tried several different defenders on her, at one point resorting to having their 6-4 center (who is their leading scorer) guard her because everyone else they tried was schooled by LP. Jordan Hamilton had some foul trouble but still ended up with 12 pts on 5-6 shooting. Was great to see us at full strength; we are among the best in the BIG when we are healthy!

With the win, we improve to 14-8, and 7-4 in the BIG, and remain in sole possession of 4th place in the BIG. Big test coming up this Thursday on the road against #10 Maryland, but we are well-position for a Tournament birth at this point.

I see that similar to the men's program perhaps a couple weeks ago, we are among the top 10 teams on the NCAA bubble.

 

[Mr Wickerpark]

Split their homestand, losing 61-54 to Minny on Thursday, which would seem like a bad loss but for the fact that Minny followed it up with by handing first-place Rutgers only their second conference loss of the season today, so clearly they are playing better. Regardless we probably would have beaten them if we were at full strength, ad Abi Scheid sat for her 6th straight game and Jordan Hamilton did not start and played sparking. Without JH, Minny's press absolutely skewered us, forcing 18 turnovers which was the difference in the game.

Today was much different vs. 9-10 OSU, as we were up by as many as 30 in the second half before emptying the bench and eventually winning 76-59 for our fifth win in our last 6 BIG contests. The big new was that Abi returned to action, albeit with a full-length leg wrap, but played 28 minutes (would have been more if it wasn't a blowout) so it does not seem that she was on any minutes restriction. Jordan also started, which means our full starting lineup was together for the first time in a month.

And it showed! Our defense was relentless as usual, forcing OSU into 20(!) turnovers (14 steals by us!), 39% shooting, and 27% from 3. Pallas had her seventh consecutive double-double (and 14th this season), with 17pts and 13 boards (8 offensive rebounds) to go along with 4 steals (!) and 2 blocks. She also was 9-10 from the line, continuing to improve her free throw game throughout the season, which is good, since she gets tackled a lot. Lindsey Pulliam had a monster game with 23 pts, making some shots that had to be seen to be believe. OSU tried several different defenders on her, at one point resorting to having their 6-4 center (who is their leading scorer) guard her because everyone else they tried was schooled by LP. Jordan Hamilton had some foul trouble but still ended up with 12 pts on 5-6 shooting. Was great to see us at full strength; we are among the best in the BIG when we are healthy!

With the win, we improve to 14-8, and 7-4 in the BIG, and remain in sole possession of 4th place in the BIG. Big test coming up this Thursday on the road against #10 Maryland, but we are well-position for a Tournament birth at this point.

what is the attendance at these games? Sounds like fun.

 

[pschatz25]

what is the attendance at these games? Sounds like fun.

The Women's games are great because you can sit anywhere in the main level, except on the Wilson Club side. So you have the opportunity to choose the perspective you want for watching the games, or move around and watch from different perspectives. My kids like to sit in the first few rows of the student section near the NU bench. It's fun to be that close to the action. When I come to weeknight games by myself I usually sit in 108 and get the midcourt view.

Attendance for the MN game is listed as 606 and for OSU it's 1283. I couldn't say how accurate those numbers are, but weekend games have been reasonably well-attended and weeknight crowds are more sparse. Closing the WC side has the benefit of putting the crowd in fewer sections so it can feel like a good crowd size- after you adjust for one side of the arena being empty.

Anyway, credit to the team for bouncing back from a truly terrible performance against MN by crushing OSU. @mike, how many B10 wins do you think we need? I don't have a good sense of the bubble for the women's tournament. I've been assuming 10-8 in conference and 1 in the BTT would probably be enough.

 

[mikewebb68]

The Women's games are great because you can sit anywhere in the main level, except on the Wilson Club side. So you have the opportunity to choose the perspective you want for watching the games, or move around and watch from different perspectives. My kids like to sit in the first few rows of the student section near the NU bench. It's fun to be that close to the action. When I come to weeknight games by myself I usually sit in 108 and get the midcourt view.

Attendance for the MN game is listed as 606 and for OSU it's 1283. I couldn't say how accurate those numbers are, but weekend games have been reasonably well-attended and weeknight crowds are more sparse. Closing the WC side has the benefit of putting the crowd in fewer sections so it can feel like a good crowd size- after you adjust for one side of the arena being empty.

Anyway, credit to the team for bouncing back from a truly terrible performance against MN by crushing OSU. @mike, how many B10 wins do you think we need? I don't have a good sense of the bubble for the women's tournament. I've been assuming 10-8 in conference and 1 in the BTT would probably be enough.

I think any combo of 12 wins is a lock, 11 might be fine as well depending on who we beat, but the Minny loss hurt our RPI (yes they still use the garbage RPI rankings in women's hoops) enough that we need to get a quad 1 win if we are to rely on 11 wins. But we've already won 7 and I don't think there was more than 2 of them where we had all of our starters and now that we have them back I can see us even going 6-1 the rest of the way, though our next game vs. Maryland is not a particularly good matchup for us. We manage to steal that one, and watch out.....

 

[pschatz25]

I think any combo of 12 wins is a lock, 11 might be fine as well depending on who we beat, but the Minny loss hurt our RPI (yes they still use the garbage RPI rankings in women's hoops) enough that we need to get a quad 1 win if we are to rely on 11 wins. But we've already won 7 and I don't think there was more than 2 of them where we had all of our starters and now that we have them back I can see us even going 6-1 the rest of the way, though our next game vs. Maryland is not a particularly good matchup for us. We manage to steal that one, and watch out.....

Thanks, Mike. Yes, it's a shame the NCAA won't put together a ranking better than RPI for the Women.