WBB: Landmark Conference

Started by Dave 'd-mac' McHugh, February 20, 2007, 07:24:46 PM

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ronk

 CUA averts the upset as Sus misses 2 FTs and 2 FGs in final minute

Projected order of finish:  coin flip decides 2nd/3rd seed

CUA    12-2
Scr      11-3
Mor     11-3
Jun     10-4

ronk

  Lady Royals have no answer for the stifling defense of CUA and are dominated in the categories of points in the paint(despite CUA's bigs missing most of the game with foul trouble), off turnovers, and via fast breaks. One wonders how Susquehanna nearly beat the Cards on Wednesday(without seeing the video) and speculate that CUA must have been lethargic in their play.
Royals are now eliminated from hosting a playoff game. Stephanie Keyes did have a perfect 8 points in 5 mins and Shernai had 10 bounds and considerable defensive pressure.

Projected order of finish:

CUA    13-1
Mor     11-3
Scr     10-4
Jun      9-5

ronk

  Winner of Moravian-CUA Saturday gets #1 seed; Juniata likely to finish 9-5 and would win a tie-breaker with the Royals by virtue of a win over Moravian; so if the Royals want to avoid a Wed trip to CUA, they either win twice this week if CUA wins or lose to Moravian Wed if Moravian wins @ CUA.

saratoga

Ronk:
I'd love nothing more than to see the Lady Royals make the necessary adjustments to take care of Moravian on Wed's. & then Goucher on Sat. & head into the Landmark playoffs playing some really good ball.
However...making adjustments is not something that's been seen around the Long Center in quite some time.

Other teams generally get better as the year goes on, the Lady Royals unfortunately, are having their weaknesses exposed game after game & rarely get to take advantage of any of their strengths...unless, of course, they play teams with sub .500 records.

I mean, the UofS defeats Rochester at Rochester at the start of the season, then promptly loses to Wilkes in a game that was never close & was the first time Wilkes had defeated Scranton in about 30 years. Over-confidence? Lack of preperation?

Meanwhile, Rochester defeats Washington U. in St. Louis last week yet we can't do better than a 17 point pasting at home vs. Catholic.

This team is far better than they've played yet not so good that they can go on cruise control and think a switch can be flipped & all of a sudden great basketball will happen. It has to be very frustrating to the kids because it certainly appears our opponents know exactly what they need to do to stop us yet we appear essentially...lost.

Unfortunately, I don't really think it matters who we play..if the best we can do was on display Sat., the days of this season are sadly & quickly coming to a close.


ronk

Saratoga,
  To be sure, the Lady Royals have beaten 2 teams that play good defense-Rochester, by playing better defense themselves, having fewer turnovers, and making 17 FTs in the 2nd half to expand their lead, and Juniata, again, fewer turnovers and 12-15 FTs in 2nd half.
  However, against the good defending teams(Moravian,DeSales,CUA,twice), open shots generated by the offense have been minimal. What to try(and all of these may have been considered and rejected by the coaches, but, just in case) now that the season is in crunch time:
1 or 2-person screens(along the lane or baseline)-I can't see any D3 player getting thru a Meredith/Tayler screen
      who could use it-Alison, Kathryn, Jackie, Stephanie?
      requires discipline in setting the screen,avoiding illegal screen, and screenee can't let defender between her and screen
screens away from ball by the bigs(Meredith/Erin)-these have been tried occasionally but not once in the recent CUA game
pick-and-rolls
     Lindsay and Meredith/Erin/Tayler  While our bigs don't roll well w/o traveling, they should get open 12-footers
clearout for 1-on-1
     Lindsay is shooting fouls well enough to try to draw them in this scenario
full/3/4 court press
     Erin/Shernai at top of press- turns it into an uptempo transition game where the set 1/2 court offense is less needed

We'll see what develops Wed nite.   

ronk

 Lady Royals remain in 3rd place with a gritty win over Moravian. With a win over Goucher in the regular season final or an MMA win, they'll finish 3rd and play at the loser of Moravian-CUA in the 1st round.
  Royals did it with defense(low Moravian FG %, steals, and blocks) in the 2nd half as the half court offense provided only 2 points in the 1st 13 mins. Steals, offensive boards, and 10-12 FTs overcame 17 turnovers and 16 offensive rebounds  allowed.
Not normally a winning formula, the Ladies showed some grit in beating a good team when their own offensive execution was less than optimal.

saratoga

A win, is a win...is a win.
That said...it was ugly as all hell.
Two Scranton timeouts led to virtually instatanious turnovers (so much for strategic planning),...then, not to be outdone, Scranton turns the ball over on 5 consecutive trips downcourt to start the second half.
How they ever won this game is a mystery...if they ever learn how to get the ball to Meradeth when she's actually open underneath...they might actually look like they know what their doing.
My favorite turnover of the game...a pass to a player running up the sideline with her back to the passer...no problem, a pass to her anyway which hits her in the back & harmlessly rolls out of bounds.
If they ever decide to put their game together...they just might scare someone.

cuabigdog

[CUA has entered the top 10 of the D3Hoops.com Top 25 poll, checking in at No. 10  of the latest rankings, released on Monday. The Cardinals have won a school record 24 games this season, including a school record 12 Landmark Conference victories. CUA has also earned the top seed in the conference tournament, which gets going on Wednesday evening.

CUA enters the postseason riding a 10-game win streak, which includes a dramatic 79-75 overtime victory against Moravian this past weekend. Senior captain Jill Woerner scored a game-high 25 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, as the Cardinals rallied from a 15-point second half deficit to improve to 12-0 at home this season.

Earlier in the week, CUA downed Goucher 61-43 behind the all-around brilliance of Emily Grabiak (12 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals) and a defensive performance that held the Gophers to 28.8 percent shooting.

CUA has now won 46 games over the course of the past two seasons and is the defending conference champion.

Also on Monday, Woerner was named the Landmark Conference Player of the Week for the second time this season.

Top-seeded CUA will play host to No. 4 Juniata on Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. in a Landmark Conference Tournament semifinal. The winner of that game moves into the championship, slated for Saturday, February 23.
CUA 2001 NCAA  DIII Basketball National Champions

kate

Can't believe there hasn't been too much posting from the Scranton folk about tonight's play-off game betw. the Royals and Moravian right in my back yard!   There's so much great b'ball going on tonight within a 50-mile radius, that we're staying home and trying to watch it all on TV (Lafayette women) and the computer, your game and the Aggie men.   Safe trip to Bethlehem for all you ex "Macites" and may the better team win.

ronk

Kate,
  We just played a week ago and after the 2nd half of that game, the winners aren't sure how they won and the losers how they lost. We're just going to see how it plays out; it might not be pretty.

TheGrove

This board is more into post-game analysis (or griping!) than pre-game speculation.

ronk


kate

Ronk -  :), and Grove, i don't know about your Scranton newspapers, but here in Easton we have been totally saturated with Moravian's comments about your game tonight.  If any of you Scranton fans get a chance you might want to pick up today's edition of the Express-Times when you're in Bethlehem or on line.   Analysis, multiple comments and MORE!  :D    Just jealous i suppose cause my Aggie women aren't in the play-offs and there's NOTHING (except a small print by-line) about the Aggie men game.

ronk

Kate,
  Thanks for the article mention; I checked it out online. While Catholic has the edge with home court and the large number of seniors, any of the 4 could win the playoffs.
  Always thought ur Aggies would have made their playoffs, also; I guess graduating the PG BB was a bigger factor than I thought.

ronk

  Lady Royals pull out another gritty win over Moravian, coming from 10 down with 15 mins to go; this was much better basketball than last week's game. Night and day difference-actually saw some good passes, drives by Lindsay, effective movement of the ball and players. Ladies are realizing they can win with defense, steals, and offensive rebounds.
   Coach Spirk was right when she said they had to get Danielle Brogan over her shooting slump-she went 5-9 from 3-pt range. Moravian is a young team and they'll be a contender next year.