Bigbluebrotha
02-25-2008, 07:50 AM
Welcome to the last week of the regular season.
This morning, College RPI has our ladies at 51 and the Sagarin at 57. The College RPI bracket still has XU in the big show as the No. 10 in the New Orleans bracked facing Texas A&M. With that in mind I checked out Texas at Texas A&M yesterday - and - as you might imagine, there are some serious match-up problems there. I don't think Tashia will be able to overpower the A&M front line - or - if she does, she may be minus a limb at the end of it.
If XU's guards don't come around offensively in the next two weeks, it's going to be a short trip to the tournament.
As that's somewhat stating the obvious, I'm a little more concerned about St. Bonnies this week than Dayton. I think the ladies will be more than motivated to redeem themselves from the debacle of two weeks ago. Also it gets them RPI life support - Dayton is at 77/72 this morning.
The Bonnies 107/105 have now won three straight, including the "big one" over GW. They get UMASS on Wednesday in Amherst. Regardless of that outcome the team has its most wins since '84-'85 will be out to prove something against the Musketeers. It's a chance for the Bonnies to move up in the tournament seeding as well. I did notice St. B has a lot of players back from last year, but have changed up the starters. Notably, Priscilla Edwards, the point guard for the past couple seasons, seems to be coming off the bench and didn't play against St. Louis. I haven't determined if that's injury related or not, but I thought she was pretty good. St. B is a long trip and our ladies didn't exactly dominate La Salle or Fordham, especially in the second half at Fordham. Although, with Fordham Xavier went deep into the bench.
On your La Salle comments, I think it's pretty safe to determine the officiating will be insconsistent the rest of the way. I don't think it's been consistent all year. There are probably three good officials and the rest are a grab bag of whistle-happy or whistle-eating misfits.
I think the coaching staff accepts it, the players need to recognize it and not play into a position where a bad call costs them a game (see the first Dayton game where Joe Vacily gave Dayton the ball out of bounds with six seconds left when there were absolutely no blue shirts in the area off the missed free throw.) Need to get out front, stay out front and assert the match-up advantages.
I think it will be an interesting and telling week for our ladies.
I'll be out of town but following the radio stream.
I hope the ladies absolutely destroy Dayton and put the Flyers back in their place as the conference second-fiddle, just like the XU men did yesterday. There was a little too much celebration up there after the last game. Love to see Harris crank up a punctuating dunk on Nikki Oakland.
LET'S GO X, LET'S GO X, LET'S GO X!
This morning, College RPI has our ladies at 51 and the Sagarin at 57. The College RPI bracket still has XU in the big show as the No. 10 in the New Orleans bracked facing Texas A&M. With that in mind I checked out Texas at Texas A&M yesterday - and - as you might imagine, there are some serious match-up problems there. I don't think Tashia will be able to overpower the A&M front line - or - if she does, she may be minus a limb at the end of it.
If XU's guards don't come around offensively in the next two weeks, it's going to be a short trip to the tournament.
As that's somewhat stating the obvious, I'm a little more concerned about St. Bonnies this week than Dayton. I think the ladies will be more than motivated to redeem themselves from the debacle of two weeks ago. Also it gets them RPI life support - Dayton is at 77/72 this morning.
The Bonnies 107/105 have now won three straight, including the "big one" over GW. They get UMASS on Wednesday in Amherst. Regardless of that outcome the team has its most wins since '84-'85 will be out to prove something against the Musketeers. It's a chance for the Bonnies to move up in the tournament seeding as well. I did notice St. B has a lot of players back from last year, but have changed up the starters. Notably, Priscilla Edwards, the point guard for the past couple seasons, seems to be coming off the bench and didn't play against St. Louis. I haven't determined if that's injury related or not, but I thought she was pretty good. St. B is a long trip and our ladies didn't exactly dominate La Salle or Fordham, especially in the second half at Fordham. Although, with Fordham Xavier went deep into the bench.
On your La Salle comments, I think it's pretty safe to determine the officiating will be insconsistent the rest of the way. I don't think it's been consistent all year. There are probably three good officials and the rest are a grab bag of whistle-happy or whistle-eating misfits.
I think the coaching staff accepts it, the players need to recognize it and not play into a position where a bad call costs them a game (see the first Dayton game where Joe Vacily gave Dayton the ball out of bounds with six seconds left when there were absolutely no blue shirts in the area off the missed free throw.) Need to get out front, stay out front and assert the match-up advantages.
I think it will be an interesting and telling week for our ladies.
I'll be out of town but following the radio stream.
I hope the ladies absolutely destroy Dayton and put the Flyers back in their place as the conference second-fiddle, just like the XU men did yesterday. There was a little too much celebration up there after the last game. Love to see Harris crank up a punctuating dunk on Nikki Oakland.
LET'S GO X, LET'S GO X, LET'S GO X!