Five in a Row!

[usfldan]

Another comeback win to boot. After tying the score at 53-53, GW goes on a 7-0 run to go up 60-53 with under 4 minute to go, only for us to respond with 12 straight to pull out the win. It’s not often you can give up nine more baskets, including one more three, and win, but thank goodness they hit their free throws (26-34 to 4-8 for GW).

This pulls us even with GW and, depending on the tiebreakers, a shot at the No. 6 seed in Philly. On top that, with only a game at 3-24 UMass left, a great shot at getting to .500 in the conference and on a 6-game roll heading in.

It’s taken some time, and there’s still more to go, but it’s clear this is becoming Amy Waugh’s team.

[ohiobballfan]

You are so right this team has bought into what the coaches have been teaching them and it is finally paying off. We never give up and should beat Umass for a final win before the tournament. Jenna had a great game and continues to improve as have the other players. Fun team to watch and hope they go far in the tourney. I agree we are looking like an Amy Waugh team and I hope it just keeps getting better as we move forward. go x!!

[XU-PA]

GW did a good job adjusting, and shutting down Crittenden in the second half, 15 in the first, 4 in the second. but the rest of the team and D allowed them to hang on. Holding GW to 2 points in the last 3 1/2 minutes was the sealer. This has become a good defensive team, and when a player or two steps up and scores (like Jenna tonight) all works out!
They just stayed with the game plan this season, they have reduced turnovers, been getting the assist to TO ratio on the way up, and their rebounding numbers keep improving despite their lack of size.
Watch out A-10, these ladies are ready to make some noise!

[XavierGrad]

5 in a row is great and unexpected based on the last two seasons. However, the best team they have beaten is the 8th place team in the conference. The highest RPI of any team they have beaten is 139 and our RPI is 195. We lose Amber and Jess after this year and we will now be in the Big East. We will no longer be playing schools like Rhode Island, UMass, LaSalle, Bonnie, etc. Next year could very well be much worse than last year.

[X-band '01]

The other side of the coin is that Xavier does get an added bonus of selling the Big East name to new recruits. DePaul, St. John's, Villanova and G-town would certainly be a big step up in competition. And then there's Notre Dame if they're a 1-year addition for next season.

It would certainly appear that the Saint Louis game was the turning point in A-10 play this season.

[HomerCecil]

Eh, the Big East will be great for men's hoops, but it's not a dominant conference for women's basketball. Providence and Seton Hall, for instance, are dreadful — like bottom of the A10 bad. DePaul, Georgetown and St. John's are good, Villanova and Marquette are decent. None of the teams that will be in X's league next year are currently ranked. I really think competition wise, it will be similar to the A10 for women's hoops. The name recognition of the new league should help our recruiting, though.

Also, the best we can do this year is the 7 seed. Butler is 8-5 and locked in at No. 6.

[usfldan]

True, the gap between the Big East and A-10 isn’t huge (save for UConn and Notre Dame, who are not coming over, at least long term), but going from a 16-team league to a 10-team league will cut a lot of the easy teams out. Based on these rankings, (http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_bige_Women.html and http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_atl10_Women.html) both the current A-10 and Future Big East have five teams in the top 100. But the Current A-10 is out of 16 teams and the Future Big East is out of seven.
So, where he had four conference games against top-100 RPI teams this year, we’d only have four conference games against teams out of the top-100 RPI next year.