Charlotte

[XU-PA]

Awesome performance, 18 point lead with a couple to go

Double double for T-Phil
20 for Tudy
and Dee-Dee was awesome off the bench, those drives to the basket were back breakers!

Interesting stuff from the broadcast.
Announcers say A-Harris is not interested in a red shirt, and is already working out, not practicing, but doing some individual training work.

I think you get an idea of where this team is now when you listen to these announcers, it's all Xavier, they are falling over each other in their praise for the program, and the ladies effort.

Well derserved praise

[spongebob]

It was nice to see them play well on the national stage. They have historically struggled with Charlotte for some reason, especially down there. Nice way to open the conference. Congrats ladies.

[irishxfan]

Ditto Spongebob, I too was nervous about their history with Charlotte on T.V. It was a great win and a great start to conference play. First time watching them on T.V. that the announcers actually seemed in favor of X. I agree they deserve the praise. Nice Win!!

[X-band '01]

Doesn't surprise me about Amber - she's on track for a degree and as long as she continues to progress as a WNBA prospect, there's nothing for her to really gain by redshirting and playing a complete season.

As for the game itself today, Charlotte seemed to play every offensive possession like their cars were double-parked; Xavier rarely gave them any open looks and forced them into taking a LOT of hurried and bad shots. The 49ers were the top team in offensive FG%, but never stood a chance against Xavier's punishing defense.

[XU-PA]

In watching the way XU plays defense, the really gave up nothing, there may have been a few lapses where Charlotte was able to get an easy look or two, but looking at the body of work these are tremendous athletes driven to deny!

It's interesting especially to watch they way the help on screen situations, it's like watching the men play, each play will swarm to switch of the screen, and then the communication between players is astounding as you watch them recover and switch back.

K-Mac is doing a great job teaching that team concept on defense.

[Bigbluebrotha]

I agree on all fronts.

If Harris isn't staying anyway, they may as well get as much out of her as they can. One has to wonder what some of the margins of victory would be if she was playing.

It is nice to watch the team play well at both ends of the floor. Listening to the pregame on the Web broadcast, coach talks a lot about defense and rebounding. X's field goal percentage defense is like 32 percent which is top five in the country. Great accomplishment especially with the strength of schedule.

As for Charlotte, I think it's promising the ladies authoritatively put an opponent away on the road. I kept waiting for Charlotte to make the second half comeback, but our ladies in blue did a great job getting back on defense to cut off fast breaks.

Dee Dee Jernigan in particular really adds an element of speeding up the game. She digs out the rebounds and pushes the ball up right away - that's a unique element XU really didn't have before.

Charlotte was picked to finish third in the conference. The ladies definitely sent a message with that win. Hope they can keep the foot on the gas pedal the rest of the way. I don't think Duquesne has too much outside of the really, really fast point guard. She's pretty good and creates well.

Looking forward to see if the ladies can stomp on the Flyers Saturday. Should be motivated because the Flyers swept the last year's games.

I know winning solves a lot of things, but I think back to some of the posts last year and in previous years that critcized McGuff's style and offense, etc. As many of us predicted then, McGuff has proven to be one of the better coaches in the country and we're lucky to have him.

Bring on the Dukes and Flyers! LET'S GO X!

[xu_fan]

Amen to that bigbluebrotha!! I am so impressed with what coach has done and I love watching this team play... They are just so tough and enjoyable to watch... and the rest of the nation should watch out because I def agree with the broadcasters no team is going to want to see us in the first couple rounds of the tournament regardless of what seed they are... Watch out... Sweet 16, Elite 8, IM THINKIN BIG, hopefully not too big!

[cinskyline]

The team has really done a great job so far. Going 13-4 against that kind of a schedule is quite an accomplishment. I think this is McGuff's best coaching job since his first season with Tara, Amy, and Reetta.