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Post by skrapheap on Mar 3, 2016 20:42:48 GMT -6
Having their tournament seeding in their direct control, the Panthers started the game at Oakland Thursday night fast, getting balanced scoring to run out to a 16-6 lead into the first media timeout. Sierra Ford-Washington, Steph Kostwicz and Jenny Lindner all had four points each in the early going. The Panthers had three steals and shot six of nine in those first five minutes. Coming out of the timeout, Oakland scored six straight points to cut the lead to four, and cut to lead to one on a three point shot for an 11-2 run. The Grizzlies tied the score at 22 with a minute to play, and each team made one of two free throws to finish the quarter. Meanwhile, Green Bay was running away from Detroit in Detroit, leading 20-6 at the end of their first quarter.
Play slowed some to start the second quarter. After Oakland took their first lead at 27-25, Ford-Washington hit the first Panther three-pointer of the night. After Oakland retook a one point lead, the Panthers scored five consecutive points to regain a four point lead and force an Oakland timeout, on a three-point shot by Lindner and a layup by Kelsey Cunningham. The Grizzlies put together a five point run of their own out of the timeout to retake the lead. The Panthers got another three pointer from Ford-Washington and the teams traded baskets and the lead through the end of the quarter until about 30 seconds left, when the Panthers took a 49-46 lead on a jumper by Alyssa Fischer. After an Oakland miss, the Panthers took a timeout with 12.5 seconds left to set up a final shot, which turned out to be a Fischer layup to give Milwaukee a 51-46 lead at the half; their highest scoring output in a first half this season. Lindner had 15 points to lead all scorers and was one of three Panthers in double digits: Kostowicz had 13 points and Ford-Washington 11. The Panthers shot 60% for the half, 57% from three-point range. In Detroit, the Titans played better in the second quarter, outscoring the the Phoenix 16-15, but could only narrow the lead to 13 points, 35-22.
The Panthers scored the first three points of the third quarter to push the lead to eight, but the Grizzlies scored four consecutive points to make the score 54-50. The Panthers then pushed the lead back to eight at 58-50 and then 61-53, only to see Oakland score five points to make the score 61-58 into a media timeout. The Panthers got the lead back to nine at 69-60; Kostowicz had 13 points in the quarter to that point, 26 for the game, to go with nine rebounds. The lead reached 71-60 on a Fischer baseline shot, and Oakland had to take a timeout with a little more than two minutes left in the quarter. After Kostowicz took a short breather, she came back in and scored four more points to reach 30 for the game, a career high for her, and a season high for a Panther player. Oakland would not go away, though, and did not let the lead stay in double figures for long all game. In Detroit, Green Bay pushed the lead to 25, 61-36 at the end of three quarters.
Kostowicz had to go to the bench early in the fourth quarter as she picked up her third and fourth fouls in quick succession, and Oakland narrowed the lead to 80-74. The Grizzlies continued to chip away at the lead, reducing it to 85-83 on a three point shot. Lindner scored the next five Milwaukee points, but Oakland continued to hit shots, and the score at an Oakland timeout with just over three minutes left in the game, the score was 90-87, Panthers. Lindner scored four more points to reach 32 points for the evening with the Panthers leading 94-87. The game continued to go back and fourth, with another Oakland three point shot cutting the lead to 96-95 with less than a minute remaining. An unsuccessful Panther possession left the ball in Oakland's hands with 10.8 seconds left. Kostowicz blocked a potential game-winning shot for Oakland, who fouled Ford-Washington with 0.8 seconds left. SFW hit two free throws to ice the win, 98-95.
Kostowicz and Lindner finished with 32 points apiece (the first time in the team's division one history for two thirty-point scorers); Ford-Washington finished with 16 points. The trio accounted for 80 of the 98 points the Panthers scored. Fischer contributed eight points and three rebounds. The Panthers out-rebounded the Grizzlies, 40-30, and 12-8 offensively. The Panthers shot 56.1% for the game; Kostowicz set a program record by shooting 13-14 on the night from the floor, just under 93%.
As Green Bay finished off Detroit, 74-58, the Panther win clinched the second seed for the League tournament, becoming the third team in league history to finish in the bottom two in one season and the top two in the following season.
Although both teams played well offensively, this is the second time in the league season which the Panthers have held on to a one point lead to win a close game, to go with a game won on a last second shot. The Panthers have won in different ways this season, which is very encouraging.
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Post by GoPanthers33 on Mar 3, 2016 21:19:24 GMT -6
I'm glad they grabbed the double bye.
I want to see them get one more shot at Green Bay.
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Post by Super King on Mar 4, 2016 2:09:27 GMT -6
Does the women's tournament still get hosted by the top seed?
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 4, 2016 5:58:52 GMT -6
Does the women's tournament still get hosted by the top seed? For women's basketball, the league changed the format this year: all games will be at the tournament site, so no home games for the higher seeds in the first two rounds. Green Bay is hosting the entire tournament. Regardless of what happens tomorrow or Sunday, the Panthers and Phoenix have double byes and will play the semi-final games. Seeds three through ten will begin play next Thursday.
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Post by MKEPanthers45 on Mar 4, 2016 11:00:46 GMT -6
Does the women's tournament still get hosted by the top seed? For women's basketball, the league changed the format this year: all games will be at the tournament site, so no home games for the higher seeds in the first two rounds. Green Bay is hosting the entire tournament. Regardless of what happens tomorrow or Sunday, the Panthers and Phoenix have double byes and will play the semi-final games. Seeds three through ten will begin play next Thursday. Sounds like the league screwed up both tournaments!!
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 4, 2016 11:03:41 GMT -6
For women's basketball, the league changed the format this year: all games will be at the tournament site, so no home games for the higher seeds in the first two rounds. Green Bay is hosting the entire tournament. Regardless of what happens tomorrow or Sunday, the Panthers and Phoenix have double byes and will play the semi-final games. Seeds three through ten will begin play next Thursday. Sounds like the league screwed up both tournaments!! Maybe. But the Kress Center may be fuller during the early round games than Joe Louis Arena i might be more upset about moving the early rounds away from campuses if the Panthers hadn't secured a bye to the semi-finals
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 5, 2016 14:05:59 GMT -6
The regular season finale against Detroit was robbed of a bit of drama by the Panthers's clinching the second seed on Thrusday night, with the help of Green Bay. Wright State could finish with the same record as Milwaukee if they win their last game on Sunday and the Panthers lost to Detroit, but the Panthers swept the Raiders in the season series, so the Panthers have the tiebreaker.
The Panthers started slowly, and Detroit worked their way to a 6-2 lead in the first four minutes. At the media timeout for the quarter, the Titan lead was 6-4. After the timeout the pace picked up for both teams, and the Panthers took their first lead at 12-10. The teams traded scores until the Panthers took an 18-17 lead with less than two minutes in the quarter on an Alyssa Fischer three-pointer, and finished the quarter ahead 20-17. The Panthers were led in scoring by Christina Wakeman, who saw a lot of court time due to foul trouble, with six points, and Sierra Ford-Washington with five.
The Panthers heated up to begin the second quarter, getting three-pointers from Steph Kostowicz and Ford-Washington, mixed in with a layup from Fischer and free-throws from Ford-Washington, to outscore the Titans 10 - 4 and open a nine point lead at 30-21 and force a timeout. The Titans regrouped and scored nine of the next eleven points to cut the lead to 32-30 and force a Panther timeout. Out of the timeout, the Panthers scored five points on a Jenny Lindner layup and a Fischer three-pointer to reopen a seven point lead with about a minute remaining in the quarter. After two free-throws by the Titans, the Panthers had a last shot opportunity but failed to get a shot off before time expired. The Panthers were led by 10 points from Ford-Washington, eight points from Fischer, seven from Kostowicz and six from Wakeman. It's nice to see players like Fischer and Wakeman making significant contributions. Fischer came to the Panthers with a reputation as a shooter, and struggled to find her shooting touch early. Coach Rechliz has commented recently on Fischer's work ethic, and it is nice to see that work paying off.
Despite not shooting very well (33% at the half), the Panthers had a four point lead. The Panthers shot better from long range (33% to 25% for Detroit), out-rebounded the Titans 24-20, and had five turnovers to nine for Detroit (the Panthers scored seven points to four for Detroit off those turnovers).
Detroit hit a three point shot to cut the lead to one to start the third quarter, but the Panthers came right back, scoring in the paint with a three-pointer from Lindner to push the lead back to six at 49-43. Ford-Washington got hurt colliding with Lindner on defense, and the Panthers took a timeout. The initial word from the Panther bench was that Ford-Washington would be okay, and she came back into the game shortly after, replacing Syd Howard, who injured a knee. Lindner took over the game for the Panthers in the quarter, scoring 14 points up to a late timeout, at which point the Panther lead was back to nine points at 59-50. The quarter ended with the Panthers up by seven. Four Panthers were in double figures in scoring, led by Lindner's 18 points, followed by Kostowicz with 11, and Fischer and Ford-Washington with 10.
The fourth quarter started with a flurry, and the Titans narrowed the lead to two at 67-65 and then 69-67, and took a one point lead at 70-69 on a three-point play. Wakeman made two free-throws to get to a season high 12 points, and the back for play continued to a 75-73 Titan lead with a minute and a half left. An Alexis Lindstrom three-pointer gave the Panthers a brief 76-75 lead, but the Titans retook the lead, forcing a foul. The Titans went up three at 79-76 on the free-throws, giving the Panthers one last try with 16.4 seconds left. The Panthers set up a play, and took a timeout with 9.6 seconds left when the play didn't develop. A last second three-point attempt missed, and the Panthers lost a game they could and should have won. The Panthers could not hit shots in the latter half of the quarter. They had five players in double figures, but shot poorly for the game, but gave up the lead and could not retake it late.
The Panthers finish the season at 12-6. For what it's worth, those twelve victories came from season sweeps of Cleveland State, Oakland, Nothern Kentucky, UIC, Valparaiso and Wright State. The six losses came from being swept by Green Bay, Detroit and Youngstown State.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 5, 2016 17:12:38 GMT -6
Elsewhere in the Horizon League, as i mentioned elsewhere, Oakland bounced back from their close loss to Milwaukee on Thursday in their season finale at home against Green Bay. It was a close game pretty much throughout, but Oakland took advantage of an off shooting day by the Phoenix, and built leads as high eleven points. The Phoenix rallied back to get close a number of times, but could not get over the hump, and the Grizzlies shot a lot of free throws at the end of the game to build the lead to eight at the 77-69. The Grizzlies finished the regular season at 7-11, but two of those wins were against Green Bay.
Valparaiso played UIC in Chicago in a matchup of the ninth- and tenth-place teams. Valpo, who came in to the game one game ahead of UIC, built a half-time lead of 32-28, and increased the lead to five at 56-51 at the end of the third quarter. Valpo opened an eleven point lead in the fourth, only to see the Flames score ten consecutive points to cut the lead to 63-62 halfway through the quarter. Valpo rebounded to retake an ten point lead with 1:30 left. The final score was 80-74, and Valparaiso clinched the ninth seed for the tournament.
The last game of the day in women's basketball featured Cleveland State at Northern Kentucky. An NKU victory would have put the Norse in a position to pass Youngstown State in the standings if the Penguins lose to Wright State tomorrow. The Vikings won on a last-second shot by Freshman of the Year candidate Ashanti Abshaw, but the Norse can still take the higher seed if the Penguins lose and finish tied with NKU at 9-9, as the Norse swept the season series.
If Wright State beats Youngstown State on Sunday, the Raiders would finish tied with Milwaukee in record, but the Panthers win the tie-breaker by virtue of having swept the Raiders. The Raiders would take the third seed, leaving Detroit in the fourth seed. NKU would have the fifth seed, and YSU the sixth seed.
If Youngstown wins, Detroit ties Wright State in wins and losses and wins the tie-breaker for the third seed, leaving the Raiders in the fourth seed, YSU in the fifth seed, and NKU in the sixth seed.
Seeds seven through ten are decided: Oakland, Cleveland State, Valparaiso, and UIC, in that order.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 6, 2016 15:26:24 GMT -6
Wright State won at home, so here is the seeding for the tournament, as best as i can tell: 1. Green Bay 2. Milwaukee These two have byes to the semifinals. 3. Wright State - will face tenth seed in opening round on Thursday 4. Detroit - will face ninth seed in opening round. 5. Northern Kentucky - will face eighth seed in opening round. 6. Youngstown State - will face seventh seed in opening round. 7. Oakland 8. Cleveland State 9. Valpariso 10. UIC Second Round (Friday): 3-10 winner plays 6-7 winner: winner plays Milwaukee in semifinal on Saturday. 4-9 winner plays 5-8 winner: winner plays Green Bay in semifinal on Saturday. Edit: here's the bracket, courtesy of mkepanthers.com: 2016 HL Women's Tournament Bracket
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 7, 2016 15:12:31 GMT -6
Jenny Lindner had a pretty good week last week (averaged 26 pts/game, 6.5 rebounds/game and 3 steals/game). The Horizon League named her the Player of the Week. The award is her first of this season, and she is the third Panther to win the honor this season. She receives the award two weeks after Steph Kostowicz won it and one week after Sierra Ford-Washington shared the award with Rosanna Reynolds of Detroit. Alyssa Fischer's performance last week earned her a mention among the top performances for freshmen. She didn't score a lot of points (8 on Thursday and 10 on Saturday), but the points she scored were at key times in the games. i hope to see some Panthers on the all league teams when they are announced. Lindner was a pre-season second team pick on the strength of her 2014-15 season. Kostowicz is high on the list in a number of categories, so she would be a good candidate to make a team. Lindner was a key contributor last season because Kostowicz started the season injured. Lindner did not have to carry to program this year, and until late the in season did not consistently score points, so she may not make an all-league team, but if she plays as well in the tournament as she has done the last couple of weeks of the regular season, that will be a more important contribution to the Panthers's season. One key to the Panthers success this year, ImO, is the scoring balance: any one or more of several players is capable of taking on the scoring burden in any given day: i'm thinking of Kostowicz, Ford-Washington, Lindner, and Alexis Lindstrom in particular. And at various times during the season, the Panthers have seen improvement from some key role players: Fischer, Christina Wakeman, Syd Howard, Kelsey Cunningham, and to a lesser extent Emma Roenneberg, although Roenneberg as a freshman has worked her way into the starting lineup. The Freshman of the Year should be very interesting: two players, Cleveland State's Asanti Abshaw, and Oakland's Taylor Jones, each won the freshman of the week award six times.
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Post by Hack on Mar 8, 2016 16:06:30 GMT -6
Kyle Rechlicz, Coach of the Year, and Steph Kostowicz, First Team.
Well done!
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 8, 2016 16:27:13 GMT -6
Kyle Rechlicz, Coach of the Year, and Steph Kostowicz, First Team. Well done! i had been waiting for the awards to be announced, and hadn't have a chance to check the HL site today. No surprises in the list, to my mind, and one minor disappointment: the League has an all-freshman team, and a not an all-newcomer team. If they had the latter, Sierra Ford-Washington would have had to be considered. Congrats on a job well done.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 9, 2016 14:50:54 GMT -6
A look at the matchups in the HL Women's Basketball tournament:
Round 1 (Thursday) Game 1: Detroit (11-7) vs. Valpo (5-13). Detroit swept the season series. Game 2: Northern Kentucky (9-9) vs. Cleveland State (6-12). The teams split the season series. Game 3: Wright State (12-6) vs. UIC (3-15). Wright State swept the season series. Game 4: Youngstown State (9-9) vs Oakland (7-11). Youngstown State swept the season series.
Round 2 (Friday) Game 5: Game 1 winner vs Game 2 winner. Detroit swept both Northern Kentucky and Cleveland State in the season series. Valparaiso split the season series with both Northern Kentucky and Cleveland State. Game 6: Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 winner. Wright State split with Youngstown State and swept Oakland in the season series. UIC was swept by both Youngstown State and Oakland.
Semifinals (Saturday) Game 7: Game 5 winner vs Green Bay. The Phoenix swept every possible opponent in their semi-final game. The only team to beat them in the regular season is Oakland (who swept the season series), and the two could only meet in the finals. Game 8: Game 6 winner vs. Milwaukee. The Panthers swept three of their possible semi-final opponents in their seasons series: Wright State, UIC and Oakland. Youngstown State swept the Panthers.
Final (Sunday) Game 9: Semi-final winners meet.
As noted before, Oakland is the only team in the league to give the Phoenix a regular season league loss, and they did it twice. Green Bay is so far ahead of the other teams in the league in scoring defense, that it will take the best offensive game of the season plus an above-average defensive game (or a really bad offensive game by the Phoenix) for anyone else to beat the Phoenix, especially at home. I don't necessarily mean, by best offensive performance, a high-scoring performance, since the Phoenix are so good in scoring defense; i mean efficient offense. The final scores of Oakland's victories this season were 58-56 (in Green Bay) and 77-69 (in Michigan).
Second-seeded Milwaukee would face a team that they had either swept in the regular season or been swept by. The fourth quarter fade in the last game against Detroit cost the Panthers the opportunity for a split against the Titans. How the Panthers respond to that last regular season game will be the aspect of the game i am most interested in come Saturday. The Panthers will have had a week to dissect their performance, diagnose what went wrong, and put some fixes in place. i am confident Coach Rechliz can do the first two things. This is a young Panther team, but they generally managed to bounce back from losses during the regular season. Their only two game losing streak was against Green Bay (at home) and Youngstown State (in Youngstown), and they were in the game with YSU to the end, losing on a last-second shot.
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Post by PantherU on Mar 9, 2016 15:44:07 GMT -6
If we end up making it to the title game, I'll go up to Green Bay for it. The Kress Center is a phenomenal place to watch a basketball game, and it will sure be packed to the gills on Sunday if Green Bay is in the title game.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 9, 2016 17:37:56 GMT -6
If we end up making it to the title game, I'll go up to Green Bay for it. The Kress Center is a phenomenal place to watch a basketball game, and it will sure be packed to the gills on Sunday if Green Bay is in the title game. I hope you get to go. Phoenix Women's basketball fans are the best in the league, and no wonder, since their team has won or shared 18 consecutive league regular sesaon titles, and won the tournament quite often. i don't know what the capacity of the Kress Center is for basketball, but i would not be surprised if they sold out for the title game is GB is in it. The Panthers are celebrating their return to the semifinals on Saturday. There will be a Pre-Game Party in Green Bay.
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