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Post by skrapheap on Feb 8, 2021 13:46:00 GMT -6
Feeling good for the regular season right now. Obviously can't screw around and lose to Oakland, but Wright State has GB & NKU left. If they give up a game or less the rest of the way, they earned the hell outta that title. I'd be a lot more confident if the Panthers weren't so prone to extended scoring droughts. Earlier in the season, those droughts didn't hurt so much. In the last four games, much more so, especially against the Raiders on Saturday. It's really hard to win when you go nine plus minutes without scoring. Oakland doesn't have the same reputation for physical play that NKU and Wright State have, nor as good a defense. The Panthers need to get back to the way they played in the first twelve games of league play. Oakland and UIC appear to offer the opportunity to do that.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 8, 2021 16:10:07 GMT -6
Feeling good for the regular season right now. Obviously can't screw around and lose to Oakland, but Wright State has GB & NKU left. If they give up a game or less the rest of the way, they earned the hell outta that title. Let's compare the pre-season poll with the latest standings, shall we? School | PS Rank | Current Rank | IUPUI | 1 | 3 | Green Bay | 2 | 5 | Wright State | 3 | 1 | NKU | 4 | 4 | Robert Morris | 5 | 9 | YSU | 6 | 6 | Milwaukee | 7 | 2 | CSU | 8 | 8 | Oakland | 9 | 7 | Detroit | 10 | 11 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 11 | 12 | UIC | 12 | 10 |
They missed by quite a bit...just a few schools are where they were predicted to be. I might have picked Wright State to have finished ahead of IUPUI if had had a vote. Might have. Detroit will not be in the tournament, I believe, as they suspended the program for the season. But the League is still including them in the algorithm for the weekly rankings. Green Bay has been improving over the course of the season, as they often do. NKU has been tough; their only league losses were close ones to Green Bay. Either one could give Wright State problems. Wright State travels to NKU and then hosts Green Bay. I don't want to downplay the Panthers' season too much. They're way ahead of where they were predicted, and their sweeps of Green Bay and IUPUI were on the road. That's the sign of a quality team. But they need to finish strong.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 12, 2021 20:04:03 GMT -6
In the opener of the weekend series with Oakland, the Panthers showed signs of getting back to the level of play from before their recent four game losing streak. Unfortunately, they couldn't hold the lead they took, and lost in overtime to the Grizzlies 83-82.
The first half of the game was a grind. The score was tied at 12 at the end of the first quarter, and at 27 at the half. The Panthers jumped out to a lead in the third quarter, and were up 12 points at 48-36 six minutes into the quarter. From that point, the Grizzlies graduately reeled the Panthers back in. cutting the lead to five points at the end of the third at 54-49, and then tying the score at 65 all with 3:24 left in regulation. They took a short-lived lead, and the Panthers tied the score at 69-all with a minute left to play. Neither team managed to cash in opportunities in that last minute, and the game went to overtime.
The Grizzlies took control early in the overtime period, but the Panthers battled back. Uneven officiating hurt the Panthers, as they were called for more fouls than the Grizzlies, and the Panthers had to fault to try to extend the game. A couple late three-point shots got the lead down to one, but the Panthers ran out of time. They had the ball with two seconds left, but could not get off a game-winning shot.
Megan Walstad led all scorers with 21 points, to go with nine rebounds. Three other Panthers, Sydney Stave (17 points), McKaela Schmelzer (14) and Emma Wittmershaus (12 points, eight rebounds) scored in double-figures.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 13, 2021 18:30:20 GMT -6
The losing streak is over at five games.
The Panthers won the Saturday game, 69-66, at the free throw line late, getting their last six points in free throws, four of those points from Sydney Staver, to finish off the game with a season high 18 points. The Panthers got their first league series split of the season, after sweeping six series and being swept twice.
It was the first time in a few games in which the free-throw totals favored the Panthers. Their shooting was somewhat off for the game, as they made only 69.2% of their free-throws. Oakland made the same number of free-throws, 18, but took four fewer shots and wound up with a higher percentage.
Staver was joined in double figures by Emma Wittmershaus, who scored ten of her twelve of her points in the first half (I don't think she was on the court at all in the fourth quarter), and Brandi Bisping, who scored 11 to go along with eight rebounds. Megan Walstad had only six points (after scoring 21 Friday night) to go with eight rebounds. The Panthers totaled 39 rebounds to 35 for the Grizzlies, but were outrebounded 11 to 7 in offensive rebounds.
The Panther defense was much better this game, holding the Grizzlies to a 31.7 shooting percentage, while shooting 44% themselves. They made seven of fourteen three-point attempts (50%), while holding Oakland to eight of twenty=six (30.8%). Most of those Oakland three pointers came in the second half, keeping the game close when the Panthers were threatening to pull away, the last make with a few seconds left to reduce the Panther lead to the final 69-66.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 13, 2021 19:46:37 GMT -6
Some random thoughts after today's win... - The Panthers, if they sweep the series next week with UIC, which they ought to do, will finish 15-5, the most league wins in one season in program history. That is, in part, because the Panthers played 10 of the possible 11 league opponents.
- If Green Bay sweeps Wright State next weekend, and the Panthers sweep UIC, the the Panthers and Raiders would have identical records in league play, but Wright State would win the tie-breaker by virtue of sweeping the Panthers last weekend The Friday night loss to Oakland was a tough one in more ways than one.
- A Phoenix sweep is not highly probable, but Coach Borseth has a track record of building success over the course of a season, and they are playing good ball right now, having won their last four since splitting with IUPUI and Cleveland State. Unfortunately for the Phoenix, Wright State has won their last six league contests, and will be playing the series at home. A split would be a good outcome for the Phoenix.
- Sydney Staver and Emma Wittmershaus are two players that have come on offensively for the Panthers in the last few weeks. Staver now has five consecutive games in double figures, after scoring a season-high 18 points today and 17 points in each of the previous two games. Wittmershaus had 12 points in both games this weekend with Oakland. She didn't play at all in the fourth quarter, so I hope she wasn't injured. I don't know that she has the athleticism of Megan Walstad, but Wittmershaus has obviously worked very hard to become a more consistent scorer, and she has played a key role in games where Walstad was not performing well. Walstad and Wittmershaus give the Panthers a solid combination in the post.
- Robert Morris has won three league games, but has lost their last three. They finish the regular season at Purdue Fort Wayne, who is winless in league play and overall. The Mastodons have been playing much better basketball of late, at least in the first halves of games. They haven't been able to sustain that level of play in the second halves, so they haven't won a game yet. They apparently have one of the younger rosters in the league, so their improvement of late, while not enough to pull off a win, has at least given some hope. I wouldn't be surprised if they won at least one game against RMU
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Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Feb 13, 2021 20:58:03 GMT -6
Senior Day
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 15, 2021 13:50:17 GMT -6
As I noted previously, the worst record #1 seed Wright State could finish with is 15-5, and that's with a sweep by Green Bay next weekend. WSU has the tie-breaker if they finish with the same record as Milwaukee. Green Bay has been playing better as the season has gone on, but I don't think they have the players to beat Wright State twice. The Raiders losses were fairly early in the season, a split with Oakland and two losses on the road to Robert Morris after playing the Colonials at home and sweeping them. Since that weekend, the Raiders have dominated their opponents. I think Wright State has locked in the top seed. Milwaukee was the top seed for much of the season, until their five game skid. I expect them to take care of business this weekend and sweep UIC. If they do, I expect the seeding algorithm will keep them in the second seed. Only three other teams have played as many games as the Panthers: Wright State, Oakland (currently two games behind Milwaukee in the standings), and Purdue Fort Wayne (currently 0-18). Based on current seeding, the Panthers are likely to face teams who swept them only in the tournament final round. Wright State is the top seed, and unless NKU manages to improve their seeding drastically, the Norse are more likely to wind up facing the Raiders than the Panthers. If the higher seeds win the first round games, the Norse would be the lowest surviving seed, so they would have to travel to Wright State and win in the quarterfinals. Green Bay is currently seeded third. Lightning could strike, and the Phoenix could sweep this weekend, but they would probably not bypass the Panthers for the second seed because Milwaukee swept them at home. Oakland is currently seeded fourth. In what seems most likely to be the most interesting series in the final regular season finales this weekend, they host eighth-seeded Northern Kentucky, who has lost consecutive series to Green Bay and Wright State since sweeping the Panthers. A sweep will probably keep the Grizzlies in fourth place. An Oakland sweep coupled with a Wright State sweep of Green Bay would be interesting. The Phoenix swept Oakland, but the Grizzlies managed splits with the top two seeds (in this scenario). I don't know that that could overcome the head-to-head results in the seeding algorithm; I can imagine the complaints if it did. IUPUI, the pre-season pick as the top seed, is currently fifth. The Jaguars are idle, as their scheduled opponent was Detroit Mercy, who suspended their season in January. The Jaguars will finish the season 11-3, having played six fewer league games than the 20 possible. I have no idea whether that will cause the algorithm to pass them up for fifth place and the last bye. As for the rest of the teams, it's of interest that the algorithm has consistently ranked winless Purdue Fort Wayne over UIC, who has one league win. Fort Wayne has played six more games than UIC heading into the final weekend. Fort Wayne hosts Robert Morris this weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mastodons win at least one game. A sweep of RMU would increase the Mastodons credibility as a higher seed, especially if the Flames are swept by Milwaukee, as seems likely. I'm not sure whether Cleveland State can do anything this weekend to improve their tournament seeding, currently sixth. They travel to Youngstown State to play the Penguins. YSU is 8-6 in league play compared to 7-7 for CSU, but the algorithm ranks the Vikings above the Penguins. A YSU sweep could cause the Vikings to fall lower, but I am not sure a Viking sweep would move them higher.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 16, 2021 1:12:39 GMT -6
So Macee Williams is PotW in HLWBB.
Her third honor this season....tying her with Megan Walstad of Milwaukee.
Seems to me that the pre-season pick for player of the year often wins the honor at the end of the season. But usually that player's team is at the top of the standings. IUPUI is currently seeded fifth, in part, I think, because they've lost six games to COVID. Williams may well still win the honor. But there are a lot of good players having good years, Angel Baker of Wright State especially. She's playing well for the best team in the league, but she's won only one PotW honor. Oakland’s Kahlaijah Dean had 34 points against Milwaukee on Saturday, but she plays for the fourth seed. Mariah White of Cleveland State is leading the league in scoring, but CSU is currently the sixth seed.
Walstad was in the top ten in scoring much of the season, but she's slipped to 12th. She ranks a close second to Macee Williams in rebounding. Walstad will probably make the all league team, but I'd be surprised if she was selected Player of the Year.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 19, 2021 6:45:06 GMT -6
Three of the first five Women's Basketball games in this final weekend of regular season play tip off at 1:00 p.m. Milwaukee time today, the most notable being Green Bay at Wright State. The other two feature Robert Morris at Purdue Fort Wayne and Cleveland State at Youngstown State. The latter two series might affect seeding for the tournament, but as mentioned previously I think Wright State is a lock for the top seed.
Milwaukee at UIC tips off at 1:00 p.m. central time. Based on recent history, i believe the Panthers will win, but both games will be close. Two wins should lock in the second seed for the tournament.
The late game will be Northern Kentucky at Oakland, tipping off at 6:00 p.m. central time. NKU has lost four straight, so they need wins to re-establish some momentum heading into the tournament. I'm not sure that the Norse will be able to improve their seed for the tournament significantly, but I think a series sweep coupled with at least a split in the CSU-YSU series might nudge the Norse up from their current eighth spot. CSU has a six game winning streak and a higher seed than YSU, who were swept last weekend by IUPUI.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 19, 2021 21:55:55 GMT -6
It was an interesting and entertaining day of competition in Horizon League Women's Basketball.
In the early games, Purdue Fort Wayne did indeed win their game with Robert Morris, the Mastondon's first win of the 2020-21 season and their first win in 13 months or so. The final was 71-67, which was itself a bit of an anomaly, as neither team made a habit of scoring 60 points in a game. Robert Morris was ranked eleventh in the league in scoring (55.4 points/game) heading into the weekend, and Purdue Fort Wayne was twelfth (53.0 points/game). The Colonials took an early lead in the first quarter; the Mastodons didn't take the lead until just under four minutes were left in the first quarter. Fort Wayne led by as many as six points, but Robert Morris closed the lead to one point at the quarter's end. The Mastodons scored 12 of the first 14 points of the second quarter, to get the lead as high as eleven. The score was 39-30 Mastodons at the half. Robert Morris outscored Fort Wayne 17-13 in he third quarter and 20-19 in the fourth quarter to account for the final score. The teams payed evenly in a number of categories, but the Mastondons got to the line more than twice as often as the Colonials, and outscored them 20-9 in made free-throws.
Cleveland State beat Youngstown State on the road, coming back from 18 points down in the third quarter to win 76-73. YSU got off to a red-hot start, getting out to a 16-4 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Vikings scored seven points in the remaining time in the quarter to three for the Penguins, cutting the lead to 19-11. YSU dominated the second quarter, getting the lead to 15 points at 41-26 with 18 seconds left. The Vikings got a last-second three-pointer to cut the half time lead to 12. The Penguins had a strong third quarter, which ended with them leading by 13 at 62-49. The Viking offense finally caught fire in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Penguins 27-11. YSU still lead by seven with three minutes remaining. The Vikings then hit three consecutive three-point shots, the last with 15 second left, to take the lead at 75-73. The Penguins did not score a point in the last 2:24 of the game.
The marquee game was the Green Bay at Wright State. The Phoenix built an early lead, and held on at the end of the game, hitting free-throws to hold off a determined Raider team, who outscored the Phoenix 37-29 in the second half.
The late game was an 84-81 win for Oakland at home over Northern Kentucky. Oakland was up by 14 points after three quarters. NKU poured in 33 points in the fourth quarter, while Oakland scored just eough to finish the win.
The one game that wasn't close was the Panthers' 58-35 win over UIC. The Panthers got off to a slow start offensively. before surging in the latter half of the first quarter to take a 14-10 lead, and never looked back from that point. Milwaukee led at half 27-17. The lead grew to 44-26 toward the end of the third quarter, and Coach Rechlcz pretty much emptied her bench in th finnal quarter. Brandi Bisping scored a game-high 23 points to go with 11 rebounds. Megan Walstad added 10 points.
The most interesting bit of news was Matt Menzel's insistence the there is a slight chance the the Panthers could be regular season co-champs or even top seed in the tournament. I'm not sure what he knows about the seeding process, but at least he was holding out the possibility that the Panthers could overtake the Raiders. As I mentioned previously, i don't think the algorithm could possibly iignore the Raiders' sweep of the Panthers at least when it comes to tournament seeding.
The last regular season game for the Panther s will tip off at 2:00 p.m..
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Post by parkerj on Feb 20, 2021 1:27:16 GMT -6
It was an interesting and entertaining day of competition in Horizon League Women's Basketball. The most interesting bit o news was Matt Menze's insistence the there is a slight chance the the Panthers could be regular season co-champs or even top seed in the tournament. I'm not sure what he knows about the seeding process, but at least he was holding out the possibility that the Panthers could overtake the Raiders. As I mentioned previously, i don't think the algorithm could possibly iignore the Raiders' sweep of the Panthers at least when it comes to tournament seeding. Honestly? I kinda feel like the best situation for Milwaukee might've been for WSU's last weekend to get wiped out by COVID issues. Looking at the league standings heading into the weekend...QA needed to play around with the formula a little more. A 11-3 (HL play) team being behind a 11-7 team is........broken. Similar situation with UDM/YSU on the men's side heading into the weekend. Not playing is considered worse than a loss. I hope there's another way for us to jump WSU besides WSU's last game getting cancelled. That'd be a cheap "win".
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 6:44:22 GMT -6
It was an interesting and entertaining day of competition in Horizon League Women's Basketball. The most interesting bit of news was Matt Menzel's insistence the there is a slight chance the the Panthers could be regular season co-champs or even top seed in the tournament. I'm not sure what he knows about the seeding process, but at least he was holding out the possibility that the Panthers could overtake the Raiders. As I mentioned previously, i don't think the algorithm could possibly iignore the Raiders' sweep of the Panthers at least when it comes to tournament seeding. Honestly? I kinda feel like the best situation for Milwaukee might've been for WSU's last weekend to get wiped out by COVID issues. Looking at the league standings heading into the weekend...QA needed to play around with the formula a little more. A 11-3 (HL play) team being behind a 11-7 team is........broken. Similar situation with UDM/YSU on the men's side heading into the weekend. Not playing is considered worse than a loss. I hope there's another way for us to jump WSU besides WSU's last game getting cancelled. That'd be a cheap "win". No matter how the league came up with the algorithm, somebody was going to feel cheated. But I do agree seeding Oakland ahead of IUPUI is puzzling. So is seeding a winless Purdue Fort Wayne higher than a one win UIC for the past few weeks. But PFW won yesterday and might win today. Seeding Cleveland State ahead of Youngstown State when the two had played the same number of league games and YSU had a better record seems weird, too. I wonder if the algorithm somehow factors in who the lost games were with. IUPUI lost series with Northern Kentucky and Wright State. (I'm leaving the Detroit Mercy situation out of the picture.) If the Jaguars had been able to play those four games, they could have been 14-4 or a 15-3 team, deserving a higher seeding. Or they could have been an 11-7 team or a 12-6 team. Honestly, to me it comes down to head-to-head competition. Milwaukee played two games against Wright State and lost both. I don't see a scenario in which the Panthers should be seeded higher. There's nothing wrong with being seeded second after you were predicted to finish in seventh place.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 16:42:38 GMT -6
The last day of league play in Women's Basketball featured two sweeps (Green Bay and Milwaukee) and three splits (NKU beat Oakland, Youngstown State beat Cleveland State, and Robert Morris beat Purdue Fort Wayne). I had predicted that Green Bay would not sweep Wright State, and I was wrong. l was right on the Panthers sweeping the Flames. I was even right about Purdue Fort Wayne winning their first league game this weekend. So now we wait for the results to be plugged in to the algorithm to see how the tournament seedings will shake out. Since most of the series wound up as a split, I'm not sure much will change from last week. In terms of league record, ranked by total wins (because I feel like ranking the league this way), this is where we are: School | League Wins | League Losses | Seed as of 2/14 | Wright State | 15 | 5 | 1 | Milwaukee | 15 | 5 | 2 | Green Bay | 14 | 4 | 3 | Oakland | 13 | 7 | 4 | IUPUI | 11 | 3 | 5 | Youngstown State | 9 | 7 | 7 | Cleveland State | 8 | 8 | 6 | Northern Kentucky | 7 | 5 | 8 | Robert Morris | 4 | 12 | 9 | Detroit Mercy | 1 | 9 | NR | UIC | 1 | 13 | 11 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 1 | 19 | 10 |
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 17:03:11 GMT -6
The Panthers' season finale was a copy of Friday's game, but the win was by 19 points instead of 20+.
The second half seemed to be played more raggedly than the previous game. This may be because Coach Rechlicz went to her bench a bit sooner. It also might because the Flames shot 22 free thows to twelve for the Panthers, but the Flames hit less than 50 percent of those shots.
Brandi Bisping again lead the Panthers with 16 points. Sydney Staver had eleven points and Kendall Nead had 10.
A big story of the weekend is that the Panthers could set a new Division 1 record for free-throw percentage for a season. The Panthers shot 11-12 today. Going in to the game, the Panthers were just .001 off the record, so it remains to be seen if that was enough to raise the season percentage .002 to set the record. Update: the record belongs to Milwaukee. The 11-12 performance put the Panthers at 83.3%, just ahead of the record set by Idaho State in 2008.
With their 15-5 record and having lost two games to Wright State who also finished 15-5, the Panthers appear to be the second seed for the tournament. This means they, along with the other teams in the top five seeds, will have a bye for the first round of the HL Tournament (to be played on Thursday evening), and will host a quarterfinal game on Tuesday March 2nd.
The sixth through the eleventh seeds will play in the first round. In the quarterfinal round, the fourth and fifth seeds will play, the first seed will play the lowest seed to win a first round game, the second seed will play the second lowest winner of a first round game, and the third seed will play the highest seeded first-round winner. The winners go on to the semifinals in Indianapolis on March 8th.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 20, 2021 21:11:46 GMT -6
Bracket is out. Panthers are indeed the 2 seed and will have to wait until all 3 first round games are played to see who their opponent will be. they'll play the 2nd lowest remaining seed of the 3 first round winners(6v 11, 7 v 10, 8v9).
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