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Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Feb 1, 2018 10:03:13 GMT -6
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 1, 2018 21:06:18 GMT -6
"UWM women hope fast start leads to strong finish" reads the JSOnline piece headline. That also applied to tonight's gsme against Wright State, especially since Coach Rechliz made the choice to sit Steph Kostowicz. The Panthers obliged, jumping out to a 10-0 lead in first two minutes of the opening quarter. The Raiders called a time-out, and then scored the next five points of the game, but the Panthers were equal to the challenge, and re-opened a nine point lead at 18-9 with about two minutes left in the quarter. The Panthers finished the quarter 20-14, shooting 87.5% for the quarter and 2-3 from distance. Toward the end of the first quarter, and into the second, WSU turned up the defensive pressure, and the Panthers had more difficulty in running their offense. They pulled into a 24-all tie with four and a half minutes left. The Panthers had several turnovers and missed shots, but held their own against a Raider team which is highly ranked for offensive rebounding. Although the Raiders forced more turnovers than the Panthers did, the Panther defense managed to keep the Raiders of capitalizing, as Milwaukee actually had a slim lead in points off turnovers. Milwaukee outscored Wright State for the balance of the quarter 7-3, and took a 31 - 27 lead into the break on a Jamie Reit three-ball with 18 seconds left. The Panthers finished the half shooting 60% from the field, and 50% from distance. Jenny Lindner had nine points in the half, followed by Reit's six and Bailey Farley and Lizzie Odegard with five. Odegard's contributions came early in the first quarter as she picked up two fouls. The third quarter started with a flurry, each team scoring 10 points in the first five minutes of the quarter. Reit paced the Panthers with two three-point makes. In the remainder of the quarter, a series of fouls called on the Panthers allowed the Raiders to pull within one, 43-42. Through three quarters, the Raiders shot 18 free-throws (making 12) to eight for the Panthers (who made five). The Panthers next host Northern Kentucky on Saturday afternoon, while Wright State plays at Green Bay. The Raiders finally managed to take their first lead of the game early in the fourth quarter at 46-45, and briefly extend it to 48-45. The Panthers broke a scoring drought with four consecutive points to retake the lead at 49-48, which they held at the media time-out. After the break, both teams continued to struggle with scoring. Odegard fouled out, but the Panthers took advantage of a 5-3 advantage in fouls called when Lindner made two free-throws to increase the lead to 51-48. A Panther foul led to two free-throws for Wright State, but they made only one. On the next Milwaukee possession, a Lindner rebound led to another lay-up (her 18th point and 14th rebound), to make the lead 53-49. After a Raider steal led to a layup, the Panthers got the ball to Lindner, who was fouled shooting and made two more free-throws to re-open a four point lead with 51 seconds remaining. Wright State narrowed the lead to 55-53 with 32.1 seconds left, but the Panthers countered with Lindner from the foul line, scoring her 21st and 22nd points to make the lead 57-53, and then tied up the ball with 11.1 seconds to take possession. Lindner took the inbound pass and was fouled and hit both free-throws to make the lead 59-53, and the game ended with that score. The win put the Panthers in sole possession of third place in league standings,at 8-3. Green Bay beat Northern Kentucky by 17 to remain in first at 9-1. IUPUI did not play tonight, but remained in second at 8-2. Wright State fell into a fourth-place tie with Cleveland State at 7-4. The Panthers are 2-1 with two games remaining in their five-game home stand, facing Northern Kentucky next, on Saturday, and then finishing with Green Bay the following Saturday.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 3, 2018 16:12:46 GMT -6
Two days after playing a very good game start to finish against Wright State, the Panthers played a bad game start to finish against Northern Kentucky. The Norse interior defense forced the Panthers to rely on outside shots, which they were not able to hit for the most part.
The Panthers hit some shots from distance in the second half, but NKU had built what proved to be an insurmountable lead. The Panthers closed to 55-51 late, but the Norse held on as Bailey Farley’s three-point attempt to tie the score at the buzzer was no good.
The Panthers squandered an opportunity to solidify their hold on third place. Cleveland State won going away at Oakland to tie the Panthers at 8-4. The loss also means the Panthers will have to beat Green Bay next Saturday to have a winning record on their home stand. Their two losses have come in close games, but winning at home is the foundation for success. Victories afainst IUPUI and NKU would have the Panthers vying for second place in the league.
The Phoenix did what they always do, taking control in the second half and beating Wright State in Green Bay, to finish their home stand undefeated.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 4, 2018 13:16:07 GMT -6
It's really amazing that Milwaukee can't figure out a way to compete with Green Bay.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 5, 2018 15:51:03 GMT -6
It's really amazing that Milwaukee can't figure out a way to compete with Green Bay. No one else in the league has achieved that, either, on a consistent basis. During the high-water mark of the Sandy Botham years, Milwaukee did compete with Green Bay. Unfortunately, the Panthers did not manage to sustain that competitiveness. The Horizon League has become more competitive overall, especially over the last five years. Say what you will about the value of the additions of Valpo, Oakland, Northern Kentucky, and even IUPUI (a very limited sample size, admittedly) in terms of effect on the level of competition in men’s sports, those additions have made the league tougher on the women’s side. I can’t deny that it’s still pretty much nine teams competing for second place in the regular season standings. There have been enough upsets of Green Bay in the HL tournament in recent years, however, to justify hope that some consistent challengers will emerge. I’ve been encouraged by the trend in Milwaukee since Coach Rechlicz took over, but success here only makes her look better as a candidate for other jobs. Next year will be a major test: the Panthers will lose four seniors who have been a big part of the recent successes. We will learn whether the coaching staff can recruit the kind of players who can take the program further.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 5, 2018 17:11:55 GMT -6
'Heap, this is all pretty reminiscent of the years 2006-12 on the men's side, although we did win a regular-season title in '11.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 5, 2018 18:12:35 GMT -6
Reminiscent of the history on the men’s side for largely the same reasons, magnified by the fact that women’s sports are much less popular.
The Panther women did share two regular season titles, in 2001 and 2006, and took a higher tournament seed on tie-breakers. In both cases they went on to the NCAA tournament.
Clearly the GB Women’s BBall program gets more or at least better support from their athletic department: they play in a nicer facility before larger crowds, in part because they have been successful for so long, but the nicer facility and the larger crowds help feed the continued success. It probably isn’t hard to recruit the best players to a program like that.
Getting a player like Traci Edwards to come to Milwaukee rather than Green Bay was a feather in Sandy Botham’s cap. If the Panther program had kept winning, they might have attracted more players of Edwards’s caliber, which would have helped continue their success. That didn’t happen, and the program had to start over with Coach Rechlicz. Now Panther fans will see if Rechlicz can succeed where Botham didn’t.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 8, 2018 21:21:03 GMT -6
Milwaukee and Green Bay play on Saturday. It's the only game the teams will play this week.
The rest of the Horizon League was in action tonight.
Northern Kentucky improved to 5-8 in league play, beating Oakland at home (part of a women's/men's double header that perturbed fans waiting to watch the Milwaukee men play at NKU), 66-59. Four of NKU's league wins have come in two sets of back-to-back games. NKU stands a good chance of stretching their win streak to three, as they play Detroit at home on Saturday. Detroit lost tonight.
The shocker of the evening was Youngstown State building a late lead against IUPUI in Indianapolis, and holding on to win 70-67. (It’s the Jaguars third league loss and the first to a team other than Green Bay.) It's the third consecutive league win for YSU, and makes the Penguins the sixth team in the league to be above .500 in league play. YSU also has a good chance to extend their win streak on Saturday, as they travel to Chicago to play winless UIC. Next week, the Penguins host Milwaukee.
Cleveland State beat UIC in Chicago tonight to pull themselves into third place by themselves, pulling a half game ahead of Milwaukee in the standings at 9-4. The Panthers are now in fourth place, half a game ahead of Wright State, who is one game ahead of YSU.
The end of the league season could wind up being interesting as teams jockey for the middle tournament seedings.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 10, 2018 16:43:26 GMT -6
65-36 GB. How is this acceptable?
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 12, 2018 16:47:33 GMT -6
It’s not.
If you take the Athletic Director seriously, a top four finish isn’t good enough....
Give the Phoenix credit; they are currently the top-ranked defensive team in D1 Women’s Basketball. Only two teams, one in the Horizon League, have managed to best Green Bay this season. The Panthers have plenty of company.
To me, the more damaging losses were to IUPUI and NKU at home. In both games, the Panthers got down by significant leads and had to try to come from behind. In both cases they could not come all the the way back, and lost, allowing a lay-up at the buzzer to lose to IUPUI and having a last-second three-point shot to tie the score blocked to give the Norse a win.
Prior to that, the Panthers had started to play much better defense. The high point was the win over Wright State in between those losses. Victories over IUPUI and NKU would have the Panthers in second place. Those were winnable games, but Milwaukee dug themselves a hole they could not get themselves out of.
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Post by DunneDeal on Feb 13, 2018 8:21:43 GMT -6
I was going to say Green Bay has been throttling teams in league play, so its not acceptable, but I've seen it before
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 13, 2018 12:19:10 GMT -6
Bottom line: Rechlicz is now 85-95 at Milwaukee and I'm really tired of the double standard here.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 13, 2018 12:59:51 GMT -6
Bottom line: Rechlicz is now 85-95 at Milwaukee and I'm really tired of the double standard here. 27-62 her first three seasons. 58-33 since then. One top three finish.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 13, 2018 15:38:17 GMT -6
And ultimately not even close on the other two golden goals.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 13, 2018 17:22:01 GMT -6
Somehow I doubt that Kyle Rechlicz lives in fear of being held to those standards.
For that matter, I doubt Pat Baldwin does either, since it's transparently obvious they were nothing but a bullsh!t post-facto rationale for doing something the purpose of which had nothing to do with improving the men's basketball program -- something that itself holds no apparent interest for our AD.
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