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Post by nickpanther on Mar 20, 2021 20:08:09 GMT -6
Down 20 entering the final quarter. Looks like the season will end tonight
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 20, 2021 20:12:26 GMT -6
Down 20 entering the final quarter. Looks like the season will end tonight I could take the endings to the HL tournament and the WNIT better if they hadn't played so poorly in both games. In both cases, in the preceding games they played really well, and then followed up with performances that were just plain awful. I just hope they take and make enough free-throws to get the D1 season record.
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Post by nickpanther on Mar 20, 2021 20:39:04 GMT -6
Panthers fall 61-44 to finish 20-8
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Post by ghostofdylan on Mar 21, 2021 12:57:21 GMT -6
Down 20 entering the final quarter. Looks like the season will end tonight I could take the endings to the HL tournament and the WNIT better if they hadn't played so poorly in both games. In both cases, in the preceding games they played really well, and then followed up with performances that were just plain awful. Focus/coaching concerns?
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 21, 2021 19:32:32 GMT -6
I could take the endings to the HL tournament and the WNIT better if they hadn't played so poorly in both games. In both cases, in the preceding games they played really well, and then followed up with performances that were just plain awful. Focus/coaching concerns? Sometimes the ball doesn't go in the basket. I have no idea how to fix that. Coach Rechlicz just finished her ninth season. The Panthers' overall record over that time is 139-139. That's after overcoming a 27-62 start to her career (three seasons). Since then, the Panthers are 112-77, including three seasons of 20 or more wins, three trips to the post season (but none to the NCAA). Prior to her tenure, the Panthers had never won a game after the HL tournament. I think she's built a pretty good program, and has recruited some good players to play for the Panthers. The returning core of the team is solid. Thanks to the accomodation to Covid, three and possibly four of the seniors who played this season are, apparently, returning next season, without affecting the scholarships offered to the incoming class. That incoming class will, in essence, have three or four additional coaches beyond the staff to show them how D1 basketball is played. I don't see any call to look at her contract. The concerns I expressed are things, which, imo, can be learned from. Recall that the two previous seasons, the Panthers played .500 ball. In 2018-19, the Panthers were learning to adjust to the graduation of the duo of Jenny Lindner and Steph Kostowicz. Megan Walstad was all-league as a freshman, but not all the surrounding pieces were in place. The result was a recond of 15-15. In 2019-20, Walstad was out all year with a knee injury. Players did their best to pick up the slack, and Emma Wittmershaus had a learning curve, having to play serious minutes after red-shirting the previous season. Brandi Bisping emerged as a major contributor. That team with Walstad would have been better than a 15-16 team. Even with the disruption caused by the Pandemic, this team finished 18-6, 15-5 in league play, and shared the regular season title with Wright State, that after finishing 5th and 6th the previous seasons. They earned a bye from first round play, and handled Youngstown State easily at home in the quarterfinals. The semifinal was essentially a road game rather than a neutral site, and they played poorly. The WNIT was a similar experience, but all at a neutral site. The first round game was played about as well as they could play a game. The second round game performance was well below their season average, and the season ended at 20-9. Most of the season, this team played really well, especially on defense. When they lost games, they played below their average. They had opportunities in three of their five league regular season losses; they might have been 18-2 rather than 15-5, and all alone in first place. I don't think it would take much in the way of improvement to bring that about. In a regular year, I'd be hopeful for next season's team. The extra year for this year's seniors, who would have otherwise moved on, will make for a challenge, handing out playing time, but the newcomers will, as mentioned previously, have more good players to learn from. Megan Walstad will be another year past her knee injury, so one can reasonably hope she will continue to get better, and she's already pretty good. Key contributors from this season should be better, I am thinking primarily of Kendall Nead and Wittmershaus. I am expecting the 2021-22 Panthers will be a better team. They shouldn't be sneaking up on the league anymore (but the preseason poll always has surprises), but they should be good enough to play the stronger league teams straight up and win.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 21, 2021 20:44:08 GMT -6
The Women's NCAA tournament kicked off today. Marquette, who rebounded from an early season loss to finish 19-7, lost their first round game. Wright State, the Horizon League's sacrifical lamb token entry in the tournament, is a thirteenth seed, playing fourth seeded Arkansas at 1:00 pm cdt tomorrow. I kid, I kid. Sort of. The Raiders match up better against your typical tournament team than most Horizon League's teams do, with their height, and they play really good defense, especially against three point shooters, so perhaps they won't be an easy out, but I expect Arkansas to win. Arkansas is ranked 17th in the latest NET rankings in D1 Women's Basketball; Wright State is ranked 80th. Arkansas was seeded sixth in the SEC Tournament and lost their first game. Wright State, of course, won the Horizon League tournament, having been the top seed. Arksansas averages about 83 points/game and allows 74 points/game. Wright State averages about 63 points/game and gives up an average of 55 points/game. The Raiders will want to slow down the Razorbacks, who want to play a more up-tempo game. Arkansas shot .392 from three-point range this season and allowed opponents to shoot .329. Wright State shot .265 and allowed .265 on three-point shots. Arkansas attempted almost 300 more three-point shots than Wright State did, and made more than twice as many shots as did the Raiders'opponents. That will be a major focus to the game. In Arkansas, you have a team that shoots about 50% better from three-point range than the Raiders, and that based on many more shots taken from distance. Unless the Razorbacks shoot unusually poorly, the difference weighs in Arkansas favor. According to one oddsmaker, the Razrobacks are 5.5 point favorites. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a thirteenth seed is pretty typical for an HL entry in the tournament. As the quality of play in the Horizon League continues to improve, the seedings for their auto-bids should get better. A respectable showing for the Raiders will help. An upset will help still more. You will recall that all the above analysis is worth every penny you paid to read it.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 22, 2021 10:30:27 GMT -6
In case anyone cares, Cleveland State won the CBI yesterday.
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Post by parkerj on Mar 22, 2021 14:38:10 GMT -6
\Wright State, the Horizon League's sacrifical lamb token entry in the tournament, is a thirteenth seed, playing fourth seeded Arkansas at 1:00 pm cdt tomorrow. Oh?
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 22, 2021 14:41:46 GMT -6
You will recall that all the above analysis is worth every penny you paid to read it. Well, I was wrong. Wright State's defense apparently dictated tempo the entire game, and the Raiders withstood a late surge by the Razorbacks and won, 66-62. Arkansas took a two.point lead with less than two minutes remaining, coming back from ten points down, but the Raiders hit clutch three-point shots to retake the lead. Arkansas had to resort to fouling, which given the Raiders' free-throw percentage was not all that bad of a strategy, but Wright Stste hit their free-throws when it counted.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 23, 2021 7:34:33 GMT -6
Wright State was one of three double-digit seeds to advance past the first round of the NCAA Women's Tournament. The 11 and 12 seeds in another region also advanced.
Wright State plays MVC power Missouri State next. If the Raiders win on Wednesday, their likely opponent in the Sweet Sixteen is overall number one Stanford.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 24, 2021 15:05:27 GMT -6
The train stopped for the Raiders in the round of 32, where they were outplayed by the Missouri State Lady Bears.
Wright State held an 11-10 lead at the end of the first quarter. Missouri State managed to pick up their offensive tempo in the second quarter, matching their first quarter output by the media time-out. They managed only four points after that, but as Wright State scored only eight points in the entire quarter, the Bears took a five point lead into half-time, 24-19.
Missouri State put the game away in the third quarter, out-scoring Wright State 21-8. The Bears kept the pressure on, winning the fourth quarter 19-12, for a final margin of victory of 25 points, 64-39.
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Post by parkerj on Apr 2, 2021 9:11:30 GMT -6
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Post by skrapheap on Apr 2, 2021 12:02:51 GMT -6
That was fun. Do we have to start treating the HoriZone Roundtable like Legitimate Sports Journalists tm now? 🙂 I was hoping the Panthers would have announced their senior returnees by now. IUPUI's Macee Williams has announced that she's coming back. I wasn't surprised to hear that Bre Cera will not be taking advantage of the extra year. She had been featured some in the media as a nursing student (she was, at one point, helping in a hospital ward that had COVID patients, and expressed excitement about her nursing career. She graduated, and I figured under those circumstances she would be one of the vast majority of college athletes who "go pro in something other than sports." So that leaves Brandi Bisping, Miquela Santoro, McKaela Schmelzer, and Sydney Staver from this year's senior class. Which one is "still up in the air" about returning, I have no idea at all. I was surprised to hear that Wright State's coach, Katrina Merriweather, had taken the coaching job at Memphis. Good for her. When the previous head coach got hired away, Merriweather was promoted and the transition was seemless; the Raiders continued to be a league power. It will be interesting to see what happens next, and how her departure changes the landscape in HL Women's Basketball. Update: I went searching for info about Coach Merriweather, and I had not known that she had violated NCAA rules as an assistant coach and had had a "show cause" order from the NCAA. Wright State hired her and promoted her, and she re-paid their trust.
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Post by parkerj on Apr 2, 2021 12:58:01 GMT -6
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Post by PantherU on Apr 2, 2021 18:00:11 GMT -6
Do we have to start treating the HoriZone Roundtable like Legitimate Sports Journalists tm now? 🙂 I feel personally attacked
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