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Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Feb 20, 2021 21:28:59 GMT -6
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 22:40:21 GMT -6
Here's the bracket by itself.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 22:42:06 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). And the seedings did not change from last week.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 20, 2021 23:01:39 GMT -6
First round matchups: Thursday, February 25th; all games tip off at 7:00 p.m. eastern standard time and will be broadcast on ESPN+ - #11 UIC (1-13) @ #6 Cleveland State (8-8). The teams did not meet in the regular season.
- #10 Purdue Fort Wayne (1-19) @ #7 Youngstown State (9-7). Fort Wayne played a series at Youngstown State, which the Penguins swept.
- #9 Robert Morris (4-12) @ #8 Northern Kentucky (7-5). RMU traveled to Kentucky for a series with NKU, which the Norse swept.
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Post by parkerj on Feb 22, 2021 15:13:43 GMT -6
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 23, 2021 20:27:27 GMT -6
Two for five. Macee Williams is PotY. She was the pre-season pick and, apparently, it would take a monumental season on the part of any other player to get the award away from the pre-season pick. Mariah White had a good season, and I would have voted for her. But my vote doesn't count. Katrina Merriweather of Wright State is Coach of the Year. I agree that Coach Rechlicz took her team far further than most people expected, Maybe if the Panthers had beaten the Raiders, she would have the award. Or maybe the League doesn't like the schools west of Indiana. Mariah White did get a post-season honor, so maybe you're two and one half for five . She got Defensive PotY instead of Megan Walstad. I tended to think of her as a scorer, but she did lead the league in steals. Walstad did make first team all league, which makes her two for two, as she made the all newcomer team in her first season. Brandi Bisping made second team all league.
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Post by parkerj on Feb 23, 2021 20:46:46 GMT -6
I had Baker, not White for POTY. Like I said, if Williams plays all 20 games (and presumably they don't really lose more) she's my pick. But missing over 1/4 of the HL season? That's...a lot.
COMPLETELY disagree w/ COTY.
DPOY......I disagree but fine. But if we didn't even have the DPOY and we tied with Wright State then we *definitely* had the COTY.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 23, 2021 22:41:12 GMT -6
Angel Baker had a good year too. Another worthy choice for PotY.
I wonder how many votes Parkinson, the IUPUI coach got..and if he would have won if his team finished first as predicted. But that's the beauty of pre-season predictions. So few go back and see how those predictions turn out. Otherwise people might realize what a crock they frequently are.
If the NCAA really does give players another year of eligibility, I wonder what the landscape will look like next fall.
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Post by parkerj on Feb 23, 2021 23:10:20 GMT -6
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Post by parkerj on Feb 23, 2021 23:12:26 GMT -6
Anyway, I did All-League Teams too. 13/15 made the cut...and I'm not a fan of putting a player who didn't play 60% of the league season on the team (particularly with 1 league win)
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 25, 2021 8:17:55 GMT -6
First round matchups: Thursday, February 25th; all games tip off at 7:00 p.m. eastern standard time and will be broadcast on ESPN+ - #11 UIC (1-13) @ #6 Cleveland State (8-8). The teams did not meet in the regular season.
- #10 Purdue Fort Wayne (1-19) @ #7 Youngstown State (9-7). Fort Wayne played a series at Youngstown State, which the Penguins swept.
- #9 Robert Morris (4-12) @ #8 Northern Kentucky (7-5). RMU traveled to Kentucky for a series with NKU, which the Norse swept.
According to horizonleague.org, the Purdue Fort Wayne - Youngstown State game tips off at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. (I know you are all counting the minutes until tip-off ). The other two first round games start at 7:00 p.m. eastern time.
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Post by skrapheap on Feb 26, 2021 0:30:16 GMT -6
The higher seeds all advanced out of the first round in the HL Women's Basketball tournament. Sixth seeded Cleveland State and eighth seeded Northern Kentucky won easily. Seventh seeded Youngstown State won by three. Purdue Fort Wayne couldn't hit shots late, and the Penguins managed just enough offense to pull out the win. So next Tuesday quarterfinal matchups look like this: - #8 Northern Kentucky at #1 Wright State, 1:00 p.m. CST.
- #5 IUPUI at #4 Oakland, 2:00 p.m. CST.
- #7 Youngstown State at #2 Milwaukee, 7:00 p.m. CST.
- #6 Cleveland State at #3 Green Bay, 7:00 p.m. CST.
Milwaukee and Youngstown State did not play this season. The Penguins have won a lot of games with the Panthers in recent years, but I like the matchup. If the Panthers play like they did during their twelve game and three game winning streaks, I see them advancing to the semifinals, likely in a rematch with Green Bay..
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 2, 2021 21:07:14 GMT -6
The early quarterfinal games in the Women's tournament were not close.
Wright State hosted Northern Kentucky and won by 16. IUPUI traveled to Oakland, and won by more than 20.
I tuned into the Panther game on ESPN+ and discovered a Panther home game was being covered by a YSU homer. Where did that come from? Matt Menzel was on audio. His broadcast was way ahead of the video, but I couldn't take any more of the guy on the ESPN. The camera work sucked, too, as action at either end of the court was frequently off screen. The early games were covered by the broadcast team for the home team. (After the fact, I synced the playback of Matt Menzel's audio with the video playback. It was satisfying.)
The Panthers had good stretches in both of the first and second quarters, but YSU finished strong and led at halftime 36-34. The Panther bugaboo was turnovers. They had eight in the first half; the Penguins had one, and scored 10 points off those TOs.
McKala Schmelzer had a 13 point first half, two off her season and career high of 15, reached against Marquette in the preseason.
The Panthers weren't the only home team struggling in the late games. Cleveland State got up on Green Bay, and led at half 33-22 after the Phoenix had gotten the score down to 26-22.
The Panthers played much better in the second half, as they frequently have this season, and won 77-68. Schmelzer wound up with a game high 24 points. That's nine points better than her previous career high. Bre Cera had 13 points, getting the last six on clutch back-to-back three pointers, and Brandi Bisping had 10. Miquela Santoro had nine points and Kendall Nead had eight.
Up In Green Bay, the Phoenix fought back, but ended up losing by six, 69-63. Matt Menzel mentioned at least twice during the broadcast that Green Bay had made the tournament finals for the last ten years. That streak is over.
The semifinals on Monday will be Cleveland State playing Wright Stete and IUPUI playing Milwaukee.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 3, 2021 0:05:56 GMT -6
So, the semifinals should be interesting.
Cleveland State, originally seeded sixth, taking on top-seeded Wright State. The Raiders had a fairly easy time of it in their quarterfinal game against NKU. The Vikings finished the season as one of the hottest teams in the league, and the old cliche about being the team no one wants to play In the tournament probably applies to them. The Phoenix were up early in the first quarter by as many as five points. The Vikings went on a mini run at the end of the quarter, outscoring Green BaY 9-4 to take a 13-11 lead at the end of the quarter, a lead which they never relinquished. As I mentioned above, the Vikings scored the last five points of the second quarter to lead by 11. Cleveland kicked the offense into high gear in the third quarter, pushing the lead as high as 22 points. Green Bay started chipping away right away in the final quarter, and had the lead under double digits by the middle of the quarter, and cut the lead to six points with 3:27 left. Cleveland responded by pushing the lead back to double digits, and by that point the Phoenix had too little time to pull out a win. A three pointer by the Phoenix got the lead down to four, but there were only six seconds left. Green Bay had to foul, Cleveland State hit two free throws with four seconds left to make it 69-63, and that was that.
The other semifinal will be Milwaukee playing IUPUI. It won't be a home game for the Jaguars, but it will be the next best thing. Against that, the Panthers, at the height of their performance this season, went into Indy and swept the Jaguars. IUPUI lost their next game to Green Bay on the road and then rebounded with five consecutive victories to finish the regular season. There were some comments on this board, and I am sure there were comments aplenty in Indianapolis, when the league's algorithm ranked Oakland ahead of IUPUI, giving Oakland a home quarterfinal game. The Jaguars were idle the last weekend of the regular season as their scheduled opponent was Detroit who had suspended their season. The time off was not a liability for IUPUI, as they led from wire to wire, proving, IMO, that they should have been the higher seed. They outscored the Grizzlies by twelve in the first quarter and by eleven in the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies could do little better than even in the middle quarters, so the Jaguar lead was never really threatened. Oakland got the lead below double digits a couple of times in the third quarter, but the Jaguars put on a late surge to push the margin back to double digits, and then really put the game away in the fourth quarter. The high water mark for IUPUI was 25 points just under four minutes into the fourth quarter.
There could be two very entertaining semi-final games on Monday. You'd figure Wright State will be a tougher out for the Vikings than Green Bay was, as the Raider roster is stronger all the way through. But I wouldn't have picked Cleveland State to push the Phoenix around the way they did for most of the game. And the Vikings won seven of their last eight, fading at the end of the finale to Youngstown State in Youngstown and losing by three. The Viking offense started their streak with a 60-48 win over Green Bay in Cleveland, and then scored 75, 68, 84, 68, 71, and 76 games in games in the remainder of the win streak. They managed only 61 in the loss, but have scored 69 points in each of their tournament games. Wright State has been winning all season on their defense, and they held the Vikings to 54 and 46 points in their series sweep. The Raiders held the Norse to 56 points in their quarterfinal win. If I have to pick, I think Wright State wins, but it may be a very close game.
The Panthers really proved tonight that their season was not a fluke. They used the formula they used all season to rack up 15 wins in regular season play: a veteran team really outplayed the opposition in the second half, on both ends of the floor. There were scoring droughts, but they weren't fatal as they were in the five game skid. They hit the key shots when they needed them, and finished off the opposition at the free-throw line, going 7-8 from the line in the last minute to keep ahead of the Penguins. That was the winning formula in the first game with IUPUI. The second game was just a classic, overtime barn-burner that the Panthers managed to pull out. IUPUI has been on a roll, and they won't be an easy out, but I really feel like the Panthers are seeded where they deserved to be, and I think they will find a way to beat the Jaguars again.
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Post by skrapheap on Mar 8, 2021 8:06:20 GMT -6
Gameday at last.
Semifinal one, featuring Cleveland State and Wright Statw, played out pretty much as I expected. The Vikings led for stretches in the first half, but eventually the Raiders' superiority, particularly in the inside game, proved to be too much. The Raiders led by two at the half, more than half their first half scoring came from second chance opportunities, as the Vikings were unable to keep them from getting offensive rebounds. he Raiders gradually pulled away in the second half, and the final score was 73-62. The Angel Baker v Mariah White matchup was fun to watch. I haven't seen the final stats, but Baker had outscored White through three quarters. The Raiders will present a stiff challenge to whichever team emerges from the second semifinal, but that is news to no one at all.
I'm not sure how ready the Panthers were to play today's game, but the Jaguars were clearly more ready. IUPUI led throughout the game and won 56-46. Milwaukee shot poorly, just 28.4% overall, and just 12% from distance, far below their season averages. They also struggled to overcome a disparity in fouls called and free-throws. The Jaguars took more than three times as many free-throws, and though they are near or at the bottom of the league in free-throw percentage, they made five more free-throws than the Panthers took. Part of the difference is the missed shots: the Panthers might have had more chances if they were hitting more shots.
Megan Walstad did not have a good game, finishing with six points and six rebounds, but today's shooting woes appear to be spread around the roster. Walstad was hampered by foul trouble, but she was not alone. Bre Cera fouled out. The announcers mentioned early in the fourth quarter that no Jaguar had more than two fouls.
Foul trouble seems to be a chronic problem for Milwaukee as far back as i can remember. Other programs seem to be allowed to play physical defense as the Panthers do, without being called for as many fouls. How much of that is a failure on the officials part to "let the [Panthers] play defense," as nearly any coach can be heard pleading with the officials to do. and how much is play that is more physical than the rules actually allow, i am not expert enough to say. Coach Rechlicz was heard during the broadcast today telling a player to quit fouling, so she at least felt some of the fouls called were valid. On those occasions this season when the Panthers were allowed to play defense, judging by more even free-throw totals, they were successful. Perhaps the players should put as much work in on playing defense without fouling as they do at shooting free-throws. Putting in the work helped boost an already high perecentage from the free-throw line in recent years to the top of NCAA D1 Women's Basketball.
Brandi Bisping with 12 points and Emma Wittmershaus with 10 points led the Panthers.
So the Jaguars will get to defend their tournament championship against Wright State. I believe the teams did not meet in the regular season. I give Wright State the edge based on post play, where they have three players as tall or taller than Macee Wiliams. Willians will face a greater challenge on both ends of the floor from the Raiders than she would have faced against any other league team. The teams look equal in all the other matchups. It will probably be a close game, but I think Wright State has enough of an edge to win the title.
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