23-24 Women's Basketball

Much better 2nd half!

FINAL

SIU 85

SEMO 70

We had some jolt about halfway through the 3rd and dropped the hammer on them. The key sequence was early on the 4th when Williams came back in and hit back to back 3's and had a nifty drop pass to Hughes on a drive. Much better start to the season than the 51 point ass-kicking from a year ago. 

All five starters in double figures led by Williams and Love with 16 each.

GAMEDAY - SATURDAY 11/11

Cornell (0-1) vs SIU (1-0)

Banterra Center 2pm

Media: Streaming Audio - Varsity Sports Network

or Radio STEVE FM 95.1 (Larry Larson)

Video Streaming: ESPN+ (Dominic Hoscher/Rodney Watson)

WarrenNolan.com Prediction:

Line SIU -17  O/U 131

RPI – Cornell 229 SIU 113

Cornell/SIU Series At A Glance: First ever meeting.

Let’s Look At The Big Red:

Southern welcomes a blue-blood Ivy League school to town. The Big Red are coached by (and I love these endowment names…) The Rebecca Quinn Morgan Class of ’60 Head Coach Of Women’s Basketball – Dayna Smith. TRQMCo’60 Coach Smith has been at the helm since 2002 and is the longest tenured coach in the Ivy League. Cornell won the Ivy League regular season title in 2008. Last season Cornell was 10-17(3-11). Cornell is coming off of a loss in their season opener against Colgate 71-60.

Cornell’s Dramatis Personae:

Cornell was led in their opener by 5-8 senior guard Kaya Ingram who had 15 pts, 5 boards and 6 assists. She was the 4^th leading scorer (8.6ppg) last season. Last year’s leading scorer was 6-1 forward Emily Pape, now a sophomore who scored at an average of 11.2 ppg. She had 6 in their opener. Big Red’s second leading scorer against Colgate was 6' freshman forward Rachel Kaus who tallied 8 points and 4 boards.

Tale Of The Tape:

                             COR       SIU

PPG                      60.0       85.0      

Pts Allowed         71.0       70.0

FG%                      .449       .484

FG% OPP             .491       .520

3pt%                     .143       .529

3pt % OPP           .111       .286

FT%                       .682       .583

Rebounds            24.0       28.0

Reb OPP              31.0       36.0

Assists                  12.0       21.0

Turnovers           22.0       15.0      

T/O Forced          16.0       26.0

Steals                   11.0       13.0

Blocks                  0.0         3.0

Offensive Rtg     173rd     74th

Defensive Rtg    182nd    137th

Pace of Play        112th     21st

What’s Up With Us?

Interesting opening game. We only led for about 12 minutes, but they were the most important minutes of the game. SEMO was up 9 with about five and half left when we went on a 16-1 run to end the third and started the fourth on an 8-0 run. Shemera Williams was in foul trouble in the first half picked up her 3 rd foul in quarter number three. She only played 12 minutes but scored 16 points including 4 of 4 from deep. Had a couple of nifty drive and dimes as well. Que Love also had 16, went 3 of 3 from downtown and had six steals on the night. The player that impressed me most was junior transfer Se’Quioa Allmond - she has seamlessly fit into this group as our second point guard. She led the team with five assists had nine points, two steals and ZERO turnovers. Nice crowd of over 1000 on opening night, probably won’t get that Saturday with a big local high school football playoff game (Murphysboro vs Harrisburg) and the football Dawgs fighting for their playoff lives on the tube. Rodney Watson doing the color for the broadcast, let’s see if he can handle two hours of Dominic “Flap-jaw” Hoscher. Would be awesome if we started 2-0!

GO DAWGS!!!

Halftime

SIU 34

CORNELL 37

Poor shooting & good defense by Cornell, spells halftime deficit. Mason with double digits at the half. Fouling too much.

FINAL

SIU 77

CORNELL 80

Poor shooting. Too trigger happy from 3. 

Williams with 19. Mason with 18. Randle missed about 93451 bunnies. Pretty disappointing considering we were  a 17 pt favorite.

Can't put all that on Randle. She didn't get much help inside. I said this before - we're gonna get eaten alive down low. Any team with a competent big or bigs are gonna kill us. 

We got down 11 in the 4th, rallied to a two point lead with 2 and a half left and just couldn't get that last stop. 

We shot 39% overall and 20% from 3. I'm surprised we outrebounded them, but they turned their rebounds into points, we didn't. We had more steals, one less assists, less turnovers and still lost. 

GAMEDAY - WEDNESDAY 11/15

Banterra Center 6pm

Purdue-Fort Wayne (1-1) vs SIU (1-1)

Media: Streaming Audio - Varsity Sports Network

or Radio WJPF 107.9 (Larry Larson)

Video Streaming: ESPN+ (Dominic Hoscher/Mike Trude)

WarrenNolan.com Prediction:

Line SIU -16  O/U 138

Purdue - Fort Wayne/SIU Series History:

Third meeting. PFW is 2-0 against us. Last meeting November 2013 (79-62)

Let’s Look At The Mastodons:

The Mastodons are coached by Maria Marchsano in her 3^rd season. She is 24-41 at P-FW and 163-151 overall. She was the D-II Coach of the Year in 2012. Their only D-1 Game was a loss at Michigan, 80-61. They clobbered a D-II opponent that was not an exhibition 124-41. P-FW’s player and team stats are a bit skewed as you will see shortly.

P-FW’s Dramatis Personae:

Co-Leading scorers at 14ppg. 5-11 senior guard Amelia Bromenschenkel (7.5 rebounds and 4 assists) and Renna Schwieterman 6’ freshman forward. They are led in rebounding (8.0) by 6-2 junior forward Jazlyn Linbo.

Tale Of The Tape:

                             PFW       SIU

PPG                      92.5       81.0      

Pts Allowed         60.5       75.0

FG%                      .497       .436

FG% DEF              .379       .500

3pt%                     .417       .467

3pt % DEF           .244       .286

FT%                       .636       .593

Rebounds            42.0       34.0

Reb OPP              36.0       37.5

Assists                  19.0       17.0

Turnovers           11.5       17.0      

T/O Forced          22.0       26.5

Steals                   10.5       14.5

Blocks                  3.0         3.0

Offensive Rtg     173rd     107th

Defensive Rtg    327th     190th

Pace of Play        284th     25th

Offensive, defensive and pace of play ratings for P-FW is based on their D-1 game only.

What’s Up With Us?

Tough loss to Cornell in a game we were heavily favored in. Shot poorly early and late. Williams was 0-5 from three after going 4-4 against SEMO. Lots of missed bunnies and free throws (18-30). Shot 5 of 24 from three. Ugly shooting, but we had a chance to win. Erased a 10 point deficit with under eight to play to go up a bucket with just over three to play. Just couldn’t get that last stop. This game and one more on our opening four game homestand then off to Puerto Rico.

Let’s get a bounce-back!

GO DAWGS!!!

Not a good start. No Mason either. Yet another team shooting out of thier minds against our bad shooting.  

Well thank God P-FW cooled offal bit. They started the game at 60% dropped off to 38%. We still can't hit shit. Down 1 after 1

Halftime

DAWGS 26

PRE-HISTORIC ELEPHANTS 18

Looks like we lost another one of  primary ball handlers, Allmond twisted an ankle. 

Damn!  Both the men’s and women’s

teams have been bitten by the injury bug.

Headed to overtime. Blew an 11 point lead. Only scored 2pts over the last 8 minutes.

Wow! This is unraveling quickly. They score we get T'ed up now we're down  5 with 3 to play.

Final / OT

SIU 64

PFW 70

Only scored 12 points over the last 13 and half minutes. They scored 21. 

Hughes had a nice game. 12pts 14 boards. Williams had 22. 

Allmond was walking around without a shoe after the game, but had and ice bag on top of her foot while she was on the bench. 

Without her and Mason that was nearly 20 points on the bench plus two of our best defenders and ball-handlers. 

We did a good job of fighting off another poor shooting night (33%) with some stellar D for most of the night.

Oh well. 

One more home game Sunday at 1pm before we go on the road.

GAMEDAY - SUNDAY 11/19

Banterra Center 1pm

North Texas (3-1) vs SIU (1-2)

Media: Streaming Audio - Varsity Sports Network

or Radio WJPF 107.9 (Larry Larson)

Video Streaming: ESPN+ (Dominic Hoscher/Mike Trude)

 WarrenNolan.com Prediction:

Line SIU -3  O/U 131

North Texas Mean Green/SIU Series At A Glance:

First ever meeting. This is going to be a tough game as shown by the prediction line.

Let’s Look At The Mean Green:

North Texas is coached by Jason Burton in his first year after 9 seasons at Texas A&M Commerce where he compiled a nine year record of 171-90. He led A&M Commerce into its first season as a D-1 program in his last season there. They play some tough D as they are ranked seventh nationally in FG% defense (we are ranked 309^th) and are ranked 11^th in three point defense (we are ranked 267^th). The Mean Green have some size and depth at the post. This is going to be a problem for us.

North Texas’ Dramatis Personae:

They are led by: 5-8 senior guard Jaaucklyn Moore (16.8ppg 4rpg) 6 foot graduate student forward DesiRay Kernal (15.5ppg 8.5rpg 3.3 assists) and 6-2 senior forward Tommisha Lampkin (11.3ppg 6.3rpg).

Tale Of The Tape:

                             NTX       SIU

PPG                      83.3       75.3      

Pts Allowed         57.8       73.5

FG%                      .469       .403

FG% DEF              .284       .465

3pt%                     .294       .378

3pt % DEF           .194       .345

FT%                       .696       .629

Rebounds            46.5       38.0

Reb OPP              41.3       37.7

Assists                  14.5       16.7

Turnovers           21.3       19.0      

T/O Forced          22.8       24.3

Steals                   9.8         13.7

Blocks                  3.8         4.0

Offensive Rtg     173rd     144th

Defensive Rtg    55th       167th

Pace of Play        24th       52nd

What’s Up With Us?

This game concludes our four-game opening homestand. This is the toughest of the four teams coming into Banterra. 

We really missed Jaidynn Mason as she did not play due to a family tragedy. My thoughts and prayers to Jaidynn and her family.

Se’Quoia Allmond went out with a foot injury in the second quarter and was out the entire second half. Que Love had to log heavy minutes without our two other ball-handlers and on-ball defenders. Don’t know the status of either for this game. If we are without either one or both - this game could get ugly early. The -3 line IMO is generous. When I first saw this prediction over a week ago we were only -5. We’ve shot very poorly over the last two games. Let’s hope we can get out of this shooting funk, focus and pull this one out.

GO DAWGS!!!

Well hell.

No Mason. No Williams. Big problem.

That's 34 pts out.