23-24 Women's Basketball

Decent start. Got out to a 10-2 lead by the media t/o then went cold. Tied after 1q at 13. 

Halftime...

Tied at 30. Randle with 17 in the half.

Well - I was also wrong about thier post play. Gusters, a 6-5 LSU transfer, playing her 1st game of the season has scored 8.

Got clobbered in the third. 25-14. Even with their top scorer down with 3 fouls. 

Down 11 headed to the fourth.

Got clobbered again in the fourth. 

Southern 58.

OK St 76.

Randle with 25... and not much else. 

Randle was 1 board shy of another double-double. Hughes is having this on again off again relationship with foul trouble. If she had stayed out of foul trouble, I think this game would have been closer. Randle was 10-12 for the game the rest of the team - 13 of 47. OUCH. 

Randle impresses the hell out of me. She's an undersized 4 (5'11") but damn, is she crafty down low. 

Oklahoma State announcers were impressed with us. We held them under their shooting percentage overall and from three. We fared better than Missouri State did - they lost by 31 to them. And the Cowgirls didn't have that Gusters woman, who dropped 21 on us.

Williams had a rough return to action game - 16 minutes and 1-7 shooting. 

OSU outscored us by 10 at the FT line and only out-rebounded us by three.

Mason had 9. Hughes had 8. No one else scored more than 4. Samuel looked a little better, I think she is getting it.

Bit of a disappointing non-con play. We lost three games we probably should have won. 5-5 going into Valley play. 13 day layoff, then The Valley opener at home against Drake. 

This Week in the Valley

Saturday, December 30th

Drake at SIU, 1 p.m.

Northern Iowa at Missouri St., 1 p.m.

Bradley at Illinois St., 4 p.m.

Illinois-Chicago at Belmont, 4 p.m.

Valparaiso at Murray St., 5 p.m.

Indiana St. at Evansville, 6 p.m.

Go Dawgs!  Beat Drake!

GAMEDAY – SATURDAY 12/30

Banterra Center 1pm

Drake University 7-4 (0-0 MVC) vs SIU 5-5 (0-0 MVC)

Media: Streaming Audio - Varsity Sports Network

or Radio WJPF 107.9 (Larry Larson)

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

WarrenNolan.com Prediction:

Line: Bulldogs -4   O/U: 138

NET/RPI/SOS

Drake: 70/73/55

SIU: 139/180/124

DU/SIU Series At A Glance:

This is the 97^th game in this series. Drake holds a commanding 66-30 record over us. Last year Drake beat us 87-73 in Carbondale and 91-68 in Des Moines. With the new scheduling that started last year - this is the only time we face the Bulldogs this year. This is the conference opener for both teams. We have won ten straight conference openers, but that might be in jeopardy as Drake has won 13 of the last 15 meetings.

Let’s Look At The Bulldogs:

Drake is coached by Allison Pohlman who is in her third year as head coach and has been with the Bulldogs since 2007. Last year the Bulldogs were 22-10 (14-6 MVC 4^th place tie). The Bulldogs beat regular season co-champion Belmont for the MVC’s auto-bid to the NCAA tournament where they came up short to five seed Louisville 83-81. This season Drake has beaten Iowa State, got hammered by Iowa, lost in double-overtime at Minnesota, lost to a ranked Creighton team then took out their frustrations beating North Dakota by 48 in their non-conference finale. The Bulldogs are 2-2 in true road games.

Bulldogs Dramatis Personae:

The Bulldogs are led by 5-8 All-Conference (3^rd team) junior guard Katie Dinnebier at 19.3 ppg(2^nd MVC) 5.2 assists (1^st MVC) 2.5 steals (2nd MVC) and a 90% FT (26^th Nationally). Drakes second leading scorer is 6 foot Graduate forward Grace Berg. She scores at 16ppg and shoots at a .516 clip. Their top rebounder and third leading scorer is 6-3 junior forward Anna Miller 8.3 rebounds per game (3^rd in The Valley). They have one more double digit scorer in MaCauly Taylor a RS-Senior guard at 11.7ppg.

Tale Of The Tape:

                        DU       SIU

PPG                 83.0     68.5    

Pts Allowed     75.0     67.5

FG%                 .492     .422

FG% DEF          .435     .429

3pt%                .353     .298

3pt % DEF        .357     .281

FT%                 .808      .639

Rebounds       36.5     36.6

Reb OPP          31.7      35.0

Assists             19.1     14.2

Turnovers        18.2     17.8    

T/O Forced      14.8     20.2

Steals              8.4       10.7

Blocks              5.0       2.9

Offensive Rtg  46th    167th

Defensive Rtg   259th 134th

Pace of Play    39th   81st

Net Rtg            101 st  146 th     

The Bulldogs are successful through their year to year roster continuity. They don’t dip into the portal because they don’t need to. Their effective FG% is 9^th nationally. But their 3 point defense is a dismal 310^th nationally – 10^th in The Valley compared to our 2^nd in The Valley and 79^th nationally three point defense.

What’s Up With Us?

Well, we’ve been off for thirteen days. LAst game was an eighteen point loss at Oklahoma State. A game in which we were competitive in up until the fourth quarter. Our first three Valley games are at home (Drake, UIC and Valpo). We now have our entire opening day roster back (so far that I know as of this publishing). Laniah Randle has been a handful so far putting up all-conference numbers; second in the Valley in scoring, first in rebounding, sixth in both steals and field goal percentage. Our game is definitely defense oriented. Our two biggest issues going forward are turnovers and foul trouble. If we can keep our posts on the floor, specifically Seairra Hughes, I think we are going to be okay. Drake is only a 4 point favorite in this game, but a win here would be a great boost to start the conference season over a Valley favorite.

GO DAWGS!!!

Just as soon as I say we're at full strength.... no Jaidynn Mason. 

Eww. 

Ugly start.

3 of 17 shooting. 

After 1 

SIU 12

DRAKE 21

Halftime

Southern 31

Drake 40

Drake backdoor-ed us to death. We missed a bunch of bunnies. Big time foul trouble. Randle with 2, Hughes with 3. Prochaska with 3. Drake in a bit of foul trouble as well  

Final

Drake 78

Southern 59

We forced Drake into nearly 30 turnovers. But we only shot 28% for the game. Looks like we kinda mailed in the 4th quarter. 

GAME 12 – Thursday 1/4

Banterra Center 6pm

UIC 7-5 (0-1 MVC) vs SIU 5-6 (0-1 MVC)

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 -9   O/U: 131

NET/RPI/SOS

UIC: 135/186/324

SIU: 148/206/128

UIC/SIU Series At A Glance: This is the eighteenth meeting between us we hold a 12-5 series lead. We played the Flames once last year and lost in Chicago 65-62.

Quick Look At The Flames: The Flames are coached by Ashleea Bracey in her second season. She led UIC to a surprise 19 win season and a berth in the Women’s Basketball Invitational last year. This year UIC has lost in overtime to Northwestern, lost to SLU in St. Louis and Arkansas. They have no “bad” losses but have a poor SOS ranking at 324. UIC is 3-4 in road games. They lost their Valley opener 69-61 at Belmont.

The Flames Dramatis Personae: UIC is led by three portal transfers. 6-0 Junior forward – from Marquette- Makiyha Williams with 12.8ppg. Next is a 5-10 graduate guard – from DePaul – Keirari Rinner who averages 12.4ppg and 2.3 steals per game. The third portal transfer is 5-9 graduate guard from Cincinnati, Dais’Ja Trotta who averages 12.3ppg. Their top rebounder is Jaida McCloud a 6-3 Senior forward who pulls down 6.4 rebounds per game.

Tale Of The Tape:

                           UIC      SIU

PPG                 74.5     67.6    

Pts Allowed     67.8     68.5

FG%                 .442     .409

FG% DEF          .409     .439

3pt%                .300     .297

3pt % DEF        .347     .286

FT%                 .658      .652

Rebounds       38.8     35.9

Reb OPP          34.9      35.5

Assists             17.8     13.8

Turnovers        18.9     18.0    

T/O Forced      19.7     20.9

Steals              10.4     11.2

Blocks              2.1       2.8

Offensive Rtg  102nd  187th

Defensive Rtg  127th  145th

Pace of Play    40th   76th

Net Rtg            112th  163rd     

Coach KBW said this Flames team kind of mirrors us in style of play. Lots of forced turnovers and steals. UIC is second in turnovers forced and 3rd in steals in The Valley. UIC is fourth in FG% FG%-Defense, rebounding, ppg allowed and points per game.

What’s Up With Us?

Poor shooting night against Drake equaled bad result. We shot 27.8% for the game and got pasted in the first and fourth quarters. We got the lead down to six a couple of times in the second half but couldn’t get a needed stop or bucket. Drake, as usual, ran their high clear-out offense and made the game look like lay-up drill at times. Whenever we did stall them and forced them into a full offensive set, Drake coughed the ball up A LOT and our defense made them look bad. Mason missed the game with the flu, hopefully she’s back and hopefully she didn’t infect the rest of the team. We need this win and a good shooting night to get our sea legs under us now that we are in the routine of the MVC schedule.

GO DAWGS!!!

Hmmm. Watched parts of UIC's game at Belmont. This isnt going to be an easy game. The Flames led for a good portion of the game making Belmont look out of sorts for long stretches. UIC disrupts just as good as we do. But they ran out of gas and only scored 11 points over the last 13 minutes.