(02-18-2024 10:54 PM)J.B. Wrote:  This game brings Drexel's record to 6-6 and in a tie with Towson for 5th. Both teams are two games behind W&M for 4th, so it's unlikely that they'll get a bye in the CAAT.

Actually, W&M is in 5th; Monmouth is in 4th and you are tied for 6th…likely making your last sentence even more true.

This team is not going to get a bye, nor should they. We have our struggles but its nice that we can still beat the bad teams. We knew this season was going to be a struggle, so its nice to pick up victories. I hope Amy is looking long and far and hard for some players who can score. This team and these players just dont have it and it limits them so much. I am actually quite impressed that despite our struggles on offense we still play strong defense and make other teams struggle. Its a staple of our program and leads me to believe if we had even 1 scorer we could find ourself competing at the top once again.

we picked the wrong game to skip this weekend. we got back from the flyers game at around 2:30 am and i think i finally wore the family out.

really nice to see jasmine get the winning basket. the pieces are there. she'll either making a really nice, strong drive and then miss the layup or stumble/travel while she's making the move and miss the layup. when it all happens...it's pretty and she's imposing coming down the lane. saatman had a better game too.

i haven't really looked at the standings at all. i didn't even now nc a&t was towards the top of the conference. i'll start looking if it seems like we could be a threat which hopefully i'll be doing after the next few games.

this is off topic but i didn't realize until last night how competitive a-10 women's basketball has been this year. richmond is 14-1 in conference, sju has 2 losses, and then vcu, duquesne and gmu have 3 losses. i looked up their tournament since it should be interesting and they're having it at a new events center outside richmond.

villanova is 3rd in the big east behind uconn and creighton. we went to the creighton game where villanova went like 0-18 from three. i think they can beat them if they make any shots. uconn ended up blowing out creighton on monday.

caitlin clark and iowa play indiana tonight. i'm still way more interested in women's basketball. it seems like they still give a damn.

Women had a pretty good last two home game. Went 1-1 winning yesterday for senior day. We won most of the game against Stony Brook (amazingly) but let it slip away very quickly in the 4th quarter to fall by 2. SBU is legit and shut us out in the first quarter in the first matchup this season, so leading them most of the way by double digits was really nice to see out of this squad. Following that disappointment of collapsing and then beating Campbell was really nice. Moves us to 8-8 in 7th.

They have 2 road games left, so 1-1 is very possible for a 9-9 season which is where we would need to be to secure 7th. We are tied with Campbell but have the tiebreaker over them. They still face Hampton so they will likely go 1-1. If we go 0-2 we will fall to 8th. For all of the offensive struggles this team has had, our defense has kept us from losing to the teams below us, even though we struggle to beat the top teams. 9-9 feels like a victory with this squad

For fun I wanted to check back around to how the teams in our tough OOC have done. Looks like 4 are projected to make the tournament though only FSU and maybe FGCU make it if they stumble in their conference tournament. Still a tough slate and schedule we should be trying to have every year (its a shame it happened with our worst team in a loooong time)

Norfolk State (L)- 118 (21-5 overall and 11-1 in conference, projected 15 seed NCAA)
Delaware State (W)- 351 (6-17 overall)
La Salle (W)- 292 (8-21 overall)
St Joes (L)- 59 (26-4 overall; tied for 2nd A10 with VCU; next four out currently)
Lehigh (L)- 248 (15-12 overall)
Marist (W)- 327 (5-23 overall)
Buffalo (W)- 186 (15-11 overall)
FSU (L)- 47-(21-9 overall; Others receiving votes in top 25, pins them at 30th, projected 7 seed NCAA)
FGCU (L)- 53 (24-4 overall and undefeated in conference, projected 11 seed in NCAA)
Cleveland State (L)- 81 (27-4 overall, projected 14 seed in NCAA, 2nd place green bay projected last in as a 10 seed)

thanks dan. you saved me some work. i was curious about this. we got our butts handed to us down in florida but it also felt like we were playing quality teams. that turned out to be the case. lehigh flamed out pretty fast. overall it was one of our tougher non-conference schedules and we held our own with fsu and sju in particular.

we went down on sunday. there's definitely more of an effort to move the ball. we're getting back to the drexel basketball i'm used to watching. brooke is acting more like a facilitator...like we have 2 pgs on the floor. she's doing a better job picking her spots to shoot. hetta has shown flashes in a couple games i've seen like down at william and mary. she hit a big 3 late in the game.

i'm not going to sit here and say we have a great chance to make a run in the tournament. i'm more optimistic now than i was a month or so ago. no surprise that amy keeps finding ways to get the most out of this team. if we have a game where our "bigs"...meaning hodges and hetta in particular...are hitting midrange shots and one of our guards has a nice game...we could be dangerous. never know how mcgurk might fit in too.

you can't say enough nice things about grace o'neill. she might be the best rebounder i've ever seen...pound for pound. somehow she's getting better at it. hopefully her jumper keeps improving so she can pitch in more offensively. a quick release will be important. her effort falls in line with her predecessor at that position.

last point to make...i know nobody adds teams to their conference to create a good women's basketball league...but the more recent additions to the caa have represented themselves very well. there might not be a single team in the top 4 from the "old" caa. campbell was a nice team on sunday. they could score in bunches, had nice size, and had a couple decent shooters. we picked a tough time to not have our best roster because the league has grown up from top to bottom.

No doubt about the additions. SBU was always going to be a great addition for womens basketball. They had dominated the AEast for some time. A&T its about their only sport they have been consistently good in and Monmouth has been a surprise. They were good last year, I thought theyd fall back more this year and havent. The womens basketball is definitely on the rise, not the fall. Charleston doing goo things too (until they leave)

BIIIIIIG win for the ladies tonight.

went down by 10. looked like we were dead and buried when baker got a layup swatted on one end and they got a 3 point play on the other. stormed back with some of the best shooting we've had all year. they got within 4 and we went right back to work instead of folding in the fourth quarter. baker had 26. sweeney has been a bit of a revelation and had 10 points tonight. she made some really nice cuts.

amy mallon is the best. still need to take care of business against elon on sunday. poor grace o'neill can't get a good bounce on the basket to save her life. they'll start falling eventually for somebody who works as hard as she does.

I haven't been following much this year why aren't they a top 4 team this year? Too much turnover?

3 biggest reasons for me...

1. we had an all time great player in the program who could create her own shot which is something we've never had. we relied on her for 2 years offensively and probably didn't develop elsewhere the way we needed to. we're starting to get back to moving the ball to create our shots. it's hard to blame anybody for letting a great player be great. there can be consequences when they leave though.

2. two of our top recruits from last year's class transferred to penn state. lavelle hadn't played much all season until last night when she scored 14 points in a big 10 tournament game against wisconsin. imagine having her in the caa. moriah murry is the shooter we need. it's going to take some time to recover from those transfers.

penn state gets iowa tonight by the way. good luck with that. they're a decent matchup for iowa since both teams can score but don't really play defense. i don't think caitlin clark is going to let this one get away though.

3. the league is better top to bottom. for a while it was us, delaware, and towson. maybe charleston gets thrown in there. i don't think there's a clear favorite despite stony brook's gaudy record. they're big things...but the only things some of these teams have over us is size and athleticism. we're capable of playing smarter basketball. that's what we're starting to do.

that and hit some shots.

We knew this was going to be really tough this year. We were bad on offense last year with a stellar player, without her we knew there would be scoring issues. We talked about our concern during the season last year too. But these last 2 games have given me hope we are turning a corner. It looked bleak much of the year still. But handling Stony Brook before a massive collapse and then beating A&T on the road, tells me we are finally figuring some things out. We are by no means some powerhouse again this season, but every game there is going to be a chance at victory. Our defense has been there from the jump, so its nice to see some scoring happen now to complement it. We will be a tough out for anyone.

Here's the recap of Drexel's 3 games vs. Delaware this year:
Game 1: Delaware leads 47-44 with 6:29 left. Drexel ends game on 9-2 run and 53-49 win.
Game 2: Delaware leads 57-47 with 8:35 left. Drexel ends game on 14-2 run and 61-59 win
Game 3: Delaware leads 53-48 with 3:36 left. Drexel ends game on 9-0 run before Delaware scores 2 in final second. Drexel wins 57-55.

Stony Brook's coach heading to Tulane (her alma mater).