And UT takes a timeout. Apparently had trouble getting the ball inbounds

Foul sends Santucci to the line

First one good

Second one good. 78-71 UT

Now do NOT foul

Southern scores to make it 78-73 UT. Southern takes a timeout.

Jim says there's 16.8 left

Foul sends Boyd to the line

First one good

Second one no good. 79-73 UT

Southern gets a 3 and takes a timeout with 6.6 left. Rockets lead 79-76

Foul sends Santucci to the line with 3 seconds to go

First one good

Second one good. 81-76 UT

Southern misses and that ends it. Rockets win 81-76

Game story from the UT site. Four Rockets in double figures.

http://www.utrockets.com/news/2017/12/18...ath=wbball

Yikes. Southern is winless against D1, and hasn't scored anywhere near that many points in most of their games. Wasn't a pleasant trip to Miami. One more warmup against another winless Detroit team before MAC play.

Agreed, northcoast, it was not a win to give comfort as we look near the conference season. Happy to see Rokkanen get serious minutes and shoot well. Once again Beacham's numbers were excellent in limited minutes. She is head and shoulders better than Woody and St. Fort in scoring and rebounding. Remember Rasmussen starting as a freshman and scoring 19 against Purdue? What a mystery her career has been. Excellent to see Jay-Ann back after she missed the second half yesterday with an injury.

Maybe we can chalk the rough weekend up to Cunningham's absence. At least in part? The team went through a rough patch last year as well before recovering near the end of the regular season.

Duquesne beat Central Michigan yesterday, and Western Kentucky has had a good year so far, so it's fair to say that the Rockets don't have a bad loss yet.

Skimmed through the 1st half on replay. Don't think I will watch the 2nd. Rockets shot well, especially from 3, which is good. Not as many turnovers, but those that they had were the silly variety still. Southern pressed the whole half, which didn't cause much of a problem, but did slow down the Rockets a lot. St-Fort drained a straight up 15 foot jumper. Boy, if she could do that 2-3 times a game that would open up a lot of offense.

On D, UT tried out a 2-3 zone for much of the half. I think that's the 1st time they've done that this year. Good to experiment with something like that in a game like this, but it wasn't pretty. Several players getting lost often leading to open shots. And, it just made the poor rebounding look worse. Live stats is stuck early in Q3, so can't see the final stats, but at that point Southern was winning the rebounding battle 26-16 - and Southern is a pretty small team. It didn't help when the refs called a foul on Jay-Ann for the 1 real good block-out I have seen a Rocket make the past several games.

Still trying to figure out where the team that completely dominated Dayton went. That team still has to be there somewhere. Hopefully, it will reemerge during MAC play.

IMO this was a good win. First, Southern shot lights out (57% FGs) and over 50% for 3PTs. Their 3PT success was in part due to some open looks but they also made several which were 2-3 feet beyond the arc. Second, when Southern took the lead for the first time in the 4th Period they were playing well and had the momentum. It was looking bleak for the rockets but they sucked it up and played well thereafter. Third, Rokkanen made her 14pts by shooting well (5 for 9). Fourth, Beacham was the best player on the floor during her short stretch in the second half. During ~4 minutes she was 3 for 5 for 6 points and had 3 rebounds (leader for the team for the entire game only had 4 rbds), and 1 steal. Finally, Boyd and Santucci each made 2 FTs in the final 25 seconds to put the game out of reach. They didn't play well in the first half but scored 45 points in the second half and reduced their turnovers which are almost always a problem.

(12-18-2017 06:46 PM)Dwight Wrote:  Agreed, northcoast, it was not a win to give comfort as we look near the conference season. Happy to see Rokkanen get serious minutes and shoot well. Once again Beacham's numbers were excellent in limited minutes. She is head and shoulders better than Woody and St. Fort in scoring and rebounding. Remember Rasmussen starting as a freshman and scoring 19 against Purdue? What a mystery her career has been. Excellent to see Jay-Ann back after she missed the second half yesterday with an injury.

Maybe we can chalk the rough weekend up to Cunningham's absence. At least in part? The team went through a rough patch last year as well before recovering near the end of the regular season.

Duquesne beat Central Michigan yesterday, and Western Kentucky has had a good year so far, so it's fair to say that the Rockets don't have a bad loss yet.

Good questions. Losing Cunningham could have a big effect on both offense and defense, but the coach taught her a life's lesson. The difference between Rasmussen her freshman year is how she is being used. Her freshman year she played the four and three spot facing the basket. Staring her sophomore year, the coaches moved her inside to play with her back to the basket. That is a tough transition for any player. The good new is that the competition has been good during the preconference part of the season. I am like you, I look for a pick up when the conference starts.