Veteran Mercer Coach Susie Gardner has done the best job of coaching in the Women’s SoCon this year. By far.

She lost 4 of her top 5 players to graduation. She returned only 3 sophomores (Kahlia Lawrence, Sydni Means and Alex Williams). Only 2 of her returning players logged more than 6.2 minutes per game last year.

But she added 4 freshmen (Linnea Rosendal, Keke Calloway, Rachel Self and Amanda Thompson) to those 3 sophomores for a 7 person rotation made up entirely of freshmen and sophomores. Heck, her top 10 players are entirely freshmen and sophomores.

Yet she has taken this inexperienced crew to the top of the SoCon (9-1 and 19-6 overall).

And their only SoCon loss this year has come at the hands of none other than the Lady Bucs, who beat them at home in Macon 55-53 on a last minute score by Tianna Tartar! Easily the Lady Bucs biggest conference win.

The rematch at Brooks Gym tonight should be one of the best women’s games in the SoCon this year.

The Lady Bucs have been awfully uneven this year. They can look great one game (or even one quarter) and awful the next. All evidence of their Iona game should be buried at the bottom of a New Jersey landfill with the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. But they are 8-3 in conference and have a decent chance for a second place seed in the SoCon tournament. They have been keeping the games close and winning the close ones, the last 5 in a row.

The team depends so much on Tianna and Shamauria Bridges that conference teams heavily overplay them on the perimeter, causing a marked drop in 3 point shooting percentage and a smaller drop in overall scoring for them in conference play. Lady Buc rebounding hasn’t been bad (plus 2.9) but the Bucs front court just doesn’t have the ability to score off those rebounds that last year’s team with Serena Clark, Destiny Mitchell and Maria Bond did.

But this ought to be a great opportunity to see the Bucs against a strong conference opponent. If they play focused and intense the whole way, there’s no reason that they shouldn’t win again. Couple that with a win against Samford and they can help UTC to the top of the conference and wind up in the other bracket themselves, probably the optimal result for the Lady Bucs. UTC is the toughest matchup for them, and they don’t want to see the Mocs till the finals.

I'll be there! Mercer is going to be looking for revenge big time.

Tough game, but the ladies do feed off the crowd energy, so a big home crowd can help a lot. Home record is 10-1.

I'll give props to Susie Gardner. She's a much classier coach than Bob. I've been super impressed with Mercer ladies this year. I was so happy for them killing UTC's streak. However, now it is time for the Bucs to welcome them to Brooks, but send them home with another loss.

(02-18-2016 12:06 PM)queenladybug817 Wrote:  I'll give props to Susie Gardner. She's a much classier coach than Bob.

You've got that right! With Gardner you get the coaching chops minus the obnoxious bush league behavior.

Didn't get to see this one - but, talk about uneven play. The Lady Bucs won the middle 2 quarters by a point, but got trashed in the 1st and 4th, playing an especially weak 4th quarter where they scored a grand total of four (4) points!!!

Won't win many games playing like that.

Coach Ezell has asked repeatedly not to refer to the team as the Lady Bucs. Hard habit for me to break.

Why not the Lady Bucs? Last year in an interview she said that she didnt have a preference.

(02-21-2016 08:45 AM)CaptainJackAubrey Wrote:  Coach Ezell has asked repeatedly not to refer to the team as the Lady Bucs. Hard habit for me to break.

I've never heard that. What is her reason? I thought it was a polite term like gentleman. Like the "first lady".

I think she's a fabulous coach and a classy lady. Is lady offensive for some reason?

At the game yesterday, there were plenty of people around me yelling things like "lets go ladies".

(02-21-2016 08:45 AM)CaptainJackAubrey Wrote:  Coach Ezell has asked repeatedly not to refer to the team as the Lady Bucs. Hard habit for me to break.

So when has she repeatedly asked this ?

(02-21-2016 03:30 PM)Bucc18 Wrote:  

(02-21-2016 08:45 AM)CaptainJackAubrey Wrote:  Coach Ezell has asked repeatedly not to refer to the team as the Lady Bucs. Hard habit for me to break.

So when has she repeatedly asked this ?

Here and Here, via Twitter.

She does, however RT folks who refer to the Lady Bucs.

Funny, on the Monster, they play small sound bites of her saying "you're listening to 640, WXSM, home of the LADY Bucs"