The Lady Dukes are at the start of a three game road swing over the next two weekends with the opening game against Elon tomorrow night at the Schar Center at Elon. The Dukes are on an 8 game winning streak and beat Elon at the Convo in late January by a score of 82-30. Elon is struggling this year after losing several key starters from last years CAA Tournament winning team. They are a very young team but are well coached by Charlotte Smith. Should be a good game.
Wife and I will be heading there for the game tomorrow and will also be visiting the older daughter (2010) who lives in Raleigh. We had planned on going to ECU on Saturday to take in the Dukes Softball team but those games have been cancelled due to projected rain. Sunday we will head to Williamsburg for the game before heading home. Dukes then are off until the following Sunday when they face Towson at SECU Arena.
Brian
I definitely do not expect a blowout this time around. I am sure that game left a horrendous taste in the mouths' of the Elon WBB. I expect the Dukes to win, but for Elon to play a much better ball game (could they play any worse than last time?). They beat CoC by 20 points in Charleston and lost by W&M at home by 5 in their past two games. I expect the Dukes to win by 15.
JMU 60
Elon 45
At the hotel in Raleigh getting ready to head out and pick up the older daughter at her place of employ and then head over to Elon. Hope to see some purple clad fans tonight!!
Go Dukes!!
Brian
Cheer loudly!! I will be watching from home. Still on the fence about making the trip to W'burg on Sunday......
Good Gals taking no prisoners down in Elon tonight. Up by 20 with 6' left 1st half.
On pace to break triple digits.
Dukes lead 42-23 at the half.
Good Gals up by 29 thru 3Q, 63-34.
Barrier takes an inadvertent shot to the nose. Blood spilling everywhere. Dukes up by 31 with 9' left in the game. Not sure why starters (also including Merritt and Reynolds) are even in the game at this point. (and, Small is inserted in for Barrier)
That's one thing that has upset me throughout the year. There have been numerous blowouts where the starters seem to play later than I think they would. It seems to be a missed opportunity for valuable experience, but it's hard to argue with a 21-4 record. Perhaps Coach O is leaving them in to give the starters experience closing out games? The losses against Hampton and Wake Forest maybe stung a bit too deep?
Good Gals win, but drop 2 spots in the RPI (now at #39). SOS takes a hit with Elon stinking so badly this year. Likely won't get any SOS help with the game at W&M tomorrow. Tribe is #171 in RPI.
But, all that matters at this point is to control what our ladies can control. IOW, just win babyyyyyy!
Nice win. And y'all need to stop second guessing Coach O. He KNOWS what he's doing. And BTW, NOBODY played more than 28 minutes, and that was Kayla and Jackie. RPI is cr@p but it's what there is. We can't help what's there. Just deal with it. I sure wish the dang committee would adopt something else.
My interest in games like this is in watching the back bench when they do get in. Eleanore had an off night shooting, but she does so many things defensively that don't make the stat sheet. So does Bellerand. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more of them next year.
Not looking forward to W&M Sunday. That is a team that can't get out of their own way, which makes them pretty hard to play. They have one good player (Boggs), one reasonably good one (Birdsong) and a bunch who would be bench riders somewhere else unless they got good coaching. We watched them play Towson last night and I have no idea how they won. I think it was just by getting in the way of everybody.
Had a great time Friday at the Schar center with the wife and older daughter. Great game by the Dukes in spite of the injury to Lexie. Hope she is OK and able to play at W&M tomorrow.
First visit to the Schar Center. Very nice facility. About 5K seats, all chairback seats. Two very large video boards at each end of the arena. Overall very nice setup. Concessions were kinda meh at best but overall a very nice facility.
Met NCCaryduke before the game and he sat with us and we talked the whole game. Nice to met him.
Heading to W&M tomorrow for the game. Hope to see some purple fans there tomorrow.
Brian
OTP - interesting to hear that no one played over 28 minutes. I guess it just felt like they were out there for longer. I do know that Coach O uses end of quarter/media timeouts to get his players efficient rest (max time on bench with min game minutes passed).
I read the stat sheets. You should too.
They are very instructive.