#14 Drexel vs. #3 Georgia - Monday at Noon on ESPN2
https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...ms-bracket
ESPN ranked the teams from 1-64 and ranks Drexel at 50. They give their best case and worst case scenarios for the tournament and even in the best case scenario, Drexel still loses.
Quote:50. Drexel Dragons
Best case: Junior guard Keishana Washington continues her torrid pace and puts up a third straight 30-point game. With two minutes left, she has the ball in her hands with a chance to tie. The Dragons come up short, but the effort sets Washington up for some national preseason recognition next fall.
Worst case: One of the worst rebounding teams in the country (only 10 teams grab fewer defense rebounds than Drexel), the Dragons' lack of size is immediately exposed, and they have no answer.
Their size and defense is a problem. We will have to win by "uglying" this game up. Nihill being a pest will be crucial to deflect balls and force turnovers. Turning them over and creating easy baskets as a result is our only shot. We are not going to outscore them or out offense them and definitely not outrebound them. But make them work hard for every basket and limit offensive rebounds (sound familiar to the Delaware game?). That is what we will need. Cant miss bunnies either. We got away with far too many in CAA play, cant miss opportunities in this one. My gut says this one gets out of hand quicker than the mens game
(03-16-2021 02:06 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]My gut says this one gets out of hand quicker than the mens game
I certainly hope not!
(03-19-2021 03:50 PM)Zorch Wrote: [ -> ] (03-16-2021 02:06 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]My gut says this one gets out of hand quicker than the mens game
I certainly hope not!
The mens game was close until the final 4 minutes of the half. If this team is still competitive after 16 minutes, id be absolutely delighted.
i gave up on them at halftime against ud and jmu because of our lack of size. we found a way. georgia is likely a different animal and washington won't sneak up on them. we've found a way to negate our lack of size with our pressure defense that's also creating offense. hopefully that can win out on monday.
i was looking back through some old pictures and came across the drexel-towson caa championship game. when i found some photos of nihill...it reminded me of her limited minutes in that game and how i was confused by that. she only played 9 minutes.
seeing what nihill meant for us this year in particular and in the second half of the championship game makes that seem even more confusing. she had no fouls so that wasn't the reason. hendrixson came off the bench to hit 3 three in one of her better games. other players like washington, greenberg, and brown struggled.
i guess i'm just trying to make a point that coach mallon was wise to put the team on nihill's shoulders this year. there were times when i was a little confused/disappointed by coach dillon's rotations (great as she was/is). we overachieved for the first time this year after a series of bad losses where i think we underachieved.
so my other point is maybe...under coach mallon...we have something under our sleeve to be competitive with georgia even without an overpowering player in the paint.
(03-20-2021 08:26 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote: [ -> ]i was looking back through some old pictures and came across the drexel-towson caa championship game. when i found some photos of nihill...it reminded me of her limited minutes in that game and how i was confused by that. she only played 9 minutes.
seeing what nihill meant for us this year in particular and in the second half of the championship game makes that seem even more confusing. she had no fouls so that wasn't the reason. hendrixson came off the bench to hit 3 three in one of her better games. other players like washington, greenberg, and brown struggled.
i guess i'm just trying to make a point that coach mallon was wise to put the team on nihill's shoulders this year. there were times when i was a little confused/disappointed by coach dillon's rotations (great as she was/is). we overachieved for the first time this year after a series of bad losses where i think we underachieved.
so my other point is maybe...under coach mallon...we have something under our sleeve to be competitive with georgia even without an overpowering player in the paint.
I too remember Nihill not playing much in that game and was confused. I figured that Denise wanted more height in the lineup to counter Towson's size. But that ended up backfiring. But of course there's always something that we don't know about. Maybe she was sick or injured.
The year before, as a freshman, she lead Drexel to a furious comeback against Elon in the title game. Drexel was getting destroyed and she took the team on her back and got them to within 6 late in the game, and I remember the DAC going berserk.
Oh, and a little off topic with women's basketball.
WNIT updates. I guess Delaware was pissed off about losing to us, so they just regrouped in the WNIT and destroyed Fordham 77-49 and then beat Clemson from the ACC 87-74. Drexel lost to Fordham in a hard fought WNIT 2nd round matchup 3 years ago.
Meanwhile, Denise Dillon and Villanova beat UMASS and Florida (remember Denise and Drexel beating Florida at the DAC in 2013 to go to the WNIT Championship Game?)
So this sets up an intriguing Charlotte Regional Championship matchup between Dense and Nova vs. Denise's former rival, Delaware, with the winner going to the WNIT Final Four in Memphis on Monday.
Monday is going to be a crazy Women's Basketball watching day for me, as I plan to tune into this matchup.
In another example of lack of parity in WBB, yesterday the higher seeds won every game, while the #1 and #2 seeds had major blowouts. While I'm looking forward to watching Drexel play this afternoon, and UC Davis tonight for personal reasons, it's clear that the women's NCAA tournament lacks excitement compared to the men's tournament because your rarely see upsets.
There is a lack of talent in womens basketball. Only a few teams grab the talent. So it will always be difficult to have more parity. But the past few years have had better basketball with more upsets. This year is tough because many mids didnt get good OOC play to prepare them, and some of the traditional mid major powers were in down years.
Until more youth play and get good you will have struggles with this. In the mens game you can find size anywhere, with some talent. In womens its not there. At the highest level the teams are spitting out lineups all over 6', where your non powers (and even your low powers) struggle to have that type of game changing size. Its just a different game with its own challenges. That deep rooted lack of talent problem is not going to be fixed any time soon and may never get fixed
Interesting start at the first timeout. Georgia missing 2 starters and has a different starting 5 for the first time all year. They are clearly out of sync. Drexel forces 6 GA turnovers and no GA FG's. Drexel leads 8-2 early on.
Dragons lead 15-10 after 1Q. They came ready to play today, holding GA to 3 FG's and forced 8 GA turnovers in the 1st quarter.
Georgia's 6-4 start Staiti came into the game after the first timeout.
(03-19-2021 07:47 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ] (03-19-2021 03:50 PM)Zorch Wrote: [ -> ] (03-16-2021 02:06 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]My gut says this one gets out of hand quicker than the mens game
I certainly hope not!
The mens game was close until the final 4 minutes of the half. If this team is still competitive after 16 minutes, id be absolutely delighted.
It is not 16 minutes yet but after the first quarter Drexel looks good! What concerns me is the number of free throws Georgia is already shooting. I can see the refs fouling out the good Drexel players by the fourth quarter. Also, I think Drexel got cheated out of a point on a Washington jumper. It looked like she was beyond the arc. (It also looked like the same thing might have happened to Georgia on the last bucket of the quarter).
I have something to do so I'll tape the rest of the game and watch it later. Good luck!
Major scoring drought for Drexel. They got just 1 FG in the 2nd quarter and now trail 18-17. 2nd Quarter usually isn't a good quarter for them. They're still playing good defense and keeping themselves in the game.
Tied 25-25 at halftime. Drexel offense picked it up at the end of the half getting their FG% up to 40%. They have now forced 13 GA turnovers and Drexel defense has really caused GA some struggles.
GA leading on the boards 19-14 but Drexel does have 7 o-boards which they've been able to convert into points.
Our defense is exactly what we needed in this one to compete. 13 turnovers forced is awesome and we need to keep it ratcheted up. The first quarter score while dominating was alarming because e needed to be up more. However tied at half isnt a bad spot to be. Need to come out in the third quarter just like JMU and Delaware games. Our defense is doing exactly what it needed to so far.
Drexel now trailing 31-27.
I was noticing it throughout and the commentators noticed it too about how confusing the 3-point lines are. Usually the women's line is the inner line, but today it's the outer line. I think that has confused Drexel players into where to place their feet when making a shot. Drexel has a bunch of 2 point jump shots where they were setting up for 3.
We need to make some shots. Defense and rebounding doing their job
(03-22-2021 11:30 AM)Zorch Wrote: [ -> ] (03-19-2021 07:47 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ] (03-19-2021 03:50 PM)Zorch Wrote: [ -> ] (03-16-2021 02:06 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]My gut says this one gets out of hand quicker than the mens game
I certainly hope not!
The mens game was close until the final 4 minutes of the half. If this team is still competitive after 16 minutes, id be absolutely delighted.
It is not 16 minutes yet but after the first quarter Drexel looks good! What concerns me is the number of free throws Georgia is already shooting. I can see the refs fouling out the good Drexel players by the fourth quarter. Also, I think Drexel got cheated out of a point on a Washington jumper. It looked like she was beyond the arc. (It also looked like the same thing might have happened to Georgia on the last bucket of the quarter).
I have something to do so I'll tape the rest of the game and watch it later. Good luck!
It has to do with the fact that there's a women's line and a high school line, but no men's line. Strange because St. Mary's, TX has a men's team. It's definitely confusing the players.