i want to say nice things every time i come on here. i really do. i come on here when i get a no show in my clinic (happens too often) or there's something a bit crazy going on and i need to put my brain somewhere else for a bit (also happens too often). i want this to be a positive experience where i say good things instead of questioning what the hell we're doing.

thanks to our women's basketball program...i'm going so say as many nice things as i can in the 5 minutes i have...and i have a lot of nice things to say. god bless them.

-the bench. i start out with this because the players on the bench never get any credit for what they do. instead of feeling sorry for themselves...they were up off the bench cheering for their teammates all weekend. there was no bad body language. momo and laine in particular could have felt sorry for themselves. that's as much a compliment to our culture as anything.

-grace o'neill. kept battling through her offensive struggles and ended up hitting some enormous shots including 2 free throws that sealed it. she is my daughter's favorite player. i talk about her more than just about any other player because of her hustle.

-brooke mullin. stopped trying to do too much...culminating in maybe her most complete game in the championship. played terrific defense and helped out down low with rebounding with everybody in foul trouble.

-amaris baker. did she miss that pull up mid range jump shot all weekend? she hardly missed any threes either. she's poy capable if she gets a little better finishing around the rim. we brought her in to score and that's exactly what she did.

-erin sweeney. she had 16 points! in a caa championship game! where did she come from? instead of burying her head in the sand when she wasn't playing...it's obvious she kept busting her butt and look what happened.

-hetta saatman. the weekend doesn't even get off the ground without her three point shooting. she found a way to contribute with her jump shot when it looked like she might leave drexel without reaching her potential. it's a shame she got in foul trouble because she was playing really tough defense yesterday.

-chloe hodges. game winning bucket to knock out towson. struggled at times even this weekend and just kept battling. clearly bought into what we do offensively and benefited from it.

-jasmine valentine. i'm so proud of her. i always felt like she could own the paint. we saw it this weekend. ignore the rebounding numbers. life was much more difficult for our opponents was jasmine was in there. she got us some big buckets too.

-assistant coaches. i'll be honest. i was disappointed earlier in the year when we weren't seeing our guards be pitbulls like nihill or stacy weiss (yes i'm old enough to remember her as a player), our bigs dominate like brugler, and our forwards scrap like bacon. they cleary kept after our players and turned everyone around. i don't know all the assistant but i'm sure they're terrific too.

-administration. greg cusick is the nicest guy. i'm not sure who was running the tickets but he was super nice and helpful all weekend. happy for maisha to be able to put this on her resume. hopefully she's motivated to put a few more titles on her resume. i believe she is.

-coach amy mallon. she didn't have to prove anything to anybody. i'll be honest again...i was worried about this program to start the year and especially when we struggled early. keishana washington is the drexel wbb goat with marginean and we all love her. we strayed away a bit from playing team basketball though. maybe we were spoiled by how good keishana was or wanted to give her every opportunity to develop into a pro. can't argue with that except i worried we had put ourselves in a bad position for this season and moving forward.

we got back to playing the way we have for the 20+ years i've been following the team. i never should have doubted coach mallon. she 100% has a special culture in the program. you can talk about having it...or you can actually have it. this says nothing of what an incredible basketball mind she is. she knows when her team is in trouble with a possession and calls time out to regroup. you can't say enough good things about the plays she draws up and how her team executes.

i just hope she stays. we've been so fortunate to have coach dillon (who was there yesterday) and now coach mallon. there was conversation on wip last night about how much the big 5 and men's programs throughout the northeast are struggling. at least part has to be lack of continuity with coaching. we've been blessed.

hope everyone enjoyed this. we earned it. i can't thank this team and the program enough for the memories.

Well said from all fronts. Easily the worst team in well over 15 years and we are still going dancing. We truly dont even know what it is like to not watch success on the women's side, and its wonderful. Hope everyone can make the trip to Austin

i was thinking at one point after the game where this team might rank all time in the program's history. never would have thought that would cross my mind this time last week. i didn't realize until i watched the stony brook coach's press conference last night that we hit 11 threes on sunday (11-19). she made a comment that somebody from above seemed to be dropping the ball in and she didn't think we shot that well all year. we shot just short of 60% from 3 for the game (averaged 30% this year) and 50% overall (averaged 40%) so she was right.

it might be one of the best games we've ever played...aside from the turnovers. i'm sure we're working on that this week. we tended to hesitate for just a split second and that was enough time for a defender to get on top of us. i heard somebody say during a game recently that you have to use the whole court against a press. makes sense...and we should look to attack for easy baskets instead of hesitating.

their coach said they missed shots they usually make. we challenged the three point line so well all weekend so it wasn't just a matter of missing shots. our rebounding didn't hurt us because teams we too dumb to right back up with it. stony brook in particular seemed to think a 3 was a better shot than a layup. i thought they might fall into that trap when they relied on the three against nc a&t...at least from what i saw on my phone on the metro. we were so aggressive in the paint though that...and i can't believe i'm saying this either...i'm not sure they wanted anything to do with us.

how about coach mallon massaging the foul trouble situation? we finished with i think 5 players at 4 fouls. none of them fouled out.

it was a masterpiece.

(03-19-2024 06:49 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  she made a comment that somebody from above seemed to be dropping the ball in

Thank you Hazem!!!!

i never had a chance to talk with him...but he was a great supporter. he was at every game. a fixture at drexel basketball games like calvin. we've lost too many of our best the last couple years with timer passing away as well. another dedicated women's basketball fan.

by the way...is calvin doing ok? i didn't see him at some of the games we went to.

(03-20-2024 06:35 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  i never had a chance to talk with him...but he was a great supporter. he was at every game. a fixture at drexel basketball games like calvin. we've lost too many of our best the last couple years with timer passing away as well. another dedicated women's basketball fan.

by the way...is calvin doing ok? i didn't see him at some of the games we went to.

He's been at most of the men's games late in the season as I recall. I don't know what's going on. And between some of our friends passing away and leaving for other positions, I don't have the inside connections to the program that I once had.

nevermind. i need to learn how to read.