I tuned in at halftime and saw we were up 60-25. When the teams came out for the 3rd quarter, I saw us in the dark uniforms and wondered why. Then the score came up and I saw Oklahoma was seeded #4 and we're #5. Imagine playing at home as a #4 seed and being beaten like that.
Irish Women's 2023 recruit, KK Bransford of Cincinnati Mount St. Mary's was named Ohio Div 1 Player of the year. Speculation is that she will also be named Miss Ohio Basketball.
Irish Hockey beats North Dakota in OT to move on to the Regional Final in Albany vs Minn State. Baseball is home for Va.Tech this weekend. I see that Softball is playing double header today and hoping to get the Sat game in due to weather. No such schedule changes for Baseball, yet.
Nasty weather up north. I went to a HS Lacrosse game Wednesday evening. When I left the house it was 60. By the time I got there it was 50s and dropping, and the wind was blowing hard. It hasn't gotten any better and will be worse over the weekend. Low 40s in the Indy area and possible flurries.
Impressive display of sloppy, stupid basketball by the ladies in the closing minutes today. Pretty bad 24 hrs. for the Ivey family.
I didn't get to watch the game, but judging by what you and others said it was there for us, but we couldn't finish off the game. I will say that I really enjoyed the ladies this season, didn't actually expect to win today as NC State is a really good team and more mature than we are. I look forward to next season to see the growth of our two freshmen, Citron and Miles along with Maddy Westbeld and maybe a fully healthy all season from Sam Brunelle and then add in another super frosh in KK Bradford and maybe the return of Maya Dodson if the NCAA allows it along with Dara Mabry. None of that is of course any guarantee that we will be final four capable team but we would be a really good team that could be great. There is a lot of criticism of Niele Ivey as a game day coach, I am not a fan who really understands the game enough to criticize game strategy so I don't know if she's in over her head as a HC or not. Time will tell, she needs of course to recruit well and develop the Players. One thing that it's obvious is that we need some size on the front line. I look forward to next year.
I'll recap for you. After playing a smart, sharp 3 1/2 quarters the ladies in the final 5 or 6 min. did the following: trailing by 8-10 pts. NC State started to pressure all over the floor. We threw the ball into play near our basket and our player dribbled into the corner where she was trapped by 2 defenders and turned the ball over. That was followed by a lackadaisical cross court pass that was deflected and turned into 2 easy points. Shortly thereafter, our player didn't shield the ball with her body while dribbling and got picked clean which led to another easy 2 points. Finally with less than 2 min. and a slight lead, we wasted too much time and were called for a shot clock violation. We struggled to throw the ball in time and again. We have no set plays and do not set picks to get someone open for a pass. It was a disaster.
That's consistent with the criticisms that I see on the Womens Basketball board. I will say that after having watched a lot of their games this year they have been prone to sloppy ball handling all year long and have also struggled with the press. We had an excellent year in general but there has been an undercurrent of criticism of Ivey's game management. Also, more than a few were a bit upset that she flew to San Antonio to watch her son rather than be with her team. Now truthfully to me it's more of a perception thing, rather than she didn't spend the proper time with the team preparing them, but not everybody agrees with that.
As far as her attending her son's game, I think that the criticism is unwarranted. For 35 min. her team played good winning basketball. Breaking a press is something that has to be practiced weekly during the season. It's hard for me to believe that someone who played guard doesn't appreciate that importance of ball movement. Ivey has put together a very talented team. Yesterday was part of her learning and development. I expect to see better play under pressure in the future.
Looking at the stats, we out shot them over all 50% to 41% and it was a push on the 3 pt line, but they got to the FT line 14 times and made 11 while we only got to the line 5 times making 4. Also I see that Maya Dodson only played 24 minutes which means she got into early foul trouble and that no doubt lead to their excellent Off Rebounds ...they got 13 to our 5, that's a lot of second chances. But stats are for losers. Bottom line they outplayed us at the end. I hope they go on and beat UConn and make the final four and go all the way.
As frustrated as I was with how the game ended, I recognized that NCS is a truly outstanding and vastly more experienced team, the kind of team we aspire to be, and that we are young and growing. NCS's experience and superior - yes, superior at this point in time - talent enabled them to pull out the win at the end. In many respects, we overachieved this season despite losing games via rookie mistakes. The mistakes that led to this loss and others are correctable with experience and coaching. We have superior talent with, as Terry pointed out, more on the way. They'll improve and develop into the kind of team that NCS is this year. The trolls disguised as fans need to handle this reality and learn to relax and wait vs. wanting it all now. Likely won't happen but thought I'd suggest it anyway.
NC State tried to get the ball inside to their taller players. They missed a number of layups and got the rebound. That explains why we had as many fouls and they had a number of rebounds. However we had the game well in hand as I already mentioned until we started coughing up the ball. They had 7 more steals than we had and we turned it over 6 times more than the did. In the end, it's what cost us.
Irish Hockey lost to Minnesota State 1-0, no frozen four. A good season but not great season. Irish Fencing won the National Team Championship, their 12th and 2nd straight. One of the women also won an individual National Championship.
Relating to the weekend conversation about ND Women's BB. I don't believe a ND fan, no matter how upset, would do this. Could be a gambler who lost a bet or just a crazy person, but it's horrible. This is a tweet from Olivia Miles:
Big event in recruiting... Dante Moore the 5 star QB from Michigan. He's the Irish key recruit in the 2023 class. Arrived on campus, it's a big visit and no doubt the red carpet is out If he verbals it will have a big impact on the WR recruiting as well. He of course has offers from a lot of programs.
Freshman RB Jadarian Price is making quite a splash so far this Spring. It might be hard to keep him out of the lineup.
Sam Brunelle, Anaya Peoples, and Abby Prohaska are entering the transfer portal. Brunelle has two years eligibility left. Injuries hindered her PT and her development..