Women's Team

historyman · November 17, 2014, 10:13:10 PM

Looks, smarts, athletic beyond comparison.......plays tennis and her high school uses the nickname Aces........how did she not end up at Stanford, Harvard, Northwestern, Valpo............

jack · November 18, 2014, 07:01:03 AM

Our job will be to contain and deny her, and force the others to beat us. We have the speed to keep up, and we need to keep throwing fresh legs at her.

bbtds · November 18, 2014, 07:41:27 AM

Quote from: jack on November 18, 2014, 07:01:03 AM
Our job will be to contain and deny her, and force the others to beat us. We have the speed to keep up, and we need to keep throwing fresh legs at her.

Can you get any fresher legs than Tyra has? I mean, honestly. Tyra sure is Banking on her future in the WNBA!

I'd never get tired of looking.......I mean I don't think Valpo will tire out Tyra.

Suddenly it's not that far to Bloomington.

jack · November 18, 2014, 09:18:34 AM

Sure. attack her by committee. Granted, she certainly has stamina, but we have some pretty quick guards that can run with her, and switch off when needed. It'll take more than her to get the W. We have to play smart, hit our bunnies, block out, and run our offense. Need to be smarter with the clock also. We rushed to many shots once we built a lead with Butler. With IU, the clock will be our friend I believe. We need to work it down and play offense. My guess is we will be facing a full court press a lot tonight. We need to be ready for it, and spread the floor for outlets. Buss is a great player, but we can't focus too much on that and not enough on what we need to do to beat this TEAM.

bbtds · November 18, 2014, 09:50:39 AM

Well, I'm all for Valpo keeping the momentum going and defeating IU by shutting down the marvel from Mt Carmel. Unfortunately I won't be in Bloomington by 7:00 p.m. tonight.

ARCInsider · November 18, 2014, 10:50:41 AM

Salivating over pictures of a high school girl competing in track and field? Umm...

jack · November 18, 2014, 02:02:33 PM

Quote from: bbtds on November 18, 2014, 09:50:39 AM
Well, I'm all for Valpo keeping the momentum going and defeating IU by shutting down the marvel from Mt Carmel. Unfortunately I won't be in Bloomington by 7:00 p.m. tonight.

I was able to parlay a late meeting down there with the game so I think I'll be able to catch the action. I'll fill you in on how it goes.

Valpo79 · November 18, 2014, 06:49:19 PM

It seems that we need to get some of the D2 players off the floor.

jack · November 19, 2014, 07:15:33 AM

Beating this IU squad was certainly a tall order, but I thought it would be a closer contest. Some of our girls looked a little "star struck" to start the game. The guards were doing a decent job containing Buss out on top, but when she did get buy our bigs weren't sliding over and picking her up. We made it too easy for her. There are certainly things we learned and need to work on. it was probably a good outing for our newbies to see what we will be up against this season. We will never be the bigger team so we have to figure out ways to get it done. I spent most of the night watching our inside game on offense and defense. I hope when the coaches watch this one they see the following.
Our footwork inside on both sides of the ball is horrendous. Our block out technique is terrible. many times we would get position, with our weight shifted to the foot farthest from the basket. it was way to easy to push us of the spot. On offense, we were missing inlet passes because our feet weren't planted and balanced. I would like to see a coach take the bigs and spend an entire practice working on footwork. It has to improve or we will not get any better.
Our guards were doing a good job of moving the ball, but our bigs out on top were telegraphing their passes, and when they were passing it in down low, they were getting the ball in at terrible angles to be able to do anything with it.
We just need to play smarter. We have some very young talent but it seems some are developing some bad habits.
Much to work on here. We can get it done though. Games like this are a learning experience for the entire team.

bbtds · November 19, 2014, 07:36:59 AM

The first year head coach sure did inherit a superior star player and complete team. Here are the highlights from IUHoosiers.com

http://www.iuhoosiers.com/sports/w-baskbl/recaps/111814aab.html

Well, see if this IU team commands the Big Ten. They certainly will be near the top.

LaPorteAveApostle · November 19, 2014, 11:24:34 AM

I think it's more a case of IU has greatly progressed, rather than we've regressed, since we last beat them.

Tyra Buss is going to be the next Skyler Diggins, not just athletically but culturally, I'll bet.

I know what you mean about it being weird about ogling a college girl, but it's still somehow less creepy to me than the guy who kept making comments about Coach Dorow.

valpo4life · November 20, 2014, 06:50:08 PM

Up 40-13 on NIU at the half. Miller with 13, Franklin with 10 and 8.

valpotx · November 20, 2014, 07:05:03 PM

I was just about to post that as well. These 'D2' players are beating the crap out of another D-1 school.

valpotx · November 20, 2014, 09:21:27 PM

Valpo wins 65-50, despite 20 turnovers, and only 5 for NIU!

valpo4life · November 20, 2014, 09:44:32 PM

11 of the 20 turnovers came from 2 players. 5 came from Carr along with no assists, as a senior PG you would figure outings like this were behind her but not tonight. Hopefully she can pick things back up after a slow start to the season compared to how she ended last season.

Either way it's nice to see the Women's team above .500 no matter what part of the year and with what appears to be a much improved offense and some winnable games coming up.

LaPorteAveApostle · November 20, 2014, 09:47:09 PM

I wish there were some easy way to track "games won by 15+ when losing turnover battle by 15+" except I somehow bet it would be this game only.

valpotx · November 20, 2014, 10:49:08 PM

It is a truly remarkable stat. Someone should find out...get that guy Elias on it!

vu72 · November 21, 2014, 07:03:36 AM

Why isn't Sharon Karungi playing?

valpo4life · November 21, 2014, 09:55:32 AM

She was riding the bike for the majority of the first half at the end of the bench. My guess would be some kind of nagging injury or maybe even sickness.

jack · November 21, 2014, 10:58:39 AM

Karungi went down with an injury in the IU game. It appeared to be a leg injury. The fact that she was riding a bike is a good sign.
The first half of last night's game went well. I think it'll take some time for the newbies to learn how to play with a nice lead. putting a team away when you have them on the ropes comes with experience.
The second half stats were a bit concerning. This game shouldn't have been this close. We got sloppy with the ball and all but quit playing defense the final 5 minutes. Probably some residual runover from the IU beatdown.
Carr didn't have one of her better games. I believe she ended with 6 pts., 5 turnovers, 0 assit., and 4 fouls. Some of the turnovers were lack of concentration. The assist were 0, but could have been 5 if the players she was getting the ball to could have finished. I follow the assist, but since they take 2 to complete, I don't put a bunch of stock in them for individual numbers. I felt she was getting the ball where she needed to at times. That's all the guards can do. I felt our guards played well overall. Our bigs need to position and clear out underneath and give them lanes to pass to.
The first half we defended about as good as we can I think.
It got ugly, but it was still a W. Like mentioned, we are 2-1, which we haven't seen in a while. Hopefully they can take the positives and build on them for tomorrow nights game.

valpopal · November 21, 2014, 12:06:46 PM

The team looked great in the first half last night, but struggled in the second half. In fact, it seemed that they were rattled as the score became close. As has been mentioned, there were far too many turnovers, but they overcame that with some good defense and excellent 3-pont shooting. Tomorrow's game will be difficult since the team hasn't had long to rest, especially if Karungi's ankle problem keeps her from playing again. Tennessee Tech beat Florida International by 17 but lost to Wake Forest by 17; Valpo is somewhere between the two. Therefore, the main question: Will we see the Crusaders' team from last night's first half or from the second half?

valpotx · November 22, 2014, 07:48:40 PM

Another solid first half so far against Tennessee Tech. We are shooting lights out from 3 this season, and I hope that it keeps up! We are up 48-34, on 10 of 18 shooting from 3!

LaPorteAveApostle · November 22, 2014, 08:18:21 PM

Speaking of great 3pt shooting...we were prominently featured on espnW highlights the other night after NIU.

(i know, i know)

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11912450&ex_cid=espnapi_public

Fast forward to 1:43--the last 50 seconds is all us.

vu72 · November 22, 2014, 08:54:34 PM

When you shoot 54% from the 3 you probably will win!

Nice win. Keep it going!!

valpo4life · November 22, 2014, 10:24:57 PM

Ask and ye shall receive. Carr with a much improved performance all around tonight which is what I believed to be one o,f it not the main factor in tonight's impressive showing. Tennessee Tech had a lot of athletes and some solid size on the court, they should be a quality team this year. Probably the best win this regime has had since it's win over IU on the opening game 2 years ago.