In the pregame show Coach Fen was asked how he planned to give his halftime speech (a la Drake) in the pregame. He must have done it as the ladies came out guns blazing. They were led by Belanger who was firing from deep and helped the ladies crawl out to a double digit lead. As expected Southern fought back, but the another important aspect of the game - defense - played a part in the Sisters separating themselves from their visitors. Even though Southern made a few baskets early they were held to about 35% shooting for the first half as the sisters worked their way to a 46-24 halftime lead.
The ladies found something else to learn in the second stanza. Teams can come back on you if you stop playing with the same offensive intensity. Southern would play an even 12-12 third quarter as the Sisters' offense went missing in action. They even outscored the sisters in the fourth 24-20. Twice Southern would claw back to only 13 points down. But in both cases the Sisters would do just enough to stretch the lead back to 15-18 points. In the end it was just a wee bit too much Cyclone defense and offense as the ladies came away with win two of the season, 78-60.
Observations
I kept in mind that Southern won their conference last year and in their previous game had Miami beat before folding in the last couple of minutes in a close loss. This was an experienced team who can take advantage of freshmen mistakes...and they did.
MVP of the game? It was a toss up as Crooks was pretty much unstoppable down low. The only person who could stop her was herself as she traveled a couple of times. Otherwise, she showed her great hands and soft touch in scoring 16 points and grabbing 6 boards in only 17 minutes of playing time. The other option? Kelsey Joens. I just keep referring to her as the gym rat for a lack of a better moniker right now. She was everywhere tonight. She guarded quite well on defense. She grabbed 9 boards (it seemed like twice that), had nine points, five assists, and three treys. She was constantly on the move. I'm VERY impressed with what I saw in her.
The posts - I've covered Crooks, but what about Natabou? She's big and moves pretty well, but what I've seen of her so far is she's not a huge scoring threat yet. Rebounding she had the propensity to jump and tap balls rather than grab them. Those taps often turned the ball back to the other team. I suspect her struggles were why she got more playing time tonight. Time to keep working on things.
The point - We really need our senior. The newcomers at times did quite well bringing the ball up, but often struggled to make things happen on the offensive end. That's a weird statement considering the 25 assists on 30 baskets. There were times they did too much dribbling (we've seen that even from Ryan at times) and they sometimes didn't get the screen help they needed to break things open. This is just a developmental thing and I'm sure it will improve. The player I was looking forward to seeing "live" tonight was Jackson and she definitely suffered from dribilitis at times. Her big thing is she has to develop her shot.
Belanger - she had the hot hand early and hit 4-8 from deep and totaled 14 points. She had a triple-triple with 3 boards, 3 assists and 3 turnovers. She's not afraid to put the ball up and I'll take 50% from deep any day of the week.
Brown - I really like her. I've said it before, but she reminds me of Pop at times. She works hard and gets things done underneath. She is actually much further along offensively than Pop was as a freshman (I remember Pop struggled mightily at the FT line then). She hustles, battles, and as Coach Fen said, "does what she is asked to do." Thirty-three minutes, 18 points and 6 assists is a darned good night regardless of who you are playing.
Diew - I told my wife during the game that Diew is either crazy good or a bit spazmatic on the court. Tonight we saw some solid D, but offensively she was just off. Some shots she was a bit impatient in setting her body up square.
Bristow - She looks like she is still finding her way (gee...who isn't on a freshman dominated team) and doesn't appear as comfortable at this level as she will be. Definitely athletic and you can tell the skills are there. I think she's just going to take some time before we see her bloom.
It was fun to see Dawkins get some minutes tonight. She actually looked pretty confident out there and did some good things. Handled the ball well and acquitted herself quite well.
Defense - Overall, I was quite pleased with what I saw tonight. After a missed shot and defensive rebound the ladies got back on D quickly and did a very good job of switching off through screens. There are always a few misses, but they did a solid job defending and that led to a 46-28 rebounding margin.
Shooting from deep - hot in the first half for sure (57% 8/14) and a very tepid second half (3/16). Much of that were misses by folks who normally won't be taking those shots. Diew was cold and Jackson has to put some time in to get that shot to fall.
Probably the only real negative in this game were the 17 turnovers. Many weren't forced as we had a few 3 second violations and a couple of half court violations. Fennelly teams don't consistently do that and I'm sure it will improve with experience (a common phrase).
In the second half I caught myself wondering things like "why isn't Crooks in there?" or "why is Joens on the bench?" Then I had to remind myself that Coach Fen is trying to work with different combos of players to see how the game flows with them. What happens if one of the frosh gets into foul trouble? Who can step in and pick up the slack? So, we saw some odd combos tonight that didn't work real well together and Southern benefited from that.
Overall, I see bright things in the future. We will definitely take our lumps in some games mainly due to in-experience. But wow...there is some very real talent on this team and when they mature and increase their cohesion...it's going to be fun. I was asking questions about Ryan and Diew and if they will take super senior seasons? What will things be like when Tanke joins this group? Is there another post in the recruiting bin in a year or two? Such fun things to think about. But in the mean time, we are in for a fun ride watching this team willingly tackle making ISU women's basketball a team not to overlook.
Next up - some really tough challenges in Las Vegas over the holiday. Game one is against Vanderbilt who is 5-0 with some surprisingly close games against lesser teams (2 point win v UT Martin, 3 point win against Fairfield, and a 3 point win against Western Kentucky - the last two have only lost to Vandy). The second game is against Syracuse who stands at 3-1 with only a 2 point loss to Maryland on their record. All of their other games have been major blowouts. As always...we learn more about this developing team this week!
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