If you remember, OSU provided a solid opponent when we traveled to Stillwater. I looked for this game to be competitive. Upon arriving at Hilton, OSU looked to be very short handed as Gusters isn’t here. Apparently another injury. I’ve not seen so many Big 12 teams lose so many key players as we’ve seen this season.
Bristow again started and made some great hustle plays rebounding and going after loose balls. Our posts were a little out of sync with OSU collapsing on them immediately. Brown looked fully recovered from her illness and was getting it done inside and out scoring 7 of the team’s first 9 points. Free throws kept OSU in the game early as we kept fouling on drives. Meanwhile our offense stalled out and we made some really bad passes. Six turnovers alone in the first. OSU went on a 13-6 run after the sisters started out 9-0. Fortunately, Bristow would get a traditional three and the sisters lead 18-13 after one. A bit shaky after a fast start for sure.
The second quarter was like watching the keystone cops on both ends for a while. Neither team could make a shot. The sisters were a miserable 3-14 from deep at this point. There was no flow to the game on offense at all. After Belanger nailed a trey we gave up one of those wide open threes we’ve seen way too often over the past three games. Jackson answered with one of her own. Boy was it nice to see her making shots again. We followed with a shot clock violation. It’s either feast or famine. As with the past three games when the ladies do something good on offense they break down on defense. What was awesome was seeing Crooks demanding the ball and get on a roll. But OSU would hit a trey at the buzzer and it was 32-28 at the half. Only 3 turnovers that quarter, but lots of hits and misses.
The third started with Crooks missing a few close shots and OSU would score five straight to pull within one. OSU would then take the lead as Audi just watches a girl drive by her. Very strange non-reaction. Our offense was just sputtering at this point and the defense was up and down. Belanger would hit a trey to break a 36 all tie, but our defense would again leave OSU wide open for a tying three. This was just a struggle any way you look at it. Another wide open trey would actually put OSU in the lead 44-41. This is like a broken record on defense. After another miss we gave up yet another wide open three. At this moment OSU was just out-hustling ISU. Crooks scored again to cut the lead to three 44-47 to instigate a shift in the game dynamic. Ryan followed with a trey after some nice passing to give the sisters the lead once more 49-47. Ryan nailed another three and the sisters got a great defensive stop and at the end of three it was 52-47 ISU. Nice way to close it out on a 10-0 run.
The fourth started with an OSU bucket. But nice ball movement would result in an AJ trey. Brown would follow with a bucket. After a traditional three by OSU, AJ hits another trey and suddenly the lead was ten at 62-52. Ball movement is the name of the game at it impacted the offensive flow tremendously. Crooks was unstoppable and the ladies were finding her down low consistently. Interestingly, on offense OSU was playing five girls outside (no post) with our four trying to guard leaving Crooks in middle not guarding anyone. OSU would hit two treys in a row using this formula. With five minutes left ISU led 66-58. The game at this point was feed Audi and it worked again and again. As Audi said in the post game she enjoyed being guarded by a 5’6” player. The threes stopped falling for OSU and it was 72-60 with 2:42 to play. Brown makes a no look assist for another AJ trey. If you didn’t get to see this it left the Hilton crowd breathless. This pass all by itself is worth rewatching the game. As the game wound down, beautiful passing would net another Crooks bucket and a 78-65 lead. It became chew clock time with our main crew now on the bench. The ladies coast in to a hard fought 78-67 victory.
Observations
POG - most would think Audi on this one, but no…its Emily Ryan. After a truly miserable game at WVU, Ryan was a floor general tonight. She had nine points and nine boards and an astounding 14 assists. Yes, FOURTEEN.
Assists - how about 27 assists on 32 made shots? That’s a formula for success. That spells ball movement. This is the most critical stat of the game.
Turnovers - first quarter was an ugh with six. Second quarter down to three. How about ONE in the entire second half? I’ll take that.
Crooks - OK…POG #2. A career high 29 points as she was unstoppable for the most part inside. Add in 8 boards.
Brown - so I understand she was sick last week which would explain some things. Tonight she was our scoring in the first and then was quiet on offense for two quarters. And then she got going again. How about 14 points, 8 boards, 9 assists, one block, 2 steals and one turnover. Is she a point guard or a forward? Wow.
AJ - her offense makes a HUGE difference to this team. She was back on track tonight after battling a hand injury as she netted 12 points and 2 boards. Also did a great job handling the ball.
Bristow - Strangely we didn’t see much of her tonight. Started off with her usual hustle and then spent a lot of time on the bench. Three points a 2 boards.
Joens - Only nine minutes of play time. No points, boards or assists. We missed her production.
Belanger - the senior provided some real help hitting three treys, but missed seven attempts. They were big when she hit them though. Nine points total.
Natabou - I thought she played hard tonight. She struggles to score sometimes as she continues to put the ball up too hard. (she did have one pretty soft shot early!). She is starting to show a propensity to foul.
Diew - played some very good defense tonight, her offense is still MIA. One three point attempt which was an airball.
Rebounding - this team has out rebounded everyone so far this year. This time it was 40-33.
Why was the game so close? ISU practiced for one team (with Gusters in the middle) and had to play a five guard rotation instead. This really caused some problems. Add to it that OSU had two players hit some big threes that normally don’t happen. That’s basketball folks. OSU was very scrappy tonight and I was impressed. In the end, this was a big win to get off that nasty three game losing streak. KSU lost to OU by three tonight and that puts OU in first place in the conference. I’m so impressed with how good KSU has been since Lee went down. I did not expect it. So, the ladies have win #1 in the second half of the season. Saturday they play an 11 AM game against UCF. UCF has the top scorer in the conference and not much else. They are in last place with one win against lowly Houston. Should be a win, but the good ISU team needs to show up. I’m hoping what we saw in the fourth quarter tonight was a resurgence of the ISU team we know and love.
Bristow again started and made some great hustle plays rebounding and going after loose balls. Our posts were a little out of sync with OSU collapsing on them immediately. Brown looked fully recovered from her illness and was getting it done inside and out scoring 7 of the team’s first 9 points. Free throws kept OSU in the game early as we kept fouling on drives. Meanwhile our offense stalled out and we made some really bad passes. Six turnovers alone in the first. OSU went on a 13-6 run after the sisters started out 9-0. Fortunately, Bristow would get a traditional three and the sisters lead 18-13 after one. A bit shaky after a fast start for sure.
The second quarter was like watching the keystone cops on both ends for a while. Neither team could make a shot. The sisters were a miserable 3-14 from deep at this point. There was no flow to the game on offense at all. After Belanger nailed a trey we gave up one of those wide open threes we’ve seen way too often over the past three games. Jackson answered with one of her own. Boy was it nice to see her making shots again. We followed with a shot clock violation. It’s either feast or famine. As with the past three games when the ladies do something good on offense they break down on defense. What was awesome was seeing Crooks demanding the ball and get on a roll. But OSU would hit a trey at the buzzer and it was 32-28 at the half. Only 3 turnovers that quarter, but lots of hits and misses.
The third started with Crooks missing a few close shots and OSU would score five straight to pull within one. OSU would then take the lead as Audi just watches a girl drive by her. Very strange non-reaction. Our offense was just sputtering at this point and the defense was up and down. Belanger would hit a trey to break a 36 all tie, but our defense would again leave OSU wide open for a tying three. This was just a struggle any way you look at it. Another wide open trey would actually put OSU in the lead 44-41. This is like a broken record on defense. After another miss we gave up yet another wide open three. At this moment OSU was just out-hustling ISU. Crooks scored again to cut the lead to three 44-47 to instigate a shift in the game dynamic. Ryan followed with a trey after some nice passing to give the sisters the lead once more 49-47. Ryan nailed another three and the sisters got a great defensive stop and at the end of three it was 52-47 ISU. Nice way to close it out on a 10-0 run.
The fourth started with an OSU bucket. But nice ball movement would result in an AJ trey. Brown would follow with a bucket. After a traditional three by OSU, AJ hits another trey and suddenly the lead was ten at 62-52. Ball movement is the name of the game at it impacted the offensive flow tremendously. Crooks was unstoppable and the ladies were finding her down low consistently. Interestingly, on offense OSU was playing five girls outside (no post) with our four trying to guard leaving Crooks in middle not guarding anyone. OSU would hit two treys in a row using this formula. With five minutes left ISU led 66-58. The game at this point was feed Audi and it worked again and again. As Audi said in the post game she enjoyed being guarded by a 5’6” player. The threes stopped falling for OSU and it was 72-60 with 2:42 to play. Brown makes a no look assist for another AJ trey. If you didn’t get to see this it left the Hilton crowd breathless. This pass all by itself is worth rewatching the game. As the game wound down, beautiful passing would net another Crooks bucket and a 78-65 lead. It became chew clock time with our main crew now on the bench. The ladies coast in to a hard fought 78-67 victory.
Observations
POG - most would think Audi on this one, but no…its Emily Ryan. After a truly miserable game at WVU, Ryan was a floor general tonight. She had nine points and nine boards and an astounding 14 assists. Yes, FOURTEEN.
Assists - how about 27 assists on 32 made shots? That’s a formula for success. That spells ball movement. This is the most critical stat of the game.
Turnovers - first quarter was an ugh with six. Second quarter down to three. How about ONE in the entire second half? I’ll take that.
Crooks - OK…POG #2. A career high 29 points as she was unstoppable for the most part inside. Add in 8 boards.
Brown - so I understand she was sick last week which would explain some things. Tonight she was our scoring in the first and then was quiet on offense for two quarters. And then she got going again. How about 14 points, 8 boards, 9 assists, one block, 2 steals and one turnover. Is she a point guard or a forward? Wow.
AJ - her offense makes a HUGE difference to this team. She was back on track tonight after battling a hand injury as she netted 12 points and 2 boards. Also did a great job handling the ball.
Bristow - Strangely we didn’t see much of her tonight. Started off with her usual hustle and then spent a lot of time on the bench. Three points a 2 boards.
Joens - Only nine minutes of play time. No points, boards or assists. We missed her production.
Belanger - the senior provided some real help hitting three treys, but missed seven attempts. They were big when she hit them though. Nine points total.
Natabou - I thought she played hard tonight. She struggles to score sometimes as she continues to put the ball up too hard. (she did have one pretty soft shot early!). She is starting to show a propensity to foul.
Diew - played some very good defense tonight, her offense is still MIA. One three point attempt which was an airball.
Rebounding - this team has out rebounded everyone so far this year. This time it was 40-33.
Why was the game so close? ISU practiced for one team (with Gusters in the middle) and had to play a five guard rotation instead. This really caused some problems. Add to it that OSU had two players hit some big threes that normally don’t happen. That’s basketball folks. OSU was very scrappy tonight and I was impressed. In the end, this was a big win to get off that nasty three game losing streak. KSU lost to OU by three tonight and that puts OU in first place in the conference. I’m so impressed with how good KSU has been since Lee went down. I did not expect it. So, the ladies have win #1 in the second half of the season. Saturday they play an 11 AM game against UCF. UCF has the top scorer in the conference and not much else. They are in last place with one win against lowly Houston. Should be a win, but the good ISU team needs to show up. I’m hoping what we saw in the fourth quarter tonight was a resurgence of the ISU team we know and love.
