I check in here every once in awhile; have seen several games but haven't had time to write about them.  And due to snow or getting a cold or both I haven't been able to get out and see UPS in person, frustratingly I've only seen them on the video broadcasts.  Clearly a very impressive recruiting and development job that Loree Payne has done.  Emily Sheldon was basically impossible to replace, but as you say, the Loggers have in addition to last year's freshman sensation Jackson two more frosh sensations this year.  They are a tough team this year; losing do-everything senior Noren after this season will hurt but their up-and-coming players look sensational.  Noren's the only senior playing major minutes so UPS looks tough for both the present and the future.

Whitman's been less surprising; they were expected to be a good team and are, though a step down from UPS.  They had a hiccup with two losses in a row and their victory at George Fox was closer than the score would indicate.  Michelle Ferenz seemed to do some experimenting with her starting line-up, benching both McGarity and Poe for the George Fox game in favor of first-years Makana Stone and Mady Burdett.  That may have helped in Stone's case; she looks like another Hailey Ann Maeda, slightly undersized but a significant inside presence.  Burdett though seems slower, shorter, and less of a playmaker than Poe, who returned to the starting lineup.

Aside from UPS shaking off the loss of Sheldon with brilliant young players, the other intriguing question to me has been George Fox.  The loss of seniors Benner, Naluai, and Blizzard was clearly going to hurt them but they always have a corps of young talent so the question is how good they are and how quickly they will develop.  I think we're seeing that they're good enough that the team deserves a tournament slot but they are looking distinctly like the third best team in the NWC.  Frost still looks to me like the fastest player in the conference and a tremendous ball-hawk, but hasn't developed into a big scorer or finisher.  Kaycee Creech to my eyes has been mainly a defensive player but she has developed her offensive game to the point that she's third on the team in scoring.  Looking at the young players, freshman Emily Spencer went to the same high school as Frost and shares her ability to get massive numbers of steals. George Fox has a veritable army of young tallish promising-looking forwards or wings including Hailey, Haley, Haylee, and Bailey: Hailey Hartney did a significant amount of ballhandling against Whitworth, perhaps hinting that she might have a future as a tall point guard reminiscent of a former Bruin PG named Hayley:  5'10" Cusick.  But against the tougher Whitman defense Hartney did less ballhandling.  A promising-looking shorter player is freshman Kylin Collman; she reminds me of Whitman's Alysse Ketner as a freshman:  both are unafraid to shoot from long range and equally unafraid to drive among the taller players.

Also intriguing has been Lewis and Clark, who've had some tough seasons since the days of Kristina Williams and company.  Well Kristina's back (as an assistant coach to new head coach Pam Findlay) and Lewis and Clark has been showing signs of a renaissance.  They upset Whitman and took George Fox to overtime.   They're a team that seems to have only one all-conference level player in Afolabi (I thought Leith might get to that level but she seems more to be a solid starter but not all-conference) and some decent support from Anderson and Hogman.  I think their improvement has mainly come from Deja Nicholas, who was a transfer last year but played little, and who this year has added speed and the ability to attack on the dribble to the Pio's offense, and some decent play from some of their big people especially Lauren Wood and Rachel Cox.  Janessa Willie shows signs of developing nicely her second year; I don't even recall what she did last year but this year she's started a few games and provides both an outside shooting threat and the ability to drive.

Their record reflects what I think is their standing as clearly the fourth best team in the conference.  Their future looks more cloudy than the other top teams' though because their best player and their sparkplug, Afolabi and Nicholas, are both seniors.

Their overtime loss to George Fox was one of the most exciting NWC games that I've yet seen.  They'd trailed by as many as 20 points and were down by 8 points with less than 3 minutes left.  But steals by Leith, Nicholas, and Hogman (and a tie-up by Afolabi) brought them back to a tie and overtime.  They fell just short but showed they've come a long way from their recent lean years.

Thanks as usual for the update!  I'm looking forward to seeing more NWC action this weekend because the "Whits" are in Portland tonight and tomorrow.  Given their losses to UPS, they may not be looking quite as powerful as they were before, but they're still in the running for ... let's face it, second best team in the conference barring some fluke or collapse by GFU.  But it's a strong conference so second place is no slouch.

Quote from: BruinFan on January 17, 2016, 11:14:32 PM
Showout to D3 alum Scott Rueck, former head coach of George Fox University, where he won a national title in 2009 and over 275 games before moving to Oregon State.

His Oregon State Beaver team beat Stanford tonight for the first time since 2001. The Beavers are ranked and have made the national tournament the last two years. Scott has built a program that was at the bottom when he took over in 2010 to where they won the Pac-12 conference last year in his 5th season.

Indeed I made sure to go see this game too.  Oregon State spent the first 3 1/2 quarters sleepwalking (BTW I do like the switch to quarters instead of halves and I especially like the move to 2-shot bonus FTs instead of the silly 1-and-1 which has afflicted college basketball for decades, encouraging -- no demanding -- teams to deliberately foul instead of playing real defense). 

Anyway, Stanford didn't look at the top of their game either but they were out-performing the Beavers most of the game.  But eventually OSU played the way they are capable of and with a raucous crowd behind them simply blew past the Cardinal to win going away.

It does seem that a lot of top coaches got their start at the D3 college (or even high school) level.  I presume there are other NWC coaches besides Rueck who have made the jump to D1?  The D3 conference that I'm the most familiar with, southern California's SCIAC, had Sue Semrau coaching at Occidental College before she went to Wisconsin IIRC and she's been at Florida State for several years.  On the men's side, a coach at Pomona-Pitzer famously made the jump directly to the NBA:  Gregg Popovich.

Yup, no way that I was going to miss seeing the #2 womens team and the #1 mens team (according to D3Hoops' rankings) all in one gym in one night!

It was not surprising that the George Fox women won, and equally unsurprising that Whitworth did make them work for that win, despite being at their usual severe height disadvantage and despite KC McConnell having to spend the last 25 minutes or so of the game limping due to an injury (she appeared to be icing her right quadriceps, a little above the knee, during her times recovering on the bench).  But even with a gimpy leg she kept sinking baskets.

Thanks to the free online video coverage, I also watched most of Friday's Whitman women @ GFU game as well as the exciting overtime Whitworth men @ Willamette game.  But it's not nearly as good as seeing the games live.

Revelations to me:  Kaitlin Jamieson of course; this was the first time I'd seen her this season.  Granted her 27 points came against an undersized Whitworth team, but I don't think she could've had a game like that last year.  And Benner didn't have nearly as much success, especially in the first half where similarly to last year's final she didn't look comfortable on offense.  (She did however have 5 assists in the first half, which I hadn't realized until the PA announcer gave the first half stats.)

I think Kimberly Frost was generally under-noticed and under-appreciated last year, but people are surely noticing her now.  I can see her being around 2nd team all-conference next season, maybe even 1st team.  In the meantime she continues to harass ball-handlers all over the court on defense, and blow by defenders on offense using her tremendous speed.  I still think that she is the fastest player in the conference (one of the very few areas where I disagree with d3wbbfan's judgement last year that Naluai was the fastest player on the Bruins -- BTW we haven't seen a post fro d3wbban for quite awhile, which is a shame).

Torregano adds some nice 3-point shooting but also shows good driving ability too.

Even with that added offensive punch, I see a lot of similarities between last year's team and this year's team.  They are clearly a top team, mainly on the strength of their defense.  Their rebounding advantage over their opponents was small last year and based on their box scores so far this season it's even smaller now.  Their offense still appears to be prone to go stagnant with a lack of motion where they have to rely on a 1-on-1 move from Naluai to get a shot off.  So, like last year, a top team but not without weaknesses.

Other teams:  Faith Emerson provided some badly needed quality play from a big; looking at last year's stats I see that she did play a good number of minutes but I didn't have much memory of her play:  my canonical image of Whitworth's recent strong teams is the way they'd play with just about every one of their players being between 5'7" and 5'9".  Cebula and Quinnett look like they can provide some badly needed height but they need to gain more experience.  Whitworth has some other promising-looking young players, but many of them are 5'4" or 5'5" so they won't help in the height department.  As usual with Whitworth and the NWC for that matter they are scrappy and hustling and athletic.  At one point freshman Sidney Riggs was chasing an errant ball out of bounds that was headed straight for the table where the scorekeepers and other observers were; she managed to dive for the ball but to do so in the air so that she ended up sailing atop the table instead of crashing straight into it.

Whitman's Hailey McDonald looks much improved on offense.  Her defense has always been superlative but if her boxscore said she went 0-2 with 1 or 2 turnovers, I used to consider that one of her better offensive games because the small number of events meant she hadn't hurt her team's offense too much.  But even just watching her online against GFU I could she that she's taking on many more offensive responsibilities this year, and doing all right; her box scores show the same thing.

As for the men's game, I watch very little men's college basketball so I can't evaluate them very well.  Whitworth certainly dismantled GFU.  I was expecting to see a little more height on Whitworth's roster (their starting center is 6'10" but he is the one starter who doesn't score very  much and he plays less than 17 minutes per game).  But their starting forwards, Jurlina and Valle, are multi-skilled.

The one thing that I saw online Friday night that was missing Saturday night:  the student section.  Friday online we could see that the students were wearing what can best be described as tinfoil hats.  One of them had a Boba Fett helmet which was presumably made of aluminum foil on top of cardboard, quite a good piece of work.

Thanks for the preview and updates BruinFan!  Your evaluation of the NWC teams sounds plausible; I haven't seen any games since Whitman's non-conference win over Warner Pacific but I'm planning to see some games this weekend.  I usually pay little attention to D3 men's basketball, but with the Whitworth men ranked #1 by D3Hoops, I'm planning to see some of their games too.

Thanks, I've been hoping for some pre-season and early-season reports.  Yes, George Fox looks ready to rampage through their schedule again.

In Div 3, so far I've only seen Whitman's visit to Warner Pacific College.  Whitman won fairly easily, but I don't know how good Warner Pacific is; they play NAIA Div II, started this season 0-3 -- but against three NCAA Div I teams -- and have won all of their games since, except for the Whitman game.  Which suggests they're pretty good at least in the NAIA, but currently the NAIA poll has them only 4th in their conference.

Whitman's players all seemed to range from 5'8" to 5'10".  That can be advantageous with their usual hustling athletic defense because they can do a lot of switching without creating mismatches.  But I think a lack of size will hurt them when they face high quality D3 teams.  Hailey Ann Maeda had a strong game scoring-wise, but scored most of her points on drives rather than with post moves.

My early guess is that Whitman's players have developed enough from last year to make up for the loss of Heather Johns (and Lovelace), but not more than that.  So a good team, but not one destined for the NCAA tournament.  But we'll see.

Thomas More was certainly a very tough team.  The Bruins defense to some extent did its usual job, pressuring Thomas More into 24 turnovers (which rather interestingly was not a season high; they had 27 turnovers against Cabrini in a close game).  But aside from that Thomas More was able to both get some good shots and more importantly make them at a high rate. 

In contrast George Fox shot rather poorly.  The Bruins' strength all along was more in their defense than in their offense, but the offense seemed to especially desert them this game.  I though Benner and Codling looked tentative offensively, missing shots when pressured and committing turnovers.  Even the Bruins' free throw shooting seemed to be affected.  Nerves?  Perhaps, OTOH Naulai did not look tentative -- yet was also one of the players who missed free throws and committed turnovers. 

And then, rebounding.  Thomas More out-rebounded George Fox by even more than their usual margin; again even though George Fox was not a powerhouse rebounding team I would not have expected them to get beat on the boards so badly.

If I had to make an evaluation, I would guess that this year's George Fox squad was not blessed with huge amounts of high level talent and athleticism.  What they did have was extremely good team play (especially defensively, obviously) plus excellent depth.  That got them to 32-0.  But when they faced a really top team, Thomas More's offense could still deliver (after getting past the turnovers that the Bruins caused) whereas the Bruins faltered.  And roster depth can only help a certain amount in a single tournament game; there can only be five players on the court and 40 minutes in the game.  Conversely a player such as Moss can carry a team for a single game.  (Not that Thomas More was all Moss; Owings in particular looked amazing for a freshman PG, and Santamaria and even Huber shot amazingly.  Kiernan scored 16 points in 16 minutes but I think much of that was due to her teammates drawing the defenders, leaving Kiernan open.)

In short the Bruins could've performed better, but it is clear who the #1 team  is.

It's interesting that the only conference which comes close to the NWC on that list is the UAA, which consists of schools which are very non-Division 3-ish in nature.  Instead of the small colleges which typify much of Division 3, the UAA consists of research universities, typically with enrollments of around 10,000 students and endowments of billions of dollars.  Although they have to comply with the same rules prohibiting athletic scholarships that the other Div 3 schools do, one would have to think they have resource advantages in terms of hiring coaches, facilities, travel, etc. 

The Bruins' buzzsaw defense was predictably key in the semifinal game.  Almost as predictably their offense was not overwhelming but was good enough.  I was a bit surprised at their rebounding dominance. 

The championship game will for the first time feature two undefeated teams.  I know nothing about Thomas More but they are clearly a strong team.  Good luck to the Bruins and the NWC!

A belated thought about George Fox's recent victories over Whitman and UPS:  both games saw George Fox's pressure defense take a heavy toll early in the game.  Whitman was especially flummoxed, falling behind by as much as 38-12 and committing 10 turnovers in the first half (compared to 4 for the Bruins).  But after that they played better and outscored the Bruins in the second half, although the game was pretty well under the Bruins' control by then.

UPS was able to get the ball out of backcourt more easily and quickly and never fell behind by more than 33-20.  But they ran into George Fox's defensive buzzsaw in the frontcourt, and ended the first half with 16 turnovers to the Bruins' 3.  But again in the second half the Bruins were outscored and the points margin stayed between 3 and 10 points throughout the second half.

Both Whitman and UPS are veteran, tough teams.  They went toe-to-toe with George Fox in their second halves and were fully competitive.  But the defensive pressure by George Fox in the first half of both games was decisive.  Watching the games, I didn't detect anything special or different, but I wonder if Coach Meek was unleashing new and unexpected defensive wrinkles, which caught Whitman and UPS by surprise until they were able to better deal with the defense in the second half?

A similar question then applies to the tournament games.  George Fox's opponents will undoubtedly know that the Bruins play very tough pressure defense.  But will they have video and scouting reports that will enable them to practice against that sort of defense as they prepare to face the Bruins?  Especially if Coach Meek is now unleashing a stash of secret weapon defenses that even his experienced NWC rivals weren't ready for?

Or were there no special tactics, just good execution, in the first halves of the Whitman and UPS games?


Although the biggest mistake that one can make is to underestimate one's opponent, I'm fully expecting a George Fox victory in the first round, and they might not even have to unleash all of their defensive tactics against PSU Abington.  I expect that UPS will handle Claremont-Mudd-Scripps as well -- but if CMS does win and face George Fox in the second round, they'll be somewhat familiar because George Fox travelled to southern California this December and beat CMS by 15.   But I think it's possible that the Bruins will be able to show CMS some defensive wrinkles that they didn't see in December.

The more likely outcome is UPS vs George Fox yet again.  George Fox easily the favorite, but that NWC final game, even though led by George Fox for almost all of the game, was still up for grabs with less than a minute left.  UPS is very tough, and I'm guessing has by now seen all of the weapons in the Bruins' armory.  So I expect it to come down to execution more than tactics.  A game very much worth watching, if indeed that is what the second round matchup is.

Oh I forgot to mention the distinguished fans in the stands at the George Fox game.  Without their uniforms I can't recognize all the players, but I could certainly recognize former Lewis and Clark standout Taylor Wang, who was there with two other people; I think one was current Pio player Kaitlin Mathewson and I didn't recognize the other person, though she did look like a basketball player.  A pretty good turnout of NWC rivals.  Taylor presumably graduated last year, but perhaps like many other college graduates has chosen to hang around near her alma mater.

I went to George Fox to see their NWC semifinal game against Whitman.  In the end, the 78-64 win was probably just about what most of us expected, but there were some twists and turns in the story.

Kylie Dummer didn't play; I don't keep up with detailed news about the teams so I assume this is due to injury (or illness, the flu's been running rampant for weeks in Oregon).  Heckendorf started in her place.  On the one hand, it's a demonstration of the Bruins' depth that they can replace a starter with Heckendorf (who I think it a better player than Dummer anyway).  But it did leave the Bruins' bench thin at forward.  Hobert is a capable sub, but played only 11 minutes.  Benner had to play 36 minutes and Codling played 26 (and probably would've played more, but she fouled out).  It helps that the Bruins' PG, Blizzard, has the size of a forward.  Still there were some moments when the Bruins went with a three guard lineup, including a minute or two in the second half when they had their three shortest players on the court (Morris, Miner, and Frost). 

The Bruins' buzzsaw defense was in full display.  They put four defenders in the backcourt and Whitman had tremendous difficulty in the first half, falling behind by as much as 38-12.  And by as much as 30 points in the second half, but they gradually adjusted to the pressure.  They'd bring their fifth player, who normally hung out deep, into the backcourt.  Normally this would be what the defense would want, to increase the congestion in the backcourt even more, but Whitman did this in a careful fashion, having that fifth player sprint in to receive a pass and relieve the pressure, while players with ballhandling skills streaked up the sidelines.  Those attacks up the sidelines (either as ballhandlers or receivers) were what enabled Whitman to handle the George Fox press in the second half.  Whitman also started playing very good team defense and outscored George Fox in the second half, but the game was basically already decided and Whitman got no closer than 14 points in the second half.

It was nonetheless good to see that Whitman went down fighting, with a strong second half performance.  Did George Fox let up and play with less effort?  I don't think so; it wouldn't be like them to play with less than full intensity, and Coach Meek never did clear his bench (except perhaps by giving Jamieson and Creech a token minute of play at the end of the first half).  OTOH it's easy to subconsciously let the effort level slip a level. 

Another sign of the Bruins' dominant first half:  Heather Johns was scoreless, and perhaps even more unbelievably shot only three field goal attempts.  To my eyes it didn't seem that the Bruins' defense was focused on her, certainly they weren't  playing a box and one.  They double-teamed her, but they were also double-teaming whoever had the ball.  In the second half she was more Johns-like, with 14 points in 18 minutes.  Better Whitman offense?  George Fox relaxing on defense in the second half?  I don't know, but to me the bigger mystery and bigger news was how she was throttled in the first half.

Casey Poe ended up leading Whitman in scoring.  She's been a strong-looking freshman all season, so in that sense no news.  Visually, I didn't think she looked very strong in this game -- in the first half alone, she shot three airballs.  These were not ordinary airballs, they were airballs which looked bad even as they were launched, shots that looked like they were coming from a player who didn't know what she was doing but decided that she had to shoot even though she had no confidence that it was a good idea to shoot. 

But subjective memories and appearances can be deceiving.  In the boxscore, she was 9-13 from the field for the game -- and 4-7 in the first half -- so you can forget about my subjective judgements.  By any objective standard that's good shooting, especially in the context of a game in which Whitman was struggling againt George Fox's defense.

A career high 31 points for Morris, but even in her freshman year she demonstrated explosive scoring capability.  With George Fox's great depth as well as all-conference players such as Munger and Benner around, there's been little call or reason for her to score bundles of points. 

I've been very impressed by Naluai this season, but she didn't have a particularly strong game against Whitman.  Frost has been deeper on the bench, but made big contributions in this game.  She was the first player off the bench in the second half, played 17 minutes (I was a bit surprised to see that this is not a career high for her, although it's close), and to me has looked good all season and looks to have a strong future.  Miner looked good too, more confident and more a part of the team rather than a deep sub off the bench.

Warning signs for George Fox?  Whitman outscored them 30-14 in the last 14 minutes of the game.  Maybe the game was well in hand and George Fox relaxed, although to me it looked more like Whitman figured out how to counter the Bruins' fullcourt pressure.  More worrisome is how the George Fox offense seemed to stagnate in the second half.  If George Fox relaxed because the game was under control, I'd expect that to affect the offense less. I wouldn't be surprised if George Fox has the best defense in the country (I haven't seen other top colleges' games so I cannot say for sure), but their offense seems less strong.


Looking at the D3Hoops pre-season rankings, many of us thought George Fox was underrated and snubbed to be left out of the Top 25 rankings (arguably #42) and although I didn't expect them to be this strong this fast, we were on the whole right about them.  The D3 rankings were amazingly accurate about Whitworth, whereas I thought Whitworth would drop off due to the loss of key seniors.  I don't know if anybody saw UPS coming.  And Whitman, contrary to my expectations as well as the D3Hoops pre-season rankings, did not finish in the Top 25.  They are still a strong team and if they were invited to the tournament they could win some games.  But there are always some teams that are left out of the tournament who could've won some games.  As D3wbbfan has already observed, Coach Ferenz perhaps involuntarily finally ended up playing a lineup similar to what D3wbbfan had been recommending.  I will put in a word for Hailey McDonald though.  Her offensive game is extremely limited and she probably should not have been a starter this season.  But she's good at defense and clearly relishes the physical and athletic challenge of going out there and trying to tear things up.  She was on the floor for much of Whitman's "comeback" against George Fox.  It's the same defensive spirit that I saw in Hannah Lekson who probably gave herself a concussion diving for a pass against Lewis and Clark, and George Fox's trademark destructive defense.  It's all over the NWC, but what makes the NWC really great to watch is that so many of the players and teams also have the individual and team offensive skills to deal with that defensive pressure.  (To some extent at least; obviously no one has done so enough to actually beat the Bruins' defense, but UPS did manage to score 73 points against them, and I am very much looking forward to Saturday's matchup.)

Here's a few observations from watching UPS's victory over host Lewis & Clark this past weekend. 

UPS looked good.  Their defense didn't throttle the Pios the way that George Fox's did, but it was still plenty good; by the middle of the first half the score was 29-10.  Although the UPS bigs played well, I though the perimeter defense from their guards, starters and substitutes alike, was most impressive.  Defensive pressure throughout, starting in the backcourt (though they did little literal fullcourt pressing).  On offense, Emily Sheldon was especially impressive, able to shoot over tight defense.  UPS seems to have played a consistent rotation with the same five players starting all of their games and four players coming off the bench for roughly similar minutes. 

Late in the first half Hannah Lekson, playing that furious defense, dove to contest a pass.  She hit the floor hard, and stayed down for awhile -- it turns out she banged her forehead against the floor.  She was able to finally get up and sit on the bench, but did not play again during the game, instead she held an icepack to her head.  I ran into a trainer or assistant coach after the game and he said "she'll be all right" but confirmed that they went through the concussion protocols with her. 

If she has to miss a game or two, UPS still has good depth with three bench players who've been getting significant playing time all along.

For Lewis and Clark, freshman Miyah Leith again looked like the best player on their roster, or perhaps tied with Afolabi.  At one point in the middle of the first half, Leith had scored 8 of the 12 Pio points.  Rachel Cox was the first player off the bench in the second half and made some very good defensive plays, helping to cut a 21-point halftime deficit to 10 points.  But that was as close as the game got, and the Loggers went on to win by 16.

I went to the George Fox @ Lewis & Clark game.  The first half was very close; the Lewis & Clark game recap says it's only the second time this season that George Fox has failed to end the first half with a lead.

But even at the time, I thought that Coach Meek was not quite putting the pedal all the way to the metal, playing his subs more than usual.  Even with George Fox's huge depth, there's still a bit of a drop-off from the starters.

The evidence for this strategy is that the Bruin bench collectively played 34 minutes in the first half.  And only 27 minutes in the second half, with some of those minutes being garbage time bench-clearing.

So I figured the second half would be the more telling of the two halves.  Indeed it was; although the George Fox offense was not super-impressive, they cranked up their defense several notches and the Pios had no answer.  New Pio coach Asha Jordan went through just about every guard on her bench trying to find players who could cope with the Bruins' defensive pressure, to no avail.  It was reminiscent of the very first NWC game that I saw three seasons ago, when George Fox's full-court pressure totally derailed the Lewis & Clark offense.

The Bruins' most effective presses seemed to be of two varieties:  they had initial success with a defense that was basically man to man rather than relying upon double-teams and traps.  So if a Pio player picked up her dribble or just in general was trying to pass out of the pressure, she found all of the potential receivers tightly guarded.

One solution to that problem is to dribble out of it, since there's only one defender guarding the ball-handler (although this defense did feature opportunities for the defenders to give help or double-team).  But after the Pios started doing that , the Bruins switched to a press where the inbounder was completely unguarded, and the fifth defender helped out on the two would-be ballhandlers who were trying to catch the inbounds pass. 

So forget about 10-second violations, the Bruins forced the Pios into a few 5-second violations -- they couldn't even get the ball inbounds.

I do expect that we will see Lewis and Clark react the same way they did three seasons ago:  devote practice time to learning how to break a full-court press, and handle it much better in the next game.  The Pios have a young roster; in Saturday's game the players with the most minutes were one senior (Zinn), one junior (Sarah Anderson, feisty like Katie Anderson but no relation AFAIK), one sophomore (Afolabi, who I think is the best of the Pios who returned this year) ... and four freshmen.  So I think we can expect to see a better performance against the press later this season.

I was surprised to see in the box score that the Pios committed more turnovers in the first half than in the second half, 14 to 13.  Because it was in the second half that we really saw the full-court pressure disrupt their offense, and the score become lopsided.

Of the freshmen, I was most impressed by Miyah Leith.  In a game in which Lewis & Clark was so disrupted that Afolabi (who's been their leader in per game scoring, rebounding, and steals this season) played only 7 minutes in the second half, Leith played the most minutes of any Pio, tied for the team lead in scoring, and just in general was one of the few Pios who was effective at both offense and defense.  She did good work against the press; it looks like her primary role is to be a shooting guard or wing, but I wonder if she has the ability to play point guard.

In addition to Asha Jordan, the Pios have a new assistant coach, Ashley Corral.  Corral had had a brilliant high school career in neighboring Vancouver WA, and an all-conference career at the Univ of Southern California.  She didn't quite make it into the WNBA, so she may be making a career switch to coaching.  I was living in LA during her USC days; I still remember the first time I saw her enter a game as a freshmen; unlike many freshmen who will play deferentially and pass the ball, she came out firing especially from long range -- and is the current leader in career 3-pointers at USC.

George Fox actually shot very poorly this game (except for Benner) but still soundly beat their opponent.  But against top-level opponents, I think offense will prove to be their weak point. Or perhaps rebounding.   The Bruins are out-rebounding their opponents, but not thrashing them the way they are with their defense.

Oh, I can provide an answer to a question that d3wbbfan had asked about Morris's offensive repertoire in particular her ability to drive.  When I first saw her play (as Jami Roos), she was a freshman and the backup PG to Hayley Cusick.  But she was much more shot-oriented than Cusick ever was, coming off the bench and driving relentlessly into the lane as well as firing up 3-pointers.  Quite reminiscent of Lewis and Clark's Katie Anderson.  But the next year, she shot less frequently and drove less frequently, I wonder if this may have reflected Coach Meek emphasizing a team approach.  But at any rate her game has been more subdued since then.

I went to both of George Fox's games against the Whits.  D3wbbfan has already given so much detailed and incisive analysis that there's little to add, plus the scores speak for themselves.  So I have just a few miscellaneous observations.

Kimberly Frost looked like the fastest player to me.  However this seemed to be only when she dribbled with her right hand; I'd like to see how fast she can go using her left hand (and how well she can control the ball with her left hand).

Benner's excellence and her big game against Whitman were not surprises.  But somehow I had remained ignorant of the fact that Codling led the team in every other major category:  rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals per game.

Hailey McDonald didn't play for Whitman ... I think she was hobbling around with a cast on her foot?

Since I was going to both the Friday and Saturday games, I stayed in a nearby motel Friday night.  It turns out that's where Whitman and Whitworth stayed also; I didn't actually see Whitman but Whitworth had driven in on Friday so Saturday morning the motel was awash with Whitworth players and families (women's team only, I don't know if the men's team was staying there too).

And though it goes without saying, yeah George Fox is not just good, but deep.  They might have 8 or 9 players who could start for a lot of D3 teams.  Heckendorf literally was a starter, Naluai looked even better, and I was impressed with Frost.  Less so with Creech, but she comes off the bench before Frost does so Meek might value her contributions more.  For that matter, Miner and Jamieson looked good too, but in limited garbage minutes so I can't really evaluate.

These are pretty strong statement games.  Granted, George Fox still has to go play the Whits on the road (and UPS), but this looks like a team that will advance deep into the NCAA tournament.  I would venture, as d3wbbfan does, that they're underrated at #10.  But I have literally not seen any of the other 9 teams play (except for FDU-Florham in the finals last year) so I can't say for sure.


Whitworth and Whitman still look like strong teams, just not so much when compared to George Fox.  George Fox did some full-court pressing, and it did cause some problems for both teams, with some steals and 10-second violations, but one of the reasons why the NWC impresses me is that the players and teams have basketball skills and knowledge and can handle fullcourt pressure, double-teams, and traps.  (The one exception was the very first NWC game that I saw, when George Fox used their press to take control of the game against Lewis and Clark in their first meeting of the 2011-12 season -- but by the time they met again, Lewis and Clark handled it much better, although they ended up losing to the Bruins four times that season.  Yep, due to the familiar pattern of NWC teams being forced to play against each other in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.)

Whitworth still goes out there with pretty much every player between 5'7" and 5'9" tall (except for 5'5" starter Kendra Knutsen, and 6 footer Faith Emerson gives them some height off the bench).  Same ferocious ball-hawking defense -- even though the George Fox game was a blowout in terms of the score, the turnovers were almost even 17-16 because even George Fox's players sometimes found themselves getting the ball stripped or tied up by aggressive quick-handed Whitworth defenders.  Alexis McLeod had a nightmarish game:  just 8 minutes, but 5 turnovers plus 0-1 shooting in those 8 minutes.  She seems to be the first or second player off the bench and was not such a high turnover player last year, so this must have been an aberration. 

For Whitman, Maeda continued her run of strong play.  Ketner's shooting less than 30% so far this season, but she also looked good against George Fox, to my eyes a continuation of her promising play as a freshman last year.  This is also a team that could win some games in the NCAA tournament, if they get an invite.

Thanks for the updates, most of which I didn't know about.  Perhaps the most surprising one is Jami Roos getting married; IIRC last season you pointed out that a couple of Whitman's guards were married.  Despite working on college campuses for decades, I don't think I've encountered a student age 22 or less who was married.  But there've been at least three on NWC squads last season and this season.