Quote from: saratoga on February 20, 2025, 11:55:42 AMJust ask any college coach their preference in this type of game.
There will be coach-speak to the players..."it doesn't matter where we play, we're the better team, if we do the things we're good at, take care of the ball, limit turnovers etc. etc".
However, in all my years of coaching I've never felt it didn't matter where we played unless our team was head & shoulders beyond the other team.
Ask 100 coaches of 2 pretty evenly matched teams their preference of home or away & 90 will tell you home.
Regarding the other 10...nine are fibbing & 1 is clueless.

I think I know who the clueless one is. 

First time all year someone played our game,In your face defense.Shooting 22% from the 3s  did not help.I mean 6-27 as the other team shot 54% 8-14 Yikes.But the ladies never gave up they had a shot 67-64 45 seconds left 2 for 1 but like I said the 3 was not there tonight.Regroup- All I will say they didn't look happy.

 Etown stepped up their defense; Scranton had only 8 assists, probably a low for Ben's teams. Kennedy was outstanding in a reserve role for Etown. The Etown gym might have the tightest rims in college basketball, probably the lowest % of shots hitting the rim and falling through the basket. Can affect a shooter's confidence.

I agree Ronk :We talked about that!

Please tell me the women did not have to sit there through the men's game.
If the Lady Royals can not get some interior points, then teams with talent (and they're all getting lined up now), will simply force them out deeper and deeper.
They need to spread the floor & let KR drive & dish to keep things honest.

Meanwhile...Amherst was getting pummeled by Bates (down 15) with 5 minutes left in the 3rd. quarter when their defense went into another level & offensively they started hitting everything.
They ended up defeating Bates by 10 & it was 13 till a Bates player made a 3 with 4 seconds left.
GP must still have some magic dust left.

Quote from: saratoga on February 22, 2025, 11:28:45 PMPlease tell me the women did not have to sit there through the men's game.
If the Lady Royals can not get some interior points, then teams with talent (and they're all getting lined up now), will simply force them out deeper and deeper.
They need to spread the floor & let KR drive & dish to keep things honest.

Meanwhile...Amherst was getting pummeled by Bates (down 15) with 5 minutes left in the 3rd. quarter when their defense went into another level & offensively they started hitting everything.
They ended up defeating Bates by 10 & it was 13 till a Bates player made a 3 with 4 seconds left.
GP must still have some magic dust left.

 That was so effective in last season's regular season game @ Catholic in which Kaeli had 38 points and avoided the double and triple teams on the bigs(and subsequent turnovers) by Catholic's helping defense this season. I got the feeling that Ben didn't use it 2 weeks ago to save it for possible use in a playoff final against Catholic. KR was mostly effective today when she tried it.
  There is the thought that the 3 teams have played each other 3 times a season for the past few years so each is well aware of tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses of each other that won't be so apparent to NCAA tourney opponents.

Well, the Lady Royal loss yesterday sucked the # 2 seed in the playoffs right away from Catholic.
Now CUA gets to play an extra nuisance game vs. Goucher.

Meanwhile, the kids from Drew keep getting closer to defeating Susquehanna but unfortunately, close doesn't count.

Tuesday:
Game 1. CUA over Goucher.
Game 2. Susq. over Drew...although a Drew upset would not surprise me.

Thursday:
Game 1. E-town now gets to host CUA (hard rims & all)...Vegas is still crunching the numbers on this outcome.
Game 2. Scranton vs. Susq.
Royals need to decide if they're the team of the first 24 games or the 25th.
Personally, I'm a fan of the version of this team that played Bethel back in Dec.
As Al Davis was fond of saying, "Just win, baby".

Saturday:
Scranton vs. TBD...although the early line has E-town +3 (homecooking, hard rims, & weird lighting). 

Congrats to Coach O & his Drew ladies knocking off Susquehanna in the grove.
He & his kids were able to take Saturday's close loss & flip the script.
The Lady Royals better bring their A game Thursday...especially on the defensive end.

They beat drew by 30+ in the previous two meetings...I think they'll be okay.

I think the Lady Royals will be ready.They did some dumb mistakes at ETown.7 decisions that make you lose a game 1- T.O-Bad Decisions,2-Lack of defensive pressure,Lack of hustle,3-Not blocking out,4-Not getting back defensively,5-Stupid fouls (saw that and Etown walked the floor ),6,Failure to play as a team,7 Bad shots. Im sure Ben is going over this. I would have loved to seen the ladies go  undefeated but losing makes you more focused and this team like I said was not happy.Go lady Royals

No promotion of the game tonight other than the standard social media posts.

How about something to get the kids to fill out the cavernous student section?

The marketing of women's basketball these days absolutely sucks.
They should have every middle school that has basketball sent free tickets so the kids grow up seeing the Lady Royals and then the parents pay when they take them.
So much can be done yet nothing ever is.

Perhaps the President can cut down on his handshake tours and staying at Ritz Carleton's in Atlanta & elsewhere & fund a grad asst. in sports marketing.

For What It's Worth:

Scranton-77
Drew-51

E-town-65
CUA-61

Catholic at Scranton 2pm Etown shot there load the other night.

Watched some of that game.
Catholic had them shooting off the dribble all night.
Very few open set shots.

The Lady Royals looked like they hadn't played in 2 weeks.
Pretty sloppy game... very slow fighting through screens.
Hope the 3 refs there tonight are sent back to JV games after this.
Every shadow foul called took away from any semblance of rhythm.
Tough to beat Coach D 3 times in a year.
Should be a good one.