WBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[D3Navy]

124 points from Trinity yesterday at U Dallas.  Happy to see this output given the loss of Jamie Ruede.  Natalie Greenwood has come alive and is flexing down low.  Also impressed with freshman Livy Sauvageau as the leading scorer.

A much better team than a few weeks ago.  Well done, ladies!

[jekelish]

Great game in Sherman tonight between Trinity and Austin College, with the Tigers winning 87-83 in overtime. Austin College led by 10 at halftime but Trinity had a huge third quarter, and led by two with 0.8 seconds remaining, with the 'Roos tying it up at the buzzer. But Josie Napoli took over in OT, scoring 11 points for Trinity. One of the best women's games I've watched in a while, and the best I've seen Austin College play all year, which was great to see coming off of an unexpected loss to Schreiner last night. Free throws were the biggest difference tonight, with Trinity going 29-35 and the 'Roos just 7-15.

[Gray Fox]

Further research indicates that Ruede has either transferred or is in the process of transferring to Texas A&M, where her mother (and high school coach at Boerne) got her degree. 

She doesn't show on their roster or on a couple of box scores I checked.

[Ron Boerger]

Further research indicates that Ruede has either transferred or is in the process of transferring to Texas A&M, where her mother (and high school coach at Boerne) got her degree. 

She doesn't show on their roster or on a couple of box scores I checked.

She definitely transferred but not to play basketball (way too short for a D1 major program).  I found her on an intramural roster at TAMU (flag football), a now-defunct profile she set up for her babysitting business last summer said she was transferring to A&M, and her IG shows her at the school.  Losing her consistent three point shooting on top of Anderson apparently being out for another season (and losing their floor general of the last several years to graduation) has just been too much to recover from; while there's been improvement, there hasn't been consistency as shown by the struggle to get past Austin (thank goodness they hit a decent percentage of their FTs).   Trinity is arguably the fourth best team in the SCAC this year behind Colorado College, McMurry, and TLU, though they still have a chance to move the needle somewhat.

[jekelish]

I'm very excited to see what Austin College looks like next year, given how young the roster is, overall. Among the top 10 players with regard to minutes played, seven of 10 are sophomores and freshmen, and that's not counting a guard (Amarys Cuellar) who was All-SCAC as a frosh last season but is out this season with an injury, and the team has zero seniors. They have a chance to be very good next year. They're just inconsistent at the moment and have a lot of mistakes that you'd expect from such a young roster.

If they play the way they did against Trinity the rest of the season, I could see them being a team no one wants to play in the opening round of the conference tournament.

[scottiedawg]

I'm very excited to see what Austin College looks like next year, given how young the roster is, overall. Among the top 10 players with regard to minutes played, seven of 10 are sophomores and freshmen, and that's not counting a guard (Amarys Cuellar) who was All-SCAC as a frosh last season but is out this season with an injury, and the team has zero seniors. They have a chance to be very good next year. They're just inconsistent at the moment and have a lot of mistakes that you'd expect from such a young roster.

If they play the way they did against Trinity the rest of the season, I could see them being a team no one wants to play in the opening round of the conference tournament.

Co-sign!!

198 teams have a winning percentage of at least 0.500 this year. Austin College is at 0.538 (vs. D3).

Of those 198, only 6 have gotten 100% of their scoring from players not listed as GR or SR on their rosters (included a few more as well!):

Team-------------------	Win%-----	NON-SR/GR % Points
Cortland	0.800	100%
Austin Col	0.538	100%
Colby	0.533	100%
McDaniel	0.750	100%
St. Scholastica	0.600	100%
PSU-Abington	0.714	100%
St. Mary's MD	0.647	99%
Mt. Aloysius	0.533	98%
St. Lawrence	0.643	98%
Benedictine IL	0.533	98%
Cornell IA	0.667	97%
Redlands	0.600	97%
Stockton	0.563	97%
Nazareth	0.800	96%
J&W RI	0.867	95%
Pomona-Pitzer	0.600	95%
Washington & Lee	0.875	93%
John Carroll	0.867	93%
Drew	0.643	93%
Trinity (Conn)	0.778	93%
Milwaukee Eng	0.600	93%
Waynesburg	0.533	92%
Hamilton	0.765	90%
Widener	0.714	90%

[Ron Boerger]

Next year should be an interesting one in the SCAC to be sure.  Trinity goes away (along with Southwestern), Hendrix and LeTourneau come in, and CC's perennial POTW Zoe Thomlinson will finally move on along with two other starters and their first player off the bench. 

[Ralph Turner]

So glad to see the return of Women's basketball at McMurry.
They are currently C13!

[Riley Zayas]

So glad to see the return of Women's basketball at McMurry.
They are currently C13!

Yes, McMurry is rolling. Such an incredible turnaround and in such a short span of time. Emily Holland's freshman year, they went 3-20. They're 20-4 this year in her senior year, and essentially a lock for the NCAA Tournament, which I believe will be their first appearance since '08. 

[Riley Zayas]

SCAC WBB Tournament Seeding is offical:

Gold Division

#1 McMurry
#2 Texas Lutheran
#3 Trinity

Blue Division

#1 Colorado College
#2 St. Thomas (TX)
#3 Ozarks

Ozarks/TLU and Trinity/St. Thomas are the two quarterfinals on Friday. Winner of Ozarks/TLU gets CC, and winner of UST/Trinity gets McMurry. Championship game is set for noon CT on Sunday from Dallas.

[Ralph Turner]

Trinity and TLU in the finals!

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity added freshman Lily Sauvageau to the starting lineups for the first time since a single start in December, and the result has been two upsets in the SCAC tournament against teams that defeated the Tigers each time they faced off in the regular season.  In yesterday's 79-73 win over St. Thomas, breaking the Celts' 11-game winning streak, Sauvageau's 17 complemented 28 from Kylie Minter and 16 from Josie Napoli.  Today's 65-64 win over McMurry saw Sauvageau score 15, complementing 23 from Napoli (who scored the game winner on a layup with six seconds left) and 12 from Minter. 

Next up in the championship round, TLU, who like McMurry defeated Trinity both times they played this season.  The Lady Bulldogs raced out to a big lead in the first half against Colorado College, then survived a second-half comeback attempt by the Tigers to win by six.

[jekelish]

Austin College will have a new head coach on the sideline next season, as Michelle Filander, who has more wins than any other coach in program history, has been named the next AD at the college.

[Ron Boerger]

I hope that Michelle will inject new life into the AC athletic program and wish her (and her successor) well. 

[Ron Boerger]

The Springs local newspaper did a story on the CC women making it to the playoffs:  Colorado College women's basketball heads to NCAA Division III tournament for first time in 35 years.  That is a very long time for what has been a decent quality program.  It's also surprising that this will be only their second appearance in the tournament.

Edit:  CC will graduate 54% of scoring (nearly 72% from the line), 57% of rebounding and assists, nearly 64% of steals, and nearly 71% of its shotblocking, so better get it done this year.