WBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[JMM]

Now that the Blugolds have beaten Minnesota State, of couse they may not be ranked 25th. Up until they lost to the Blugolds, Mankato was about as legitimate as legitimate can be at the 25th ranked DII team. They were ranked 25th, correct?

[billys]

Now that the Blugolds have beaten Minnesota State, of couse they may not be ranked 25th. Up until they lost to the Blugolds, Mankato was about as legitimate as legitimate can be at the 25th ranked DII team. They were ranked 25th, correct?

Early in the year there are lots of teams ranked that aren't anywhere near the Top 25 in the country. The D2 poll had like 6 teams drop out after the first week. All I'm saying is I know how their team compares to others in D2, and they're not a Top 25 team.

[billys]

I just realized in re-reading that initial post it came off as a slight to UWEC; my apologies to the Golds. My intial reaction when hearing it yesterday was that I wasn't that surprised cause Mankato is a solid, but not great team. I didn't realized they had received a ranking so when I read that, that was my reaction.

No disrespect meant to their loss ... that's a great win.

[JMM]

Appreciate your post. Will Mankato remain in the top 25? Having attended the game last night and judging that Mavericks don't have much height, I doubt that they will make the top 25. The players that were on the court for Mankato were very good. I also think from what I saw that Mankato has a menacing defense (it showed at times last night) however, there was a maturity in the Blugolds and when the half court pressure was applied, the blugolds just went down under and did damage. Guess what I'm trying to say is the defense could be the deal for Mankato: steal, run, break. They couldn't do that last nigt.

The Blugold defense was outstanding. With Plendil, Messick in 60% of the time, it is really hard to score underneath. The remaining blugold players (and those who come off the bench) play outstanding defense in an around the key. You cannot go down under on them or use the baseline. They unfortunally get a  little lazy in pressuiring in anyway possible the 3 PT. shot. The golds did correct that problem in the second half, otherwise it could have been a loss.

There is a good chemistry this year for Eau Claire. Good fit between Englund and the team and the players know eah other quite a bit. It is remarkable when Plendil and Messick are in that they don' get in each others way. Finally, it is obvious that Messick is outstanding on Offense. Her defense has been better than offense. If Plendil continues to develop and show what she showed last night on defense (standing straight  up and defending the territory not going after the ball), Look out -EC could have a grand season. A big if.

[billys]

Appreciate your post. Will Mankato remain in the top 25? Having attended the game last night and judging that Mavericks don't have much height, I doubt that they will make the top 25. The players that were on the court for Mankato were very good. I also think from what I saw that Mankato has a menacing defense (it showed at times last night) however, there was a maturity in the Blugolds and when the half court pressure was applied, the blugolds just went down under and did damage. Guess what I'm trying to say is the defense could be the deal for Mankato: steal, run, break. They couldn't do that last nigt.

I guess what I was trying to say without saying it is the D2 poll is a joke. Mankato is picked for EIGHTH in their conference, they are at best an average D2 team. Mankato made a cinderella run to a national title a few years ago and now gets ranked because people know their name. They will be lucky to be .500 in their league. D2 doesn't have a D3 Hoops type resource who actually know about other teams regionally; so basically once you have a nice postseason run you buy about 5 years of national recognition even when you're not very good.

[buf]

Carroll defeats Stout, 78-63 at Johnson Fieldhouse.  I watched a bit of the webcast.  Stout looked better than last week.  Stout puts a pretty good starting 5 out there, but there seems to be a large dropoff when the bench comes in.

[PRF2009A]

UWL gets 2 good wins this weekend. 

Saturday they beat Northwestern handily with 2 starters (Frank & Litrenta) out with sprained ankles.  Northwestern was not as bad as I thought they would be and it was good for UWL's bench to get some meaningful minutes.

Today UWL beat the University of Chicago in a very close game that was back and forth until the very end.  Ended up winning by 6 with some free throws at the end.  This was a great tune up before playing WW this week. 

Looking forward to the conference season.

[JMM]

saw the stout game. Ouch! There is a huge drop off after the starting 5 as stated above. Stout may be in for a long year. MT is going to get grey hair (again). There are 2-3 starters who do well. I still really like Windt. Any one know why #22 Layman the transfer never goes in - . She would bring some hieght. Wasn't she a DII transfer? She seems out of place riding the bench. Specially given the fall off in talent after the starting 5. Keerh does well also.

[buf]

Any one know why #22 Layman the transfer never goes in - . She would bring some hieght. Wasn't she a DII transfer? 

I think that both Layman and EC's Christianson transfered from Minnesota-Mankato, the team EC played this past weekend.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that I saw Layman enter Zorn Arena on Saturday to catch the 2nd half of the game.  Stout played at 5:00, EC at 7:00

[JMM]

Any insights to why Layman isn't playing. I was at Stout on Sunday till about 12 minutes left. Didn't appear she played much. Stats show she played 3 minutes. Given the lack of depth on the team, don't you think MT would use her? They could use the hieght. She must be OK if she was with Mankato for 2-3 years. Maybe she doesn't fit the teams or coach's style of play? Any insghts?

[Just Bill]

I can't tell you why Layman isn't playing, but I watched parts of both Stout games at Ripon on the webcast.  The benches were too far from the camera to hear the coaches, but I distinctly remember the only word I could hear Mark Thomas say through the webcast each night was "Greta!!".  And not in a good way.

[JMM]

Hopefully she gets out of the dog house soon. Sounds like a tough start. Hope she can shake it.

[buf]

A new d3 top 25 came out this week.  The WIAC is well represented:

#8 Point
#16 UWL
#23 UWW
RV UWEC
RV UWRF

[The Champ]

saw the stout game. Ouch! There is a huge drop off after the starting 5 as stated above. Stout may be in for a long year. MT is going to get grey hair (again). There are 2-3 starters who do well. I still really like Windt. Any one know why #22 Layman the transfer never goes in - . She would bring some hieght. Wasn't she a DII transfer? She seems out of place riding the bench. Specially given the fall off in talent after the starting 5. Keerh does well also.

I'm basing my comments after seeing both games this weekend, and only basing them on what I saw.

On Saturday, I paid particular attention to Greta - as I was hoping to see what she could do to help our squad.  To put it mildly, I wasn't impressed.  In her 12 minutes, she seemed to have trouble with the speed of the game.  Her shooting (1 of 5 from the floor and 1 of 3 from the line) was lackluster and she only had 1 rebound - not what I expected from a Senior with D2 experience - and the tallest player on the roster. 

And this was against St. Scholastica - which is not a very good BB team.

On Sunday, Carrol presented a much tougher (and faster) opponent.  If you were paying attention when Greta came in with the second unit at 14:55 of the first period, you would have noticed the lack of speed to counter the style of play that Carrol has.  In the 2 minutes and 31 seconds she was on the floor, she took one shot (missed) and no rebounds.  But more importantly, Carrol went on a 7 - 0 run.

At 12:24, T must have seen enough, and put the starting unit back out. Stout went on an 18 - 8 run before the next multi player substitution.  For the rest of the first half, without Greta on the floor, but with multiple other substuitutions being made, Stout actually tied the game up (twice), before ending the half down 2.

At the start of the 2nd half, Stout actually took the lead for a brief period.  But ultimately, Carrol did gt the lead back and as noted already, Stout lost by 15.

I did find it interesting that the Carrol coach, in a non conference game, kept her 2 best players on the court most of the game.  Menden left the court for the first time with 33 seconds left in the game and Seewald played 35 minutes (3 minutes off in the first half, and1 minute in the second half before the coach pulled all the starters with 33 seconds left.  Why have these players on the floor when you have a 19 point lead with less than 5 minutes to play?

I do agree with you that both Kimmy and Kayla have talent.

But I'm not sure why you failed to comment on the other three starters - who had as good or better games?

Senior Trish had the team high in scoring with 23 points and added 8 boards and 3 steals, Sophomore transfer Whitney had a double double and 2 steals while the Freshman Sami contributed 6 points, 3 boards and 2 steals (more than Kimmy had in each category).

Stout is far from a perfect team right now, but T made sure that everyone played.  I think he's still experimenting with the second group trying to find the players that are up to the challenge.  There is talent that needs to be developed in the second unit - IMHO.

[JMM]

Picks for WEDS Dec 1:

SP over Stout by 20
LC over WW by 5
RF over SUP by 11
EC over OSH by 12