WBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Maroon&Gold]

Stout fans, or anyone in the know:

What can you tell me about the Lady Blue Devils this season. I see they have been pretty successful lately, but beyond that I am pretty empty as far as knowledge.  Anything would be appreciated....thanks.

Concordia's main concern will have to be Duoss.  She is considered one of the best players in D3.  She seems to score in bunches but sometimes it seems that Stout forgets about her once in a while (not getting her the ball for a few minutes).

Stout has played better the last half of the season.  I think the reason for this is because other players have stepped up to complement Duoss.  Hendricks has been hot from 3-point range and Bird has been shooting well as of late.  Another offensive weapon can be L. Geissler, although she seems to be struggling a bit from the field lately.

As mentioned before, Stout likes the uptempo game.  However, there press and tempo has been more controlled the last couple years than it was prior.  Stout will put Hendricks on Concordia's best offensive player, unless it is a post.

Well this is what I know about Stout.  BDB, stoutguy and foul know them better than me though.  So what should we know about Concordia?  I tried watching them on their video webcast this weekend but I was getting a really bad feed.

Concordia is a team that most people would say has probably overachieved this year.  They lost the two time MIAC MVP to graduation and have only 1 senior on this year's team. However they have been successful because they really play as a team and a variety of people can step up on any given night.

Hageman is their main post weapon (17 pts a game)  although she is not physically imposing she is very athletic and has really, really, really good feet inside. T. Elhert is the other post and she is the team's physical force. While undersized, she is a good leaper and rebounds very well.  On the perimiter the Cobbers have Anne Keeley, who scores over 12 a game and,  J. Heintz, and S. Krabbenhoft (Joe Krabbenhoft of Badger fame's sister) who can all hit the 3.  two freshman guards also play quite a bit, with the Freduenberg girl running the PG spot.

The strength of thsi squad is probably on the defensive end of the floor, they only give up somewhere around 58 points per game and they also led the MIAC in rebounding margin.  Looking at stats the game appears to be featuring teams with slightly different styles, as Concordia is not a run first team, they can and will at certain times, but it is not their main priority.

[BDB]

Hey BW,

At the game on Saturday, Duoss only played about 15 minutes due to foul trouble. The post play was still excellent.

Sorry I missed you and OS etc. down there Saturday. We were too busy celebrating our tourney championship at the Stout Ale House. 

Afterward I told Stoutguy to tell you that you picked the right game.   Nobody from Stout really seemed to enjoy the game down here.  

BW,

From the sound of it, I don't think the Detroit Pistons would have beat the Warhawks on Saturday night.

[badgerwarhawk]

The Piston could have but my beloved CELTICS[/color] probably couldn't. 

[BDB]

Early information coming out of the Stout SID's office has both BlueDevil teams playing their first round games at the same time. 

The women are scheduled to tip off at 5:30pm and the men at 6:00pm, both on Friday. 

I guess the men's starting time is tentative, so hopefully that will change.

The two sites are only about an hour and a half apart, so if they weren't playing at the same time BlueDevil fans could see both teams play.

[foul_language]

Are there any group plans for the IA trip? What hotel are fans at? When are people going down? Any group tickets? Group hotel rates? Any idea where Indianola, Iowa is? Any town that can start and end city AND state names with the same vowels and lead one to believe it's in a different state--c'mon, who wouldn't think it was next to Indianapolis, Indiana?--gets a tip of the hat from me [not 'I', ay].

Just kidding there; I found it on the map. Go to Minnesota and turn left.

My brother said there might be green grass down there already. Bring your golf clubs.

[BDB]

Foul,

There are fan buses going to both sites. Both leave at 9am on Friday.

Call 715-232-2224 to make a reservation.

[foul_language]

BDB--We're driving, but I'm looking for lodging, ticket, etc info. I'll check with team people.

This is probably a discussion that gets hacked to death every year, but how is it that Stout women end up with all the Western bid-ees (not biddies) and not the Central? Is that just a balance kind of thing? Not that I mind going to Iowa rather than Illinois, but it does seem to be a semi-random splitting of schools in brackets. I see it and don't see it, if that makes any sense.

Too bad we can't meet Concordia-Moorhead in a centralized neutral place like St Cloud to cut the trip a bit...good thing I'm not in charge of setting up these games.

[BDB]

Since we are so close to the West, and since the NCAA is concerned about travel costs, we do tend to always start out playing those teams.

However, it does seem odd that these teams aren't meeting in St. Joseph, which would be a lot less travel collectively.

Having said that, I'm glad that if we meet St. Benedicts it won't be on the Blazers home floor, having gotten whooped there in the tournament 5 years ago.

[The Champ]

BDB--We're driving, but I'm looking for lodging, ticket, etc info. I'll check with team people.

foul

Long time reader, now a poster...  The team is staying at the Des Moines Airport Heartland Inn.

As to playing at St. Ben's home court, having been there for the DIII tourney game before, that site is not an NCAA Tournament quality facility.  If I remember correctly, it seats less than 1,000 - which for a 4 team DIII tournament weekend is just not sufficient.

BDB, BW, and Stoutguy, you know who I am...

[badgerwarhawk]

Hey Champ, good to see you drop by.

[The Champ]

Things are a little slow on the other board we post on...

Thought it might be time to join the D3 board.

Just saw the current D3 poll - Simpson is #18 and Stout is #21.  St. Ben's got 4 votes - Concordia didn't get any.

Not that the rankings mean much now that the brackets are set.  Just have to beat whatever team you are scheduled to play...

Good luck to your Warhawks in the men's tourney - at least until they play Stout again (hoping that both teams make it that far)...

Men's rankings in the current poll...  UWW is #15 and Stout is #19.  LaCrosse got 9 votes.

[The Champ]

From Pat C's. article on this weekend's games at Simpson:

Cinderella story: It almost seems unfair to label a WIAC team a Cinderella. UW-Stout had some tough games against good competition during a midseason run and ends up a low seed as a result. Don't let the seed fool you — the Blue Devils can be a player in this bracket. They're the best candidate in this grouping, but sliding Hardin-Simmons could use the motivation of knocking its crosstown rival out of the tournament as a springboard to winning the regional.

Most likely to disappoint: Simpson. It's hard to gauge how battle-ready this team is. They're 1-2 against NCAA Tournament teams, all on neutral floors, and even the win is somewhat tempered — against Bates when Bates was 4-5. (The Bobcats are back at full strength and are 19-8 now.)

Scheduling 3 games against DI and DII teams also doesn't help Stout's seeding, but I think that playing challenging non conference games improves the team.

Hopefully Pat is correct about this weekend's results in Indianloa!!!

[badgerwarhawk]

Things are a little slow on the other board we post on...

Thought it might be time to join the D3 board.

Just saw the current D3 poll - Simpson is #18 and Stout is #21. St. Ben's got 4 votes - Concordia didn't get any.

Not that the rankings mean much now that the brackets are set. Just have to beat whatever team you are scheduled to play...

Good luck to your Warhawks in the men's tourney - at least until they play Stout again (hoping that both teams make it that far)...

Men's rankings in the current poll... UWW is #15 and Stout is #19. LaCrosse got 9 votes.

Thanks, we'll need as much luck as possible.  Same to your BlueDevil women.

The national rankings are nice but the ones you want to play closest attention to are the regional rankings.  They're far more significant when it comes to the tournament.

[The Champ]

[quote author=badgerwarhawkThe national rankings are nice but the ones you want to play closest attention to are the regional rankings.  They're far more significant when it comes to the tournament.

I understand what you're saying, but Stout is the only Central Region team in this bracket. 

Kind of hard to compare, isn't it?

[foul_language]

A quick note: I've spent time trying to figure the circular reasoning that starts with 'Stout beat Messiah, and Messiah beat...' and following the spiral until I was so dizzy I could throw up. What it comes down to, for me, is strengths and weaknesses, good and bad habits, ability to match up. That might be stating the obvious--and I'm all about obvious--but I see Stout as very strong, very fast, very aggressive and very deep. Their strength--and coincidentally, their weakness--is that they come out fast. If they're on, fast works very well; if they aren't on, something that looks like panic sets in--or used to. The other part of being fast and on is that Stout has gone into a lull with a big lead. That didn't happen against Stevens Point, so maybe Stout understands when a good coast is OK and when it's not.

I think Stout likes a challenge at this point. When I said they started slow and are peaking at the right time, I think that has as much to do with facing the challenge as with putting more points up than the opposition. Many of their losses this season were mental losses well before the final buzzer sounded. When they saw an 18 point lead melt down to two against LaCrosse(wasn't it?) we watched Stout claw their way back to a 14 (lord, my memory is bad; was it 14?) point win, you know they've formulated a strategy of confidence and ability.

Keeping Duoss in fewer minutes and letting the team know they can compete without her has been a great plan. Jenny McDermid has been terrific that last couple of games and has stepped in beautifully for Kelsey. That shores up all the second half of the first string. I personally believe Stout's first string is ten deep.

Stout hasn't collapsed on its game plan lately, and that's important.

Now, how does that stack up against the Concordia-Moorheads and Simpson's and St. Bens? Who knows until they get on the court together. It's like a big crap shoot, and I sincerely hope Stout takes into the game what they've learned since the beginning of the season.

It's too bad those Christmas tournaments aren't a mix of regional teams just to see how they stack up head-to-head or vicarious head-to-head so I can look at the stats and say, well, CM beat Northwestern by 20 and we beat them by 21, but Northwestern beat River Falls and River Falls played CM to a near tie...