The HC women's basketball team backed into the number two spot in the Patriot League standings, and will host one-half of the PL tournament which begins Thursday. Bucknell and Lehigh face off in the first quarterfinal game at 5:30pm, with the Crusaders and the AU Eagles matching up at 8pm.
A few folks over on Crossports are wondering why the HC women's team doesn't get more attention from the board's registered posters. That question gets kicked around every so often. My answer, for this year, at least, is pretty simple: This season's version of the Crusaders isn't much fun to watch.
Maybe I just miss those breathtaking Maggie Fontana passes, or the all-around post play of Lisa Andrews. But it's more than that. Seniors Shannon Bush, Jess Conte, and Sarah Placek are shooting a combined 36.1% from the field, and an even worse 31.5% on three-pointers. I love Conte, but her shooting this year has been disappointing.
Shannon Bush has the worst percentages of the senior tri-captains. She's at 34.9% from the field, and a terrible 28.5% from three. Shooting that poorly from three-land is one thing, but taking almost half your shots (actually 46.3%) from behind-the-arc, while shooting that poorly, simply isn't smart. Neither is the fact that she's taken the second-most shots on the team, only 21 behind the 54% shooting and breakout junior center Kaitlin Foley who's taken 302 shots on the season.
The much-maligned Sarah Placek, not a fan favorite, actually has the best percentages of the three seniors. The headline for the game story in today's Sunday Telegram was "Unlikely milestone," in reference to Placek's reaching 1000 career points. Congratulations to her on that achievement! Her pull-up 12-foot jumper is deadly. Yet according to the article in today's paper, she has the lowest career scoring average (8.8) of the 22 members of the HC women's 1000-point club. Longevity doesn't preclude mediocrity.
It probably seems like I'm trashing this year's seniors. That's not my intention. They play hard, and I've heard excellent things about them off-the-court. I'm absolutely sure they represent Holy Cross as well as any students. However, poor decision-making and less-than-stellar shooting have added up to a mediocre season for this season's Crusaders. Add in Keil's lack of development (her junior year is almost over - let's face it, she hasn't met expectations), and Ashley McLaughlin's awful sophomore season, and what are the positives to continuously rave about?
Aloisi and Foley salvaged the year, in this fan's opinion. I've been a season-ticket holder for a few years, and I haven't seen a player make offseason progress like Foley did this year. She made astounding improvements, and she's capable of having a dominant senior year. Aloisi has been very good through the PL schedule, and seems to be back to 100% after her injury-filled freshman campaign. She's still improving.
Prospects for the PL tournament? I'm not sure. I've said all along that Bucknell would be trouble in the tournament. If they beat Lehigh, and HC beats AU, then we'll have another tough HC-BU women's game on hand for Saturday afternoon. Obviously I hope HC wins their games this weekend, but following this season's pattern, nothing will be easy. Good luck, ladies.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I agree with hchoops that the team didn't back into 2nd but I suspect, Jon, that you meant that this team was a pre-season favorite and has the talent to have won the regular season outright but blew too many games and settled for 2nd. When they had those "must win" games for first, they did not.
The key to failure on this team, in my mind, was simply a lack of leadership on the floor. I suspect Bill Gibbons is very frustrated with this underachieving team. You wrote about the poor shooting but those percentages would still have won a number of games with better control of the ball - too many turnovers on just plain sloppy play - and better rebounding and taking advantage of the height they have over other PL teams.
On the positive side, you know I totally agree with you about Ms. Foley who is the most improved player, men or women, that I have seen in the 6 years I've been a season ticket holder for both.
This team still has the talent to win the tournament and go to the NCAAs again but to do so, they'll need to have a leadership transplant as they've proven they can lose games to very mediocre teams.
It wasn't the classic "back in," but I was referring to the losses by HC and Bucknell on Tuesday night. That home loss by Bucknell to a not-very-good Lehigh team, sewed up HC's chances at second-place in my opinion. HC had a terrible loss to Colgate that night, but was bailed out by BU. I really liked the chances of HC beating Lehigh at the Hart, a win that would clinch 2nd regardless of the outcome of the Army-BU game Saturday.
Now HC still had to win their game Saturday, and they did, but to me that BU loss at home to Lehigh was the clincher. So you're right, it wasn't the classic "back in" because if HC lost at home to Lehigh, and BU beat Army as they did, HC would finished in 3rd. Yet it would have been a much different story if BU had beaten Lehigh on Tuesday. Lehigh helped HC immensely, twice in one week.
Regarding the women's stats, I looked up the turnover numbers. HC's actually had fewer turnovers than their opponents, and more assists. They've been crushed on the boards. It's hard, though, to quantify the sloppiness of play to which sader1970 refers. I agree with that. It hasn't been pretty.
I agree that this has been a most disappointing season, though in retrospect, perhaps expectations were too high. I though for this team to excel they would need help from the incoming freshman, who clearly are a year away, although Kathy G has progressed nicely & I think going to be a pretty good player. The late loss of Morrow, as well as transfer of Dalhmen hurt and the preseason injury to McLaughlin killed this team. No depth all season as a result, rarely did BG go more than 7 deep in any close game. Biggest surprise to me was that Merrihue never got any minutes. One would think she might of helped on the boards, which was the single most glaring weakness of this team IMO. Not much of a stat hound, but don’t recall that BG’s have ever shot particularly well from the outside but that only a guess.
Should be an interesting team next year, because their success will depend the contribution of the incoming recruits. McFadden may well start, early part of her career played mostly 2 -3, while this year played shooting 1 (almost half her baskets this year came from beyond the arc). O’Dell & Cushnie may see significant minutes at 2. If Carper bulks up a little, has prefect game to play a very good 4 in the PL, but may be a year away. Will be curious what position Keil plays, I’m guessing it may be primarily 2&3 vs. the 3-4 of this year. Ultimately, a big part of any turn around will depend on whether Ashley M comes back health and ready to play or not. I think during the last half of the season, her play has improved & she finally seems healthy.
Well, I’m sure you share my hope that they put a solid run together & win the tournament, as on of the TV guys said on Sunday, just about any one of these teams, maybe w/the exception of Lafayette could win the PL tourn. On paper, still think HC is the best of the bunch if they can keep the rebound margins close.
HC13, thanks for the comment. Good point about Merrihue - wasn't she supposed to be the elite prospect?
And thanks for keeping us updated over on the message board regarding the incoming recruits.
Didn't see Merrhiue play in HS, but she certainly was very highly thought of & had good press from her AAU career. Her total lack of playing time may only suggest that she has had trouble ajusting to the system.
Post a Comment