2017-18 WBB American Athletic Conference Games

[1972Shocker]

Tulsa picked to finish 9th in the AAC leads the Shockers, picked to finish 10th, 28-27 at the half. If the Shocks hope to finish better than their predicted 10th place finish they probably need to win this one. Looks like two pretty evenly matched bottom half AAC teams.

A 13-2 run by Tulsa to closed out a 25 point quartnr for the Golden Hurricane makes it 53-39 after 3 quarters as the Shocks find themselves in a hole that may well be too deep to dig out over the final quarter.

The Shocks are'nt giving up (a good sign in and of itstelf) and have cut the lead to 57-52 with 5 minutes remaining.

Shocks got it to 59-57 but a late possession where Tulsa got several offensive rebounds and ended up with an and-one three point play to make it 62-57 was a killer.

Final Score: Tulsa 67 - Shockers 62.

A bit of a strange time-out by Tulsa at the end of the game. The Shock had just scored their final basket to make it 67-62 and Tulsa called a time out with 0.9 seconds remaining, Perhaps a bit of over-coaching.

Nice come back effort buy the Shocks but this game was lost in the 3rd quarter although they had a chance to pull it out but missed 2 free throws down 57-59 and then gave up the 4 offensive rebound possession that ended with the 3-point play.

[flyingMoose]

Walking to our seats, we passed the Wichita South girl's basketball team on the concourse. I had forgotten that Kendrian Elliot, a WS alum, was at Tulsa.

Random observations:

Tulsa started in man, switched to a 2-3 zone for much of the game before playing some more man late. I don't think it made much difference to the Shocks - played about the same against both. They shot well early which probably prompted the switch to the zone.

The Shockers played a 1-2-2 zone press to help get them back in the game in the fourth quarter. There were a few Tulsa turnovers out of it, but mostly it seemed to disrupt Tulsa's rhythm.

Diamond had a tough night shooting. She had several shots rim out as did other Shockers.

The Shocks had several nice plays resulting from dribble penetration by the guards, but so did Tulsa unfortunately.

In some games, Sabrina is not physical enough to help much in the post. This was one of them.

Speaking of interesting timeouts - HCKA called a timeout while a made-basket was in the air late in the game. This allowed her to get the press set up I suppose, but it also prevented Tulsa from calling a timeout and advancing the ball to the front court. She was voicing the timeout before the shot by the Shockers hit the backboard on its way to the hoop.

NOTE: I just looked at the highlights after not finding the video of the postgame show. Unbelievable, but Diamond was only 4-15 and each of her made baskets was in the video.

[1972Shocker]

Walking to our seats, we passed the Wichita South girl's basketball team on the concourse. I had forgotten that Kendrian Elliot, a WS alum, was at Tulsa.

My understanding is Kendrian, a 6-2 sophomore who had a really nice game today with 14 points and 6 rebounds, and her South High teammate, Ericka Mattingly, were very close friends.

Taking that into account and considering that HCKA and the Shocker will be pretty much starting over next year from scratch while Tulsa only has 2 seniors, both guards, on this year's team and I could see Tulsa being very much in the running for Ericka's question. Does she want to go to Tulsa to play with one of her closest friends and a much more experienced roster or does she want to stay home and try to lead an extremely young, inexperienced and unproven Shocker team that will be in place next year.

The Shockers will be graduating the bulk of their production and playing time at the end of this season. Only Sabrina will return from the Jody Adam's days and she is arguably our 3rd best big this year. And only Cesaria and Alyssia are getting many minutes this year. Cesaria is a decent defender and passer but not much of a scorer (at least she has shown she can consistently dent the scoreboard). Next year is full of uncertainty but at this point would appear to be a very challenging year for the Lady Shocks. Will Ericka be interested in that kind of a situation?

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks (5-10) head to Houston tonight to take on the 12-3 Cougars. I don't know much about this Houston team but just looking at their roster and stats I think this game might prevent a major contrast in styles between the two teams. Houston is not very big and they are not very deep (or at least they have not been playing many players). Most of the season they have been going about 7 deep but one of those 7 has not played in the last 3 games and only minor minutes in the game before that so I'm guessing an injury is in play there. In Houston's road win over SMU on Saturday they only played 7 players. One only played 6 minutes. The other 6 averaged 33 minutes each.

Of the 6 players who absorb the bulk of the minutes they are 5-6,, 5-8, 5-10, 5-11 and 6-0. The Shockers strength on the other hand is more with Rangie Bessard and Angie Tompkins inside although Rangie can go outside be Rangie is a wide body and quickness is not her game.

Not surpisingly Houston gets outrebounded by 4.6 per game on average. Roughly 1 of 3 shot attemtps by the Cougars are 3-pointers. Their effective shooting % is 47.4%. The Shocks take about 1 of every 5 shots from beyond the arc but are only hitting 25% of those. The Shocks have an effective shooting % of 45.6%. Houston is not a great free throw shooting team at 65.0% and they don't shoot as many as their opponents (probably because they don't go inside much).

However, Houston will turn the ball over some as they average 18.7 turnovers per game. However the Cougars have averaged 12.9 steals per game and have forced opponents into 23.6 turnovers per game. The Shocks have turned the ball over 15.7 times per game while forcing an average of 14.9 turnovers per game.

Houston is averaging 75.9 points per game to 66.4 for the Shocks. All this is telling my Houston plays a more fast-paced style than the Shocks and are probably very quick and emply a high pressure defense to get turnovers.

Houston will be heavily favored to win this game. I suppose the Shocks' best hope for a major upset would be to play well and for Houston to have bad shooting night from the perimeter. Live by the 3, die by the 3. It will be interesting to see if Rangie, Angiee and Sabrina can keep up with the pace of this game and the smaller, but probably much quicker, athletes of Houston. My guess is that will be too much of a challenge and I don't think the Shocks have the roster to be able to counter that very well.

[flyingMoose]

Houston has an RPI ranking of 35, while the Shockers are at 218.

[1972Shocker]

Shocks struggled early and trailed 20-8 at the end of the 1st quarter. Shocks whittled that lead down to 5 points but a late 3 put the Cougars up 8 at 36-28 at the half.

Final: Houston 73 - Wichita State 55.

I guess the game went more or less according Hoyle. Shocks needed to take care fo the ball and hope for a bad 3 point shooting night from the Cougars. Did not happen. Shocks had 25 turnovers and Houston scored 35 points off those turnovers. Houston knocked down 11 of 23 treys. The Shocks were 0-11.

Rangie led the Shocks with 21 points. I would hate to see where the Shocks would be without Rangie. I guess next year we will find out.

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks were competitive but came up a little short at UCF early Saturday afternoon falling 53-59 to drop them to 5-12 overall and 0-3 in the AAC. The Shocks were a perfect 9--9 from the free throw line but UCF was 15-17 and that proved to be the difference. I did not listen to the game but I did catch HCKA's post=game remarks. Bottom line is that she said the Shocks simply aren't talented enough to win without taking care of all the little things consistently and they had just enough failures in those things today to cost them the game.

Rangie, as usual, led the Shocks with 17 points and 9 rebounds. However, Angiee Tomkins, an Orlando native, had a tough homecoming as she was only 1-9 from the field.

The Shocks return home to face Memphis on Wednesday at 7:00. Memphis was picked to finish 7th in the AAC, 3 spots ahead of the Shockers. However, this is an winnable game if the Shocks play well.

[1972Shocker]

If you're holding your breath hoping for more parity in women's basketball you may want to exhale for a few more years. UConn went on the road Saurday to face USF, the clear choice to finish 2nd behind the Huskies in the AAC.

Final Score: UConn 100 - USF 49

I can only imagine what UConn might do to the Lady Shocks when the Shocks travel to Hartford on February 10th.

Coach Ewa subbed in for Coach Keitha on tonight's radio show and I thought did a very nice job. Coach Keitha was on a recruiting trip in Missouri. Based on what I have seen and heard so far it's hard not to like this coaching staff but they have a real challenge on their hands and will need some time. I'm not expecting too much next year for sure and perhaps the year after that as well. Hopefully, the 2020-21 season will start seeing improved play and results.

Fortunately, it's not critical for WSU to have a successful women's BB program but I'm in the Jim Schaus camp on these satellite sports. If you going to sponsor these sports then do them to the best of your ability. Unfortunately, women's basketball proved to be one program where Jim's hiring decisions (Jane Albright and Jody Adams) have not worked out too well. Jody did have some success, but at what price? Hopefully, Coach Keitha and staff can pull an Alex Harden out the hat in the next couple of years.

You would like to see this current year's team have a little bit of success before mostly moving on. They should win some AAC games (I think). I am just not sure how many that might be. Who knows maybe they could even win a game in the AAC Tournament before getting blown up by one of the Top 4 seeds in the 2nd round.

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks (5-12, 0-3) host Memphis tonight at 7:00 pm. I think the Shocks have chance in this one to pick up their 1st AAC win. Hopefully, it won't be another close one that they ljust can't get over the hump at the end. The Shocks trailed Tulsa 57-59 at home with 2:30 to play and lost 62-67 and trailed UCF on the road 47-51 with3:20 to play and lost 53-59.

Memphis (6-9, 1-1) was on the opposite ends of blowouts in its first two AAC games losing 49-97 at UConn and blowing out ECU at home 72-36. Interestingly, in both of those games Memphis only used 7 players. 3 Memphis players played the full 40 minutes agaisnt ECU (while ECU used 14 players in that game). Not sure what the story is with that. Injury, illness, coach's decision, other?

Memphis is lead by 6-1 Sr F Cheyenne Creighton who is averaging 15.4 PPG and 9.1 RPG and by 5-9 Sr G Brea Elmore who is averaging 14.1 PPG and 3.39 RPG.

The Shocks can counter with 6-1 RSr F Rangie Bessard who is averaging 18.6 PPG and 7.7 RPG and 5-5 RSr G Diamond Lockhart who is aveaging 10.1 PPG and 3.8 RPG.

As team Memphis average 60.3 PPG while allowing 69.6 PPT agaisnt an average RPI of 148.4. The Shocks average 64.9 PPG and allow 69.5 PPG against an average RPI of 133.4.

The teams would seem to be very evenly matched on paper. Shocks need Angiee Tompkins to bounce back from poor shooting game agaisnt ECU and they need a little more offensive production out of the supporting cast. This is one of 10 games of the 13 remaiing on the schedule that the Shocks have at least a reasonable chance to finds some wins. A 7-6 finsih would be a nice way for this large group of Shocker seniors to finish off their careers.

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks get it done knocking off Memphis 69-61 for their 1st ever AAC win.

:encouragement:

[flyingMoose]

Rangie with 24 and Diamond and Keke with 10. With a new theme of Go Get It, the Shocks out-rebounded the Tigers by 39-25.

Memphis is a preseason pick for seventh in the conference.

RPIs: Us-215, Them-165

[flyingMoose]

At Houston earlier this year, the Shockers lost to the Cougars by 18.

At Houston today, the Coogs lost to UConn by 60.

I don't wanna do the math.

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks took their new theme "Go Get It" on the road today winning 64-56 over Tulane to pick up their 1st AAC road win and 2nd consecutive conference win.

:encouragement:

[ShockTalk]

Congrats to HCKA, staff, and our Lady Shocks!

[flyingMoose]

Rangie with 18, Cesaria with 13 and Diamond with 11. Sabrina logged the most minutes, so she must have been hitting the boards (7 and 9 for Rangie) and defending well.

[1972Shocker]

Sabrina had 5 blocks, 3 steals and 4 assists to go along with her 7 points on 3-5 shooting.

[ShockTalk]

Rangie with 18, Cesaria with 13 and Diamond with 11. Sabrina logged the most minutes, so she must have been hitting the boards (7 and 9 for Rangie) and defending well.

That looks like a good team effort.

[1972Shocker]

Diamond Lockhart may be on her way to setting a new single season free throw shooting % record for the Lady Shockers. She is now 36-38 on the season for 94.7%. Another Diamond (Jessica) is the current record holder at 86.7%. Jessica is also the career FT % leader at 80.7% and Diamond (Lockhart) is currently 76-86 on her career for 88.4%. However, Jessica with 280 career attempts far exceeded the number of attempts Diamond will have.