Big Roag Trip (?) - Evansville & SIU

[1972Shocker]

Normally you might not say a road trip to the 9th and 10th place teams in the MVC is a make or break roadie, but that may be what the Lady Shocks Basketball team is facing tonight against Evansville (3-15, 0-7) and on Saturday (3-14, 2-5).

The Shocks who have not been good at all on the road in recent years are coming off a big win at Missouri State and have a chance to pick up two more road wins if they play well.

I think Taylor Eldridge summed it up pretty well in his article in the Eagle today:

http://www.kansas.com/sports/shockers/story/1156316.html

A month from now, the Wichita State women's basketball team will be able to look back at this week's road trip and see either an opportunity lost or an opportunity taken.

with wins over Bradley (third place) and Missouri State (tied with WSU for fourth), the Shockers are in good position to finish strong. This weekend might be looked back upon as the turning point of the season.

That makes this weeks cames intriguing despite the opponents' records. Despite Evansville's and SIU's current MVC standing these games are not slam dunks. In fact, I'm sure Evansville and SIU are saying to themselves that this is a chance for them to pickup a win this week.

:goshocks:

[The Mad Hatter]

I don't know whether the way the schedule ended up is a curse or a blessing.

On the one hand, we have 3 straight road games with the last two being against the bottom 2 teams in the league. Since you already won the game you weren't supposed to (@MSU), you have a great chance to have a 3 game road winning streak.

On the other hand, winning @SIU and @Evansville were your best bets for road wins in the Valley, but by having them back to back and connected to another road game, it means that you have to win multiple road games in a row, which is not easy for an inexperienced team. You could end up losing a game from having a long road stretch that you might have won otherwise.

Because of the win at MSU, I tend to see it more as a scheduling blessing than curse. If you had lost at MSU, then I would be worried about having to play two more road games before coming back home, even against bad competition, but by winning you made ride some momentum through this stretch.

If we can win these next two, things set up pretty well for us. We still have both of our home games against SIU and Evansville left on the schedule and have gotten our road trips against CU, Drake, and MSU out of the way.

[1972Shocker]

Bottom line is if we can win these two games we will go to 6-3 in the conference.

It has been a very long while since we were 3 games over .500 at the half-way point of the conference season.

As TE wrote: will it be an opportunity taken or an opprotunity lost?

Hopefully, the Shocks will be in a Shakin', Bakin' and Takin' mode.

[1979Shocker]

The Women's game against Evansville is on Cox KS22 in case anyone's interested.

[1979Shocker]

Halftime
WSU 38
UE 28

[SFL]

Turnover city...

[SFL]

A Bob Hull classic, "the crowd is getting back into the game."
Must be 50 people there.

:yahoo:

[1972Shocker]

68-68 going to OT. This would be a very bad loss after leading by 14 early in the second half.

Hopefully, the Shocks can find enough offense to pull this out in the extra period but they are not looking real confident.

[SFL]

[WuDrWu]

I'm certain I've never seen clock management that bad. WSU blows a 14 point lead with (and I'm just guessing) 147 unforced turnovers and the worst shot selection in the history of college basketball.


Overtime.

[The Mad Hatter]

I'm certain I've never seen clock management that bad. WSU blows a 14 point lead with (and I'm just guessing) 147 unforced turnovers and the worst shot selection in the history of college basketball.


Overtime.

I love Jessie, but a lot of that was her playing like a freshman.

[SFL]

The worst passing I've seen... reminds me of junior high.

[ShockerFever]

I caught the final 2 minutes of the game.

Was there any reason why WSU acted like they were the team that was down by 6 or 7 points? Rushed shot after rushed shot. It was like they wanted Evansville to tie/win it.


Not that this loss would mean anything for resume purposes, but it would be bad for the program.

[The Mad Hatter]

It doesn't excuse the turnovers and clock management, but the officials have been handing Evansville this game on a silver platter.

[SFL]