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Congrats to Paige Bueckers for winning the Big East Freshman of the week and Olivia Nelson-Ododa for winning Big East player of the week.
It won't be the last one that Bueckers wins this year. And I hope it's not the last one that Nelson-Ododa wins this year.
Bueckers is everything that her High School career portended it would be. Talk about fitting in seamlessly. She took over the starting point guard position from Dangerfield and is playing like a seasoned veteran. I can only imagine how great her four (or five) years at UConn will be.
Nelson-Ododa looks like she has taken a big jump from her inconsistent sophomore season to this year. As a junior she looks to have added more maturity to her game. I think confidence is a big part of it. She has perfected her post moves, from her turn around fade away jumper, to her legal hook and spin to the basket to her face up jumper from the foul line and sometimes beyond. Time to face some size and see how she performs.
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The next couple of days will be fairly quiet in regards to the Top 25 so I suspect I will take a couple of days off from Blogging. But I'll return to talk more about the upcoming UConn/Baylor game and the 10 other games involving Top 25 teams playing on Thursday. it's a full slate.
A couple of great games ahead.
No. 10 Kentucky visits No. 8 Texas A&M in a big SEC contest.
No. 12 Maryland takes on No. 23 Michigan State in a Big Ten clash.
And No. 13 Arkansas is at unranked Tennessee, who is coming back in their first game since shutting down because of COVID related issues. Can't wait to see the Razorbacks run the Lady Vols right out of Thompson Boiling Arena!!!
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No. 5 South Carolina handled previously unbeaten Alabama 77-60. After a good competitive start where the Crimson Tide was even with the Gamecocks 15-15 and only down 20-17 after the 1st quarter, South Carolina slowly but surely build up a lead that would never get closer than 9 points. As good as Aliyah Boston was in her previous game, she was that bad in this one. She did grab 10 rebounds but was 2-10 from the field for only 5 points. And she had 4 fouls in this game. The dynamic backcourt of Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson were terrific. They combined for 38 points, 11 rebound and 7 assists.
No. 12 Maryland took on No. 19 Indiana in a clash of two of the top teams in the Big 10. It looked like it was going to be a blowout, with Maryland running out to a 23-9 first quarter lead. But after two evenly matched 2nd and 3rd quarters, the Hoosiers made a run in the 4th quarter to close to 2 points before Maryland was able to hold on to win 84-80. The Terps have several offensive options and 4 of their starters were in double figures. They were led by last seasons Big 10 Freshman of the Year Ashley Owusu. At 6 ' tall and a very solid body, she is a difficult match up for any guard in the country. She had 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. Maryland is now 10-1 and 3-0 in the conference.
No. 16 Ohio State, probably the second best Big 10 team, beat Purdue 82-69 to barely cover the spread. The Buckeyes stayed undefeated at 5-0. And this was their first conference game. It appears they have been victims of Covid protocol this year.
In a Big East contest, No. 20 DePaul bounced back from their loss to UConn with a 94-82 win over a game Villanova team. The Blue Demons used a big second quarter to take an 11 point lead at the half and did a great job hold off the Wildcats from getting close enough to make them nervous. Sonya Morris once again led DePaul with 22 points while Maddy Siegrist showed why she should end up on the Big East post season team by scoring 31 points, grabbing 9 rebounds and handing out 5 assists.
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My good friend Phil commented on the UCLA/Oregon game and broke down the last minute of the game with his usual insight. I thought I would share it with you. It's long, but worth it.
On the one hand, this was an exciting game, not just because it was close but because the two teams can usually play basketball. If you have a choice between a PAC 12 game and an SEC game, go for the pac 12 gain, it will be more enjoyable. That said, the final minute of play, while nailbiting, didn't showcase women's basketball at the best. UCLA was up by 11 with three or four minutes to go, but Oregon managed to score 11 straight to tie the game. That part was exciting but then the level of play deteriorated. with about 27 seconds left in the game, and UCLA up by two, Oregon shot and missed and it looks like the ball went out of bounds to UCLA. A long time elapsed until the play resumed. I still don't know whether a timeout was called does anyone know how to check? The officials decided they needed to check the monitor to confirm who had possession of the ball, and both teams were able to huddle to draw up their respective place. That took a long time, longer than it usually does for an official review which is why I wonder if there actually was a timeout called. At the time I thought Close was being too clever, because the situation called for a timeout to talk through strategy but maybe she thought she could get her timeout in while the official review was taking place. Or maybe she called a timeout.
Here is why it matters— if she had called a timeout could advance the ball to the other end of the court, but if she didn't call a timeout she didn't have that option. In any event, the officials decided it was UCLA's ball but they took it out at Oregon's end. It just occurred to me that they took it out on the sideline not the end line. if it was simply an out of bounds call, wouldn't have been taken out at the end line? Does the fact they took it out on the sideline mean that there was a timeout called? If so, what's the rationale for not advancing the ball? I think a coach always has the option to advance the ball if the time is under one minute and a timeout is taken but I'll confess I haven't memorized that rule and maybe I'm missing something
Sorry, back to the point, UCLA inbound of the ball to Onyenwere, arguably their best player, and she traveled turning over the ball and giving it to Oregon at their end of the court. They have the ball on a chance to tie it up or take the lead but instead they turned it over. Now UCLA takes the timeout and manages to remember to take it to their end of the court, but the inbound to Osborne and she steps out of bounds. If you watched this play, , you'll see that she got bumped and she tried to argue that the bump is why she went out of bounds but if you watch the replay you'll see that she stepped out of bounds before being touched. It was a good call, and meant that two supposedly quality teams managed to turn the ball over three times in less than 30 seconds. Not impressive.
Oregon got the ball but failed to score, giving UCLA a rare upset over Oregon. I think the announcers mentioned that they are fiftysomething and 2 in their home arena in recent years, so this was a very rare event.
Here is why it matters— if she had called a timeout could advance the ball to the other end of the court, but if she didn't call a timeout she didn't have that option. In any event, the officials decided it was UCLA's ball but they took it out at Oregon's end. It just occurred to me that they took it out on the sideline not the end line. if it was simply an out of bounds call, wouldn't have been taken out at the end line? Does the fact they took it out on the sideline mean that there was a timeout called? If so, what's the rationale for not advancing the ball? I think a coach always has the option to advance the ball if the time is under one minute and a timeout is taken but I'll confess I haven't memorized that rule and maybe I'm missing something
Sorry, back to the point, UCLA inbound of the ball to Onyenwere, arguably their best player, and she traveled turning over the ball and giving it to Oregon at their end of the court. They have the ball on a chance to tie it up or take the lead but instead they turned it over. Now UCLA takes the timeout and manages to remember to take it to their end of the court, but the inbound to Osborne and she steps out of bounds. If you watched this play, , you'll see that she got bumped and she tried to argue that the bump is why she went out of bounds but if you watch the replay you'll see that she stepped out of bounds before being touched. It was a good call, and meant that two supposedly quality teams managed to turn the ball over three times in less than 30 seconds. Not impressive.
Oregon got the ball but failed to score, giving UCLA a rare upset over Oregon. I think the announcers mentioned that they are fiftysomething and 2 in their home arena in recent years, so this was a very rare event.
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