Xavier Game Day Thread

[RowdyRabbit]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

I stand by number 1. Xavier was not worthy of a 2 seed. They just got spanked by Louisville.

I wouldn't say spanked.

Xavier led a good portion of the game, but then got down by 3 with a minute and half to go and went into a shell, and ended up losing by 10 on because of FT's. The game was much closer than the final score.

I will agree though, other than Ta'shia Phillips and Amber Harris, and maybe Special Jennings at times, I didn't think they were tremendously better than SDSU.

[Tanker87]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

I stand by number 1. Xavier was not worthy of a 2 seed. They just got spanked by Louisville.

I would have to disagree with this for the most part. I believe they were worthy of a #2 seed. In fact, being at the game and seeing first-hand, I believe that this Xavier team probably played better against the Jacks than the Baylor and Oklahoma teams of the previous two tournaments.

What got Xavier in trouble was the fact that Phillips and Harris played 32 and 34 minutes, respectively, against the Jacks. That's a lot of minutes for big women like those two to recover from in two days. I took a look at the box score from tonight's game versus Louisville and saw that Phillips put in 40 minutes and Harris put in 37 minutes. Given that Xavier was up 7 with 5:58 left in the game, I get the feeling that they were just spent. And this has a lot to do with the play of Sunnarborg and Lingle two days ago. If it wasn't for their foul trouble which limited them both to around 17-18 minutes, it could have been a different game. Lingle was giving Phillips all she could handle.

From a crowd standpoint, the 7 point run at the end of the half that Xavier went on against us doomed us, largely because 1/3 of the fans in the arena in the first half of the game were Louisville fans cheering on the Jacks like crazy. Most left at the half because the lead grew to 9...if we would have went into the half down 5 or less, I get a feeling the Louisville fans would have stuck around.

All and all, Xavier was the better team that day. Hats off to our girls for giving it their all and leaving it all on the court.

[JamesJacks]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

I would have to disagree with this for the most part. I believe they were worthy of a #2 seed. In fact, being at the game and seeing first-hand, I believe that this Xavier team probably played better against the Jacks than the Baylor and Oklahoma teams of the previous two tournaments.

What got Xavier in trouble was the fact that Phillips and Harris played 32 and 34 minutes, respectively, against the Jacks. That's a lot of minutes for big women like those two to recover from in two days. I took a look at the box score from tonight's game versus Louisville and saw that Phillips put in 40 minutes and Harris put in 37 minutes. Given that Xavier was up 7 with 5:58 left in the game, I get the feeling that they were just spent. And this has a lot to do with the play of Sunnarborg and Lingle two days ago. If it wasn't for their foul trouble which limited them both to around 17-18 minutes, it could have been a different game. Lingle was giving Phillips all she could handle.

From a crowd standpoint, the 7 point run at the end of the half that Xavier went on against us doomed us, largely because 1/3 of the fans in the arena in the first half of the game were Louisville fans cheering on the Jacks like crazy. Most left at the half because the lead grew to 9...if we would have went into the half down 5 or less, I get a feeling the Louisville fans would have stuck around.

All and all, Xavier was the better team that day. Hats off to our girls for giving it their all and leaving it all on the court.

My opinion is that Louisville plays a much faster paced game than the Jacks do, and that could have played into the eventual wearing down of Xavier. Yes, I'm sure only having 48 hours to recover from a Sunday game played a little part too. As for SDSU having anything to do with those big girls from Xavier wearing down, we had 4 post players play more 17 or more minutes to try and beat on those two (Lingle 17, Sunnarborg 18, Strop 21, Dietel 22). It was a group effort from that bunch of Jacks. Problem is that we didn't wear them down during our game with them to hurt their play.

[SturgisJeff]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

the Louisville game plan was to take the two trees out of the action which they did. 53 didn't look anymore winded than when they played us. the refs were calling things against X that they didn't call against us, Louisville was more active at going after the trees on the offensive end and sorry are a bit more athletic than our girls. not to take anything away from the Jacks cause I was at the game too, our ladies played great just not great enough. Louisville caused X to have 23 turnovers, and played heads up and were where they needed to be in the last seven minutes. Louisville had a 23 to 10 run during the last part of the game. X did not need to foul like they did at the end and the game would have been closer. X just choked under the pressure.

[JamesJacks]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

the Louisville game plan was to take the two trees out of the action which they did. 53 didn't look anymore winded than when they played us. the refs were calling things against X that they didn't call against us, Louisville was more active at going after the trees on the offensive end and sorry are a bit more athletic than our girls. not to take anything away from the Jacks cause I was at the game too, our ladies played great just not great enough. Louisville caused X to have 23 turnovers, and played heads up and were where they needed to be in the last seven minutes. Louisville had a 23 to 10 run during the last part of the game. X did not need to foul like they did at the end and the game would have been closer. X just choked under the pressure.

Great analysis and post ^

[jackdaniel]

Re: Xavier Game Day Thread

I think it could be advantageous to play Xavier after a hard fought game two days prior,would it make enough difference,who knows.
Louisville is a hot shooting team right now,i've chk'd their box scores on certain games during the season when they couldn't make a basket,they lost a lot of those games.Making baskets and keeping the pressure on makes a difference,and the winner is usually the team that can keep their composure and finish a game out that wins.Congrats to Louisville on a good win.