Maryland got an extra 4-5 points there at the end because we had to get 2 or three to tie.....makes the win look a lot better for them on the scoreboard, but it was a real nail bitter if not for having to give them points at the end.
Maryland was averaging 99 ppg and Notre Dame has averaged 91. Those numbers came mostly in blowouts where they likely eased up. We allowed them 62 and 75. That kind of defense could get us a couple more big wins before it is unleashed on some poor Summit League teams.
Shooting even a lousy 30% in the first quarter tonight would have likely been enough to have the Jacks looking past the mid-major polls and finding themselves getting votes in the real deal. That can still happen if they go on a run starting tomorrow.
The Jacks started the game thinking they couldn't run what they normally do, and when they figured out they just needed to be aggressive on offense, things started to go better. I think the minutes that Ober and Thompson had to play caught up with them in the end. Thompson especially showed she would not be intimidated though. Stevens leaving the team after last season really screwed up the rotations at the 4 and 5 spots. Mieras isn't ready, especially against this kind of talent, and playing a 5'11 former point guard at the 4, no matter how much fight she has in her, will hurt against teams with size. Thankfully that should not be as much of a problem when conference play starts.
The Jacks came out and missed 16 of their first 17 shots (a lot of them from pretty close) and quickly fell behind by 13. Yet, they fought their way back to a couple of brief fourth-quarter leads. Dang. So close. Just got to keep scrapping to make up for a lack of size. Good comeback, but this team is beyond settling for morale victories. Go, Jacks!
I'm not a big fan of fouling with more than the 30 seconds of shot clock left on the time clock.We gave them 6 pts at the end when we could have taken a shot with at least 7 seconds left (if they ran out the entire shot clock allocation).We gave ourselves no chance to win by letting them pad the lead......but everyone does it so i guess it's not out of the ordinary,just wonder how it would have turned out if we'd of just played for the last shot.Yes, it was 37.7 seconds left when they got the rebound on their last FG attempt.Miller intentionally fouled at 30 seconds.They made the next 6 pts in the last 30 seconds.I think margin of a victory is never considered in end of game decisions.We had our chance ,so i'm not disappointed, just curious if we'd of played that out differently.We could have lost or won either way I guess.Really good game by our Jacks,they got back into it after a bad start and gave Maryland a little scare,they're not used to being hard pressed by anyone but a top 10 team.
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