GDT: St Thomas vs SDSU 7pm Frost Arena SLN/Midco

[OldHare]

The 10-6 Tommies arrive in Brookings riding a 5 game winning streak. They are 2-0 in the Summit and they defeated BSC Sac St & Portland St. The Jackrabbits should have the edge in rebounding today. The Tommies will be guard heavy offense with Lengbahn the primary big who scores 12.4 & 5.7 boards.. Hill and Scalia are the lead scorers at the guards. The Tommies will also play deep into the bench outside of Hill & Scalia. The Jackrabbits are finding some other scoring as teams focused on the Meyers. Mathiowetz has moved up to double figure scoring to help that load. A few more shots to drop by Vlastuin & Nelson should be coming soon as these 2 have helped on rebounding big time. Stop the Tommie winning streak and extend the Jackrabbit streak to 4. Go Jacks!!

[Justwin]

I'm ready to see Tori act like a senior leader

[LetsGoRabbits]

I'm ready to see Tori act like a senior leader

do you mean you want her to score more? or what is it you want her to do?

she is the unquestioned best defender on the team. have not looked at the stats but i am gonna guess even with Mesa recent outburst, Tori is still the #2 shot blocker on the team and probably pretty close to Brooklyn in total blocks
blocks DO NOT make someone a good defender- just pointing out it is one of many skills she does have and probably one that most people dont recognize about her

but she can and does guard every player on the floor. I think some might underestimate how much emphasis AJ puts on the defensive end of the floor, but it is his first priority without a doubt and Tori is the unquestioned leader on defense

someone could go back and look, but i honestly dont think she was a big scorer in HS. i feel like her scoring as a freshman was a bit of a surprise. she has always been a good-very good FT shooter and pretty clutch as i recall- 2 huge FT at the end of the ucla wnit semifinal, another 2 big ones the other night at the end of the NAU game- two years ago she did shoot over 40% from 3 and it is disappointing that she has fallen off so drastically from that number. i dont have an explanation at all??? i feel like in recent games they are posting her up more and she has had some success doing that in the past, but if i had to guess, she is going to have a game or two where she scores well this year but if we are expecting her to score in order to be a good player / leader this year, it will probably be a disappointment

i just dont believe that is what AJ is asking her to do. DEFEND, communicate, do EVERYTHING else, hit some clutch shots- ala past players who did not score a lot but hit huge shots by always being ready for the moment (LT vs gonzaga and alabama is the easy best recent example but there have been many) just guessing, but would guess AJ believes this team has a lot of leaders but also believes Tori does play / is playing a very important role

no question that AJ discusses roles with the players. if he expected Tori to have the role of one of the leading scorers then she would definitely have higher shot attempt numbers. of course they would be happy to have her make some more baskets and can use the points but we have heard comments about AJ wanting other players to score more- Maddie M. i have not heard anything about Tori being pushed to score more. have you heard different?? i feel like she is playing the role they want / expect her to play and curious to hear why you think she is not acting like a leader?

going into offseason, i thought they might look at her early years and say she can be a scorer and that they might ask her to play that role, but it seems pretty clear that is not the role they are asking her to play

[OldHare]

Tori shoots 87% from the charity. She has 4.9 boards/game trailing Vlastuin[5.5], Byom,[5.4] & Brooklyn[9.1]. She has 22 blocks trailing B Meyer at 29. Tori has 2.3 TO/game while adding 2.8 assists/game and 8.3 points. She is also doing this while playing the 3rd most minutes for the team. The other staters are shooting 42.5%-51.7% to Tori's 39.5%. Many of her misses are in the paint zone which is an adjustment from earlier years. Overall, I would concur with LGR as there is great value in Tori's play. My comment about Vlastuin and her would be more shots and accuracy for both as they seem to pass shots to pass the ball. The shots missed close will begin to drop.

[LetsGoRabbits]

I believe that we are going to see this team really take off from this point. they have played a challenging schedule. you have to allow some time to adjust to playing without Timmie and Kallie. Timmie is potentially the leading scorer on this team. i think with little to no doubt that she would be the leader in FG attempts at this point so the only question would have been what type of percentages she was going to put up because she was definitely going to be aggressive looking for her shots

Kallie is the best rebounder, shot blocker, defender in the conference! those are two BIG losses and they were learning how to play without them against a bunch of rated and other tough teams. they played many of those teams very close. i think we are probably underestimating, compared to the other games SC has played, how impressively we defended them and actually played them closer than most teams!!

none of this means that i think the jacks are just good enough to beat up on the summit and not good enough to play other good teams. they just beat NAU on the road, who is favored to win the big sky. my point is that the jacks have been learning how to play with the roster they have against VERY good teams and they have been doing a far better job than they are getting credit for. now the competition is going to come down a notch and they are going to take what they have learned and barring injuries, i believe we will see their confidence grow and their learning come to culmination. i am feeling more and more like this team is going to play someone very tough in the ncaa tourney and just might surprise some people. of course the matchup will matter. if they match up against a huge team, they are never gonna give up, but it is tougher

[GoJacks2011]

Close half but we have been behind from the start. St Thomas is making shots and we are not. Simple as that. They’re definitely making strides year after year.

[GoJacks2011]

3’s starting to fall and Jacks pull ahead. Bench players with good minutes tonight.

[GoJacks2011]

Great second half! Brooklyn Meyer may be the best shot blocker we have ever had.

[da_coach]

Great second half! Brooklyn Meyer may be the best shot blocker we have ever had.

She is so good. It's really impressive how good she is on both ends.

[bigticket1]

3’s starting to fall and Jacks pull ahead. Bench players with good minutes tonight.

It looked like St. Thomas just wore out. Especially Scalia and Hill who played 37 and 35 minutes.

[OldHare]

AJ sent the women out to rumble in the 2nd half. They scored 48 and held the Tommies to 20. The Tommies burned most of the shot clock in the first half and they would drive for many easy shots at the buzzer. They shot over 60% in the first half compared to 25% in the 2nd half. The Jackrabbits made it an intense 2nd half for the comeback. This roster may surprise some as they continue to grow their roles.

[discoDancinRabbit]

MM looks more comfortable out there speaking of roles. She can do a lot of different things offensively.

[bigticket1]

AJ sent the women out to rumble in the 2nd half. They scored 48 and held the Tommies to 20. The Tommies burned most of the shot clock in the first half and they would drive for many easy shots at the buzzer. They shot over 60% in the first half compared to 25% in the 2nd half. The Jackrabbits made it an intense 2nd half for the comeback. This roster may surprise some as they continue to grow their roles.

The injuries have made this season tough, but withTimmer, Theisen and Behrens returning plus a really deep and talented freshman class coming in, there may be more quality depth next season than the Jacks have ever had.

[discoDancinRabbit]

The injuries have made this season tough, but withTimmer, Theisen and Behrens returning plus a really deep and talented freshman class coming in, there may be more quality depth next season than the Jacks have ever had.

That's going to be a log jam next year when you take the momentum of this years team and add in Timmer and Theisen and whichever freshman demand playing time.