GDT: Jackrabbits vs Cowgirls 2:30pm Gampel Pavillion ESPN2 NCAA Tournament

[LetsGoRabbits]

I'd be very interested to see how it's play out on neutral site. Nevertheless, game will be at 7pm CT tomorrow on ESPN. Should be a ratings boon if the Fighting Mulkeys' antics during preceding game don't scare viewers off.

Winner will play the winner of Iowa vs. Oklahoma

LOTS of thoughts on this. i am not sure the neutral floor would make much difference in this case. I dont think this UConn team is quite as good as that Oregon team we played, but I could be wrong. Oregon had 5 future WNBA players (one never played WNBA because she retired from hoops after college, but she would have been in the WNBA if she wanted to keep playing). does this version of UConn have that? I have not followed closely enough to answer that. barring Injuries, I know they have at least 3 who will be first round picks. I think the OU group may have had 4 who were top ten picks- not positive my memory is exact on that

I have not looked at their roster for sure, but i am nearly positive they will be taller than us at every position. this is the game where we maybe could have tried the supersized lineup with Mesa at the 3 and Vasecka at the 2, but I doubt we would see it now, since we never tried it during the season. there is also the fact that a person could argue that Timmie and MM were actually our two best players yesterday, so it seems unlikely they are gonna get a lot of additional bench time in an effort to get more size.

all that said, this UConn team is more than legit. they really should have been a 1 seed. had we been seeded properly, I believe we should have been the 7a seed, which would have NOT matched us with the best 2 seed. and ESPN has already admitted that our win yesterday was NOT an upset and that we should have been the higher seeded team

I feel confident we will do better than their opponent from the first round, and I am not saying we have zero chance, but whatever percent you put the chance at, it is SMALL. our best chance of winning likely includes someone loading the UConn pregame meal with exlax or some similar scenario))!! every girl on our team would have to play her best game ever

some goals that would definitely help
our best game yet boxing out. it seems basically impossible we beat them on the boards, but I do believe it is possible to keep it close. that will take a team wide perfect attention to boxing out.

no more than 5 turnovers (I do think it is possible for us to keep the boards close. i am not sure this one is possible)

no quick shots unless we clearly beat the defense back. we had at least 3 instances yesterday where we pushed hard for a quick score- once Paige drove the length and threw a totally ill advised shot directly into the arms of the well positioned 6'6 post. that can absolutely never happen if we even want to keep the next one close. ANY quick shot plays into the hands of UConn but a bad quick shot should just be looked at as a turnover

keeping our players- probably Brooklyn and Paige most of all- OUT of foul trouble and somehow getting a couple huskie girls into foul trouble, would also be very helpful. that said even R Lobo recognized that the refs did us zero favors yesterday. it will be far worse tomorrow. the refs will definitely begin the game with the idea that UConn is supposed to win and they are not going to be part of helping one of the top title contenders get upset- ESPECIALLY on that teams home floor with 10K+ fans ready to boo them loudly for every call against a husky girl

finally, all of this should be an excellent reminder just how special that 2019 team was. obviously they are the only sweet 16 team in school history and maybe that is all the proof that is needed, but the argument that they are the best team in school history is very strong. that OU team was absolutely loaded and they played them extremely competitively in what was the direct opposite equivalent of us playing a "neutral site" game in Sioux Falls

i have not looked. i expect the spread will be somewhere in the 30-35ish range? I do feel like if we kept it within 25 that would be considered a great job by most observers

[jakejc795]

LOTS of thoughts on this. i am not sure the neutral floor would make much difference in this case. I dont think this UConn team is quite as good as that Oregon team we played, but I could be wrong. Oregon had 5 future WNBA players (one never played WNBA because she retired from hoops after college, but she would have been in the WNBA if she wanted to keep playing). does this version of UConn have that? I have not followed closely enough to answer that. barring Injuries, I know they have at least 3 who will be first round picks. I think the OU group may have had 4 who were top ten picks- not positive my memory is exact on that

I have not looked at their roster for sure, but i am nearly positive they will be taller than us at every position. this is the game where we maybe could have tried the supersized lineup with Mesa at the 3 and Vasecka at the 2, but I doubt we would see it now, since we never tried it during the season. there is also the fact that a person could argue that Timmie and MM were actually our two best players yesterday, so it seems unlikely they are gonna get a lot of additional bench time in an effort to get more size.

all that said, this UConn team is more than legit. they really should have been a 1 seed. had we been seeded properly, I believe we should have been the 7a seed, which would have NOT matched us with the best 2 seed. and ESPN has already admitted that our win yesterday was NOT an upset and that we should have been the higher seeded team

I feel confident we will do better than their opponent from the first round, and I am not saying we have zero chance, but whatever percent you put the chance at, it is SMALL. our best chance of winning likely includes someone loading the UConn pregame meal with exlax or some similar scenario))!! every girl on our team would have to play her best game ever

some goals that would definitely help
our best game yet boxing out. it seems basically impossible we beat them on the boards, but I do believe it is possible to keep it close. that will take a team wide perfect attention to boxing out.

no more than 5 turnovers (I do think it is possible for us to keep the boards close. i am not sure this one is possible)

no quick shots unless we clearly beat the defense back. we had at least 3 instances yesterday where we pushed hard for a quick score- once Paige drove the length and threw a totally ill advised shot directly into the arms of the well positioned 6'6 post. that can absolutely never happen if we even want to keep the next one close. ANY quick shot plays into the hands of UConn but a bad quick shot should just be looked at as a turnover

keeping our players- probably Brooklyn and Paige most of all- OUT of foul trouble and somehow getting a couple huskie girls into foul trouble, would also be very helpful. that said even R Lobo recognized that the refs did us zero favors yesterday. it will be far worse tomorrow. the refs will definitely begin the game with the idea that UConn is supposed to win and they are not going to be part of helping one of the top title contenders get upset- ESPECIALLY on that teams home floor with 10K+ fans ready to boo them loudly for every call against a husky girl

finally, all of this should be an excellent reminder just how special that 2019 team was. obviously they are the only sweet 16 team in school history and maybe that is all the proof that is needed, but the argument that they are the best team in school history is very strong. that OU team was absolutely loaded and they played them extremely competitively in what was the direct opposite equivalent of us playing a "neutral site" game in Sioux Falls

i have not looked. i expect the spread will be somewhere in the 30-35ish range? I do feel like if we kept it within 25 that would be considered a great job by most observers

Looks like it's 26.5.

I think it'll be closer than that

[LetsGoRabbits]

well, the line appears to be starting at -26.5, at least the one I see at ESPN

great sign of respect for our girls, I would say.

I really think this team would have a legit shot to pull the upset vs some of the other, maybe all, 2 seeds. I think UConn is better than Texas. could we play better vs Texas? I think that is a definite possibility, but beat them? that is a tough hill to climb

obviously we played Duke extremely close in Brookings. how different would it be at Cameron Indoor? that probably adds a couple buckets to their total. I would like our chances vs the other two twos- NC St and TCU. I would have liked it most of all at TCU because it keeps us in the middle of the country and that is probably the easiest destination for our fans. we are used to traveling to the Dallas area and have some good memories there))

do NOT get me wrong. I am not saying we are better than those teams, but I do think it is very possible we could beat them more than once in a ten game series

[LetsGoRabbits]

Looks like it's 26.5.

I think it'll be closer than that

we were typing at the same time

[LetsGoRabbits]

well checking out their roster, they do not have the size that they have generally had for the last many years

dont get me wrong, I think they have 10 girls on the roster 6' or taller
and of the 10 only 3 are ONLY 6 foot. the rest are 6'1 or more

BUT they only have one girl over 6'3. she starts, but she is a true freshman. 6'5 from Egypt.

as I said, I dont watch them, and am not super familiar. i proved it by thinking they were much taller than us, but they really are not. I do feel better, but dont get me wrong, they are the overall second favorite to win the whole thing for a GOOD reason. they are GOOD!

Mesa did not score much yesterday but she had 12 boards and an overall excellent game. I believe she has been far far underrated by the conference the last two years. we are gonna find out tomorrow. I assume she will get the first assignment guarding Strong- widely considered the best freshman in the country. can Mesa keep her off the boards and limit her scoring? that is a big big ask but I am very excited to see her give it a shot and i think there is a chance she surprises some people

[sbruce65]

May the basketball Gods be with us. We'll need everyone to play their very best, but this squad has nothing further to prove to anyone. They are elite. There is no place I'd rather see them tomorrow than on the court. Go Jacks!

[Bozemaniac]

Looks like it's 26.5.

I think it'll be closer than that

Creighton kept it to 20 or less against UConn home, neutral, and away, and we're better than Creighton, so I would expect closer than 27 points.

[peavy]

Here's a publicly posted game replay. Looks like they sped through some of the transition/in-bounds, etc, and they uploaded the ORU/SDSU game 6 days ago. Looks like a good spot for some other first round/conference tourney replays

[bigticket1]

It's been a productive day for Paige Meyer's family. Her brother's Albany team just won the Minnesota Class AA State championship in Williams Arena.

http://www.stcloudlive.com/sports/pr...sketball-teams

[salemjack]

Creighton kept it to 20 or less against UConn home, neutral, and away, and we're better than Creighton, so I would expect closer than 27 points.

Headed to Grand Falls as we speak

[peavy]

pre-game presser via NCAA youtube link - audio may be low. I'll edit this with the regular one -- AJ talks about scheduling including part about SDSU & UConn
pdf transcript SDSU (AJ & players), pdf to Geno, pdf to Paige Bueckers & Aubrey Griffin

[jakejc795]

pre-game presser via NCAA youtube link - audio may be low. I'll edit this with the regular one -- AJ talks about scheduling including part about SDSU & UConn
pdf transcript SDSU (AJ & players), pdf to Geno, pdf to Paige Bueckers & Aubrey Griffin

Interesting responses to UConn being invited to play a game in Brookings, particularly Geno maybe considering it when Jacks have five freshman on the roster.

[2002jack]

Interesting responses to UConn being invited to play a game in Brookings, particularly Geno maybe considering it when Jacks have five freshman on the roster.

He didn’t say Brookings. He said they were invited to come “play in their tournament”. I think that would be the Pentagon.

[peavy]

two different things. Both true. Jake's one occurred at the very end of the interview after I believe Andrew Holtan's last question.
The Sarah Strong bit I thought meant she's from Minnesota, but it doesn't look like it. The next thought was that there's speculation she's his last recruiting class (or rather he promised he would stick around until she's done playing), so that'd be his last year. If we got a Uconn fan lurking hopefully they'll correct me

first one was about the tournament - did you catch the bit about 300k? I'm not sure if that was serious, if it was tournament then probably. if it was the SC game at the pentagon, I don't think so?

[bigticket1]

two different things. Both true. Jake's one occurred at the very end of the interview after I believe Andrew Holtan's last question.
The Sarah Strong bit I thought meant she's from Minnesota, but it doesn't look like it. The next thought was that there's speculation she's his last recruiting class, so that'd be his last year. If we got a Uconn fan lurking hopefully they'll correct me

first one was about the tournament - did you catch the bit about 300k? I'm not sure if that was serious, if it was tournament then probably. if it was the SC game at the pentagon, I don't think so?

Not sure what he was talking about with the tournament thing. Wasn't USD in a 4 team event in the Pentagon sometime during the Covid years ? He might have gotten the South Dakota schools mixed up. I don't think we've ever had anything other than single games in Sioux Falls. Not for the women anyway.