Putting this up early because I start my golf week tomorrow and will be on the road right after church. I probably will not be able to post Thursday for the UNC game because I will be playing golf from 7:30 AM until I'm too tired to play more or dark, whichever comes first; but at least 27 holes each day.
The Ladies are in California this week. After beating Stanford on Thursday, they face Cal Sunday at 5PM. This will be an ACCNextra game. Cal is 16-10, 7-6. After losing 4 in a row and 5 of 6 to start their ACC schedule, they have won 7 of 9 and their last three in a row. The Hokies are 19-7, 9-5, coming off a big win at Stanford. We had a 7 game winning streak broken by two losses to Notre Dame and NC State before the win at Stanford. Cal beat Notre Dame, split their series with Stanford and lost to Syracuse in games against common opponents with different won/loss outcomes. We both beat up on the teams at the bottom of the ACC standings.
Cal will probably start:
#35 grad Center 6' 6" Sakima Walker who contributes 12.6 ppg and 8.6 rebounds; shooting 56.5% from the field with no attempts from three. Averages 2.7 fouls per game
#10 junior guard 5' 10" Lulu Twidale. 15.3 ppg, 3.4 rebounds shoots 37.6% overall and 32.7% from three. She is the primary threat to shoot the three taking almost 2.5 times as many as the next most prolific long ball shooter.
#1 junior guard 5' 10" Mjracle Sheppard. 9.6 ppg, 4.4 rebounds. Shoots 48.5% overall and 39.5% from three. Makes about 1/2 a three per game.
#3 freshman forward 6' 0" Taylor Barnes. 9.2 ppg, 5.5 rebounds. Shoots 39.8% overall and 26.4% from three. Has second most long ball attempts on the team.
#21 junior guard 5' 11" Gisella Maul. 9.1 ppg, 6.7 rebounds. Shoots 47.1% overall and 40% from three. Has 2 less attempts and 11 more makes than Barnes from three.
Others:
#5 freshman guard 5' 5" Aliyahna Morris. 7.3 ppg, 2.3 rebounds. Shoots 33.0% overall and 31.1% from three. She and Maul have started about the same number of games.
Cal shoots 44.1% overall, 32.5% from three and 70.9% from the line. Shepherd and Morris are bad free throw shooters, shooting mid 50%. Barnes and Twidale are good, shooting 80% or better. They score exactly 70 ppg and allow 63.6; so they will probably want to play at a slower pace than the Hokies like. They average 16.0 assists and 15.7 turnovers per game. They have won the rebound battle 38-35 per game on the season.
ESPN analytics says VT 51.0%, Cal 48.9%. I don't know who has the 0.1% chance to win. I don't know who Duffy will assign to guard 6' 6" Walker; Freelon would probably foul out in the first half. Maybe she can design a defense to keep the ball away from her. If we can keep Walker from taking over the game from the paint, we match up fairly well against the rest of the team. Second game on the West coast may see some effects of the time change; but these ladies are young and healthy and the game time is in a slot they play in frequently. Energy and sharpness could be a factor. If we play our normal game as if we were still in the Eastern Time zone, I think we do well. If jet lag shows up, we may get embarrassed.
LET'S GO HOKIES!
Comments
Lets Go
HOKIES!!!!!
I assume they've been in Cali since Tuesday or Wednesday, so hopefully have adjusted to time change by now.
I said last week that I hoped the ladies would follow the men's team's lead with a sharp-shooting victory and they did. Now, I'm hoping they don't follow in the men's steps from yesterday!
Didn't watch that game but appeared to be an epic 2nd half collapse. Although, is it still considered epic when it has happened more than once this season?
Not counting the losses the girls are on a 19 game win streak. Time to make it 20!
shit, not counting the losses the girls are undefeated
I feel like it's bad luck when the other team wears pink.
Amazing d and transition o last 4 minutes. 10-0 run.
33-29 at the half
What's up with Leila Wells? Only 4 minutes? I missed most of the half so didnt notice
Wenzel with another ugly shooting half
1 for 7
That bad half's lasted most of the year at this point...
2 bullshit calls in a row there.
Ehh, the three point one Suffren got in the landing zone and made contact. That was bad basketball on Suffren.
CMD needs to get them locked in for the rest of the game. Too many mistakes
Agreed, self inflicted issues
Ugh Wenzel driving herself away from the basket as she goes to the baseline. Does it way too often. It doesnt give her any chance at 3 pt plays
Two more possessions just thrown away.
Gotta make layups
Cal traveled clearly before the foul
How in the hell was that a foul on Nelson??? She had position and touched ball first
Just realized we are 0-3 from deep and they are 1-12
Ugh Wenzel got bumped but bunny basket off backboard and wasnt close
Daley never touched her. This is getting old
Crap Freelon hurt
Any idea how bad?
She is back in. Looked like a shoulder stinger
Wenzel layup miss number one zillion
Baseline ref standing right there, no whistles. Ref without view from sideline fouls Nelson out because Cal player fell down
Why didnt they force Cal to challenge the out of bounds call? Just let the Cal coach influence them into reversing the call with no review.
That was infuriating, everybody else has to use a challenge and risk a timeout.
Wenzel may have been poor shooting again but she drew a lot of fouls and was a perfect 10/10 from the line and played great D.
Those four or five points though by not making easy layups against Tournament teams though are huge.
Suffren gets headbutted but no call
FAM!
I like Ojukwu a lot for Cal as a bench player. Has some poise.
West Coast Sweep Fam
Quad 1 Win FAM
Fam!
Also, the inevitable west coast hangover game will be against UNC so we can get a quality loss!
One thing they posted was that Cal didnt have any Quad 1 wins this year. They just beat UVA before us so curious how that wasnt Quad 1.
Maybe they count playing uva as just a scrimmage.
This game was played at Cal so it might be Quad 2
UVA has a ranking of 37, so you are correct, it was a Quad 2
This is all mind boggling. Also that Stanford counts as Quad 1 for both Tech & UVA when they are below .500 in league play.
What exactly is a "first four bye", asking for a friend?
Its what winners do....mostly a foreign concept in Hokieland
I've been seeing "last four in" and "first four out" for years, I don't remember this one.
The top four teams in the acc get a double bye in the acc tournament.
They're using it for NCAA bracketology.
Anyway the ACC byes are just math, not something you'd need to predict.
Means you get to skip the play in games (you're not one of the 11/12 seeds who have to play those round 0 games.) So you're comfortably in, but right on the edge of having to play one of those play-ins.
Thanks! It's confusing because I wouldn't really consider that a "bye" in any normal sense as it's only 4 of 64 teams.
Yeah, it's a dumb way to describe it.
Watching both teams, Megan Duffy runs better half court stuff than Mike Young. This for a team that a little undersized, lives off pressure D and pushing tempo which is impressive. Half court they have great spacing, cut sharp, get side to side and create down hill driving lanes. Just overall more crisp.
Now can they recover from the West Coast trip and avoid the loss so many teams have taken after.
So this time we got the complete opposite on the women's side in the Duke - UNC matchup.
#11 Duke won over #21 UNC 72-68. UNC shot ZERO free throws. Fouls were 21-9 in favor of Duke. UNC took 53 shots inside the perimeter. Zero chance you have zero shooting fouls in 53 attempts.
UNC going to come to Cassell pissed off now.
Like we were ever going to preferential foul calls over UNC.