68 to 45 Miami Final. Gonzalez with 20 points and 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals no turnovers. They held her down in the first half but they lost track of her many times in the second and she burned them. Amber Tretter had 14 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Nice all around performances by our two best.
Maya Chandler had 13 points. Cori Lard probably played the best game that any of our bench players has had this season. She had 10 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals, and no turnovers. Plus she guarded anyone from point guards to the center. So up to 13-8 (6-5). We also held Eliko, averaging 19, to 7 points.
Saturday we go to Louisiana, who was just below .500 the last time I looked, for a Sunbelt-MAC Challenge game. Help the MAC win. Help ourselves in our postseason push.
A few more thoughts after looking at the stats and listening to Coach Box. Before last night I did not realize that SW Ohio is under attack from the Flu. I also saw coverage of it on a national tv network this morning. Evidently hospitals are full and some schools have closed. They also said that it is not to late to get a flu shot, it takes about 7 days after the shot to be fully protected. Not only was Ilse out with the flu, Amber was sick last night and others have had it. Last night we were down 3 players from our opening day roster, Hennessy Lu Brown left at ten of the first semester. Emily was out with the after effects of her nasty fall Saturday, and Ilse has the flu. Still, our bench played well last night.
Amber and Katey alternated guarding Aliko and we doubled and tripled her when she got the ball in the paint. She had her worst game of the year, actually having more turnovers (9) than points (7) or rebounds (8). Katey also was limited to 14 minutes by 4 touch fouls but led us with 8 rebounds. Nuria also had 4 steals and played the best she has for awhile. To me Tamar is not moving as fast as she did before her injury and is getting a lot of touch fouls. She might want to take a half step back to stay out of foul trouble until she gets her full speed back.
One other thing. Twice Bake mentioned that Sahar coached one year at Canicius but I think she left Miami in the Fall of 2021 to take over that job and coached there for 3 seasons before getting the Eastern job this season.