Internet coverage on Flo Sports. Last year we won on a stickback bucket by Amber Tretter with 6 seconds to go and X missed a 3 at the buzzer. That was our first win.
Xavier had a 1-27 ( 0-18) record last year in Billie Chambers first year as Head Coach. They lost at home to San Jose State 55 to 36 Tuesday night, despite leading by 5 at the half. Julie Garcia Roig led X with 8 points.
We think Miami has a very international roster, but Xavier has 12 international players with 4 of them from Spain.
All time we lead the series 12-7. Xavier had one great run of women’s basketball when current Ohio State Coach Kevin McGuff was there and they made it to the Elite 8 two times in a row. I think the last time Miami won a post season tournament game was a WNIT win at Xavier when Maria Fantanarosa was our coach.
This will be the first road game for this team, so you do not know how we will play, but we are capable of drilling Xavier if we have the same energy we had Monday night. Grumpy and I are going to the game, hope we have some more fan support.
It’s worth noting that SJSU went 7-24 (2-16) last season, so that’s an absolute bottom of the barrel MWC team that they got blown out by on their home court. If we’re the kind of team we think we are, this shouldn’t be competitive.
After Xavier, the next three games are a D2 team, a D3 team, and Austin Peay (which lost their opener at home to an NAIA team). The stage is set for us to be 5-0 heading into the WKU game.
The December schedule of 5 games, 4 on the road, will be very challenging. The 5 November games certainly give us a strong opportunity to go 5-0. Play them one at a time though, working to get better day by day. We still have a long way to go.
Grumpy and I went to the game. We were very bad early in the game but finally settled in late in the second period. We are starting 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores, and one 5th year transfer. None of the 5 have ever played together before and it is showing up. The two freshmen are both from overseas and are suffering from the difference from international rules and NCAA college rules. Today the refs started out calling the game very tightly, calling touch fouls and moving screen fouls over and over. By halfway through the first quarter we had 1 starter with 3 fouls and 2 with two fouls. Xavier shot the lights out in the first half, over 50% from the floor and from three, plus over 80% from the line. I think the furthest behind we were was 20 late in the first half. We actually twice took the lead in the 4th quarter, but as often happens in that situation, we were gassed by the time we caught up, and while we caught our breath, X quickly opened it back up to 8.
Amber Tretter got two quick fouls but otherwise played well with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Maya Chandler played a solid game with 15 points and 4 assists. Tamar Singer hit 4 threes for 12 points but was a bit unsteady with her ballhandling and missed all her driving layups. Enjulina Gonzalez tried to take over the game when we got down but forced up a bunch of poor shots and went 4 out of 16 from the floor and had a huge number of turnovers ( 8). Ilse de Vries never got a chance to play as she got called for 4 moving screens or ticky tack touch fouls. We were slow to adjust to the way the refs were calling the game, with amore experienced group, they would have learned in the first 4 minutes that they were calling it very tight.
This loss hurt, but if we learned from it and come out and think the game better in the future because of lessons learned today, it could help us.