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BlueGold

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A decent road win today over the mighty Huskies of HBU 75-65, which I had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand, as their campus lies just over an hour's drive south of my humble abode.

Thought after the first quarter that we were going to roll to a victory by gargantuan proportions, we led by 15 (26-11) and had them turned every which way but loose, our D was strong, hands in the lanes, ball-hawking everywhere, offensive rebounding like madwomen, killing them with speed, and we hit what seemed like almost every shot we took.  And then we sort of stopped doing most of that the rest of the way, although I thought our energy and compete level was pretty good throughout the game.

Very encouraging to get really good efforts from 2 freshies, Montse Brotons and Hillary Hurst, especially since Lakota Beatty and KayKay Mayberry didn't do as much offensively (5 and 6 points respectively) as I might have expected.  Montse was a beast, 6-6 from the field, which was helped by some excellent post entry passes from her teammates, 3-4 FT, 5 rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench.  She also showed good discipline by playing with 4 fouls for quite a few minutes in the second half when we needed her on the court.  All of it totally unexpected but very much needed.  It's crazy what she did in this game, especially since she'd only scored a total of 4 points and shot 1-8 from the field in our first 4 games.  Hillary had a nice game too with 9 points and a couple of steals in 14 minutes off the bench.  Came in with just 6 points in her first 4 games.  And if we're ever in a close game late, put her in coach she's money from the FT line (4-4 today, 8-8 for the season).  Note: Ashley Beatty is 10-10 from the line, so put her in late too.

Jordan Gilbert and Faith Ihim had nice games, and Jordii gets a special shoutout because she was all over the court today.  She's got a nose for the ball and her hands are everywhere, and she plays with some real grit and fire.  I've been really impressed with how much her game's developed and gotten stronger since her freshman season, and Faith is Faith, just a great athlete who seems to get the job done for us game in and game out.

I am going to be polite and not say anything bad about Sharp Gym at HBU.  I will say that I hope I never have to go to a game at Sharp Gym ever again.  I'll leave it with this... my daughter came with me and turned to me about 2 minutes after we sat down on the row of bleachers where we sat, and said, "Dad, there are ants everywhere."  I didn't notice any right away, but it didn't take long to see them on the bleachers, and on the concrete between the bleachers, and okay then.

I've never in my life seen an official game crew make more mistakes with counting the correct number of team fouls.  Twice in the third quarter the officials had to stop the game for 5-10 minutes at a time to check on the fouls.  The first time was right after Montse got fouled and went to the line and made 1-2 FTs, then they stopped the game and checked with each other and then the game crew and the stat people and realized that HBU only had 4 team fouls and Montse should've never shot free throws, so they took the point away from us for the free throw she made and gave us the ball under our own basket.  I don't recall if we scored or not on that possession.  Never ever seen that happen before.  Then it was HBU's turn a few minutes later when we were called for a non-shooting foul on one of their players and the scoreboard had us with 5 but our coaches and our SID had us with 4 and the officials weren't sure for some reason so they took forever to check again, and both times the head coaches were called over to conference and it was a major pain for everyone and totally disrupted the flow of the game.  

Got to meet our new women's basketball SID.  He's a really nice guy and was definitely the best-dressed person in the gym.

And speaking of really nice, our head coach is.  She's one of this world's good people.  Took some time as they were getting on the bus after the game to head back to Tulsa to talk with my daughter and I through the drawn-down window of my car, and she thanked us more than once for coming, and remembered everything about my daughter from the little time we got to spend with her early last November when we went up to ORU for College Weekend.  Also did something for me, which I won't go into detail about, that very much impressed me.

Always nice to get a road win, and a nice bounce back from the tough loss at Kansas.  Next up is USAO this coming Tuesday in the wonderful annual TTCU's Best Field Trip Ever game at the Mabee, so hopefully we're staring down a 3-3 record after that one.  Go Eagles!

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Thanks for the 411 BlueGold.  Based on what you posted and what I have seen in previous games by watching from afar, I like this team and believe they have a lot of upside.

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TheEagleman will take any road win....sounds like we have a lot to look forward to in Summit League play with our ladies.....but first we have a little payback due for USAO tomorrow....I believe that they pounded ORU last year in a huge upset....GO BLUE!!!...:eagles:

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It was Lyon College that came in and beat us last season- clearly our lowest point in any of the last few seasons.  Although you don't take any opponent for granted, you usually expect to win games against any non-qualifiers that you play.  Hopefully we'll be the ones doing the pounding tomorrow.

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Ah.....thanks for correcting me, BlueGold...I knew there was an afternoon game where we got totally embarrassed by a small school...hopefully ORU wins by 25+ tomorrow and all the suspense is over by halftime so the bench players can get some action.....:eagles:

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No worries Eagleman.  I'm right there with you in hoping tomorrow will be a comfortable victory for us where we can build up a nice lead and get some of our young ones some more game experience.  

 

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