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Saturday at the tournament - ORU vs. WIU


tmh8286

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Even when Vandrovec said to Leslie Crane, "Coach, ORU scored a new tournament record, and even though it's not unusual for them to score over 100 points in a game, Luper was in the game with less than three minutes left - do you see anything wrong with the way they do things?" Leslie's answer was short and to the point - "No."

Now, it's very possible she was thinking otherwise, but here is what I believe she was meaning by that answer - I HATE getting hung out to dry like that, but if I had a team that was capable of doing that, I'd do the EXACT same thing.

That's what I think she meant.

Completely bush-league question to Crane: didn't we all learn in freshman Journalism class to NEVER ask a question in an interview or press conference that can be simply answered "Yes" or "No"? Crane answered it diplomatically - she wasn't going to let some pip-squeak lead her down a path she didn't want to go.

Vandrovec is right where he belongs in a backwater like Sioux Falls, SD. This is his one week all year to shine, and he's blowing it.

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I didn't think that Terry V asked the question with a negative tone . . .

I honestly don't like to see Kevi out there with 3 minutes left because I would hate for a star player to sustain an injury in mop-up time . . .

It is awesome to have such a high-powered team that there is even a discussion about being careful not to "run-up" the score. Way to go Eagles!!!

I'd have to disagree about Terry's question. Here's the thing, Jason - Vandrovec made a point of Kevi being in the game late on Twitter during the game; he asked BOTH coaches post-game if the though ORU was running up the score; then he includes a discussion of it in his column in the Argus Leader the next day. There is no question in my mind that he doesn't like what ORU is doing.

Kevi played 31 minutes, which to me doesn't seem unreasonable at all. The thing that is going unspoken but is on everyone's mind is Kevi's quest for top scorer in the nation. She's currently in a battle for top spot Dawn Evans of James Madison, and let me assure you, Evans is playing forty minutes per game. Is it fair or right to rob Kevi of this honor because of the caliber of our competition? Personally, I don't think so.

Vandrovec is way out in left field with all this. He's made himself a commentator and fan, rather than a reporter. In addition, he's covering Oakland for the Detroit Free Press, so we'll no doubt be dealing with his poison pen in our games against them as well.

I DO agree with you that it's neat this is a discussion at all. I went back and looked at the seasons where Western Illinois and SDSU were so dominating, and neither had scores in the range of what ORU has been doing this season. SDSU played much better defense than ORU has, and consequently their opponents' scores were much lower. Let's face it - the ORU women play pretty weak defense. Their strategy has been, we don't defend well, we'll just score more. In reality, that's what Jerry was trying to say in defense of the score on Saturday. I DID notice this, though, about SDSU's games two years ago - they won by SUBSTANTIAL margins. Here are their scores from the last five games of the 2009 regular season - vs. UMKC, 93-61; vs. SUU 87-42; vs. NDSU 70-36; vs. Centenary 97-52; vs. ORU 71-64. In ONLY ONE of those games did SDSU win by a smaller margin than ORU did on Saturday. My question - was SDSU running up the score in THOSE games?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'd have to disagree about Terry's question. Here's the thing, Jason - Vandrovec made a point of Kevi being in the game late on Twitter during the game; he asked BOTH coaches post-game if the though ORU was running up the score; then he includes a discussion of it in his column in the Argus Leader the next day. There is no question in my mind that he doesn't like what ORU is doing.

Kevi played 31 minutes, which to me doesn't seem unreasonable at all. The thing that is going unspoken but is on everyone's mind is Kevi's quest for top scorer in the nation. She's currently in a battle for top spot Dawn Evans of James Madison, and let me assure you, Evans is playing forty minutes per game. Is it fair or right to rob Kevi of this honor because of the caliber of our competition? Personally, I don't think so.

Vandrovec is way out in left field with all this. He's made himself a commentator and fan, rather than a reporter. In addition, he's covering Oakland for the Detroit Free Press, so we'll no doubt be dealing with his poison pen in our games against them as well.

I DO agree with you that it's neat this is a discussion at all. I went back and looked at the seasons where Western Illinois and SDSU were so dominating, and neither had scores in the range of what ORU has been doing this season. SDSU played much better defense than ORU has, and consequently their opponents' scores were much lower. Let's face it - the ORU women play pretty weak defense. Their strategy has been, we don't defend well, we'll just score more. In reality, that's what Jerry was trying to say in defense of the score on Saturday. I DID notice this, though, about SDSU's games two years ago - they won by SUBSTANTIAL margins. Here are their scores from the last five games of the 2009 regular season - vs. UMKC, 93-61; vs. SUU 87-42; vs. NDSU 70-36; vs. Centenary 97-52; vs. ORU 71-64. In ONLY ONE of those games did SDSU win by a smaller margin than ORU did on Saturday. My question - was SDSU running up the score in THOSE games?

I'm glad that Kevi won the scoring title. She is a great ball player. She is fun to watch.

I know this might be a bad first post but I saw this and figured I'd answer your question. SDSU played more players more minutes than ORU did. Here is a breakdown of the number of players that played and the minutes that they played.

UMKC-

4- 20+ minutes

6- 10+ minutes

3- single digit minutes with 1 playing 9 minutes.

Southern Utah-

4- 20+ minutes

5- 10+ minutes

4- single digit minutes with 2 playing 9 minutes.

NDSU-

6- 20+ minutes

2- 10+ minutes

5- single digit minutes with 1 playing 9 minutes.

Centenary-

5- 20+ minutes

4- 10+ minutes

4- single digit minutes with 1 playing 9 minutes.

ORU-

2- 30+ minutes

3- 20+ minutes

3- 10+ minutes

2- single digit minutes.

Their top player played 35 minutes and they played 8 players 15 minutes or more.

The only game SDSU had somebody play 30+ minutes was the ORU game and that's because that was the only game that was really close.

I do think that with ORU's lack of depth and injury issue that they had to figure things out so I'm not totally against them playing that way. SDSU was better than everybody but they came back to the pack. They aren't quite as good and teams like IPFW, Oakland and ORU are just that much better.

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Hi 91jack - welcome to the board! I appreciate the work you put into calculating all those stats. Nice job.

My objection was Terry Vandrovec trying to make an issue of Luper's PT. All things considered, I still don't think her 31 minutes in the game against WIU was unreasonable. I've always liked Terry Vandrovec - I think he does a nice job covering SDSU and the Summit League in general. I thought is was low of him, though, to press the issue of ORU running up the score - and especially asking Leslie Crane about it.

But, whatever. Water under the bridge now. I still follow him on Twitter - so I guess I'm not TOO mad!

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I don't think asking Leslie Crane was the right thing to do either. I think it put her in a really tough situation. I do think she handled it really well. though.

I think SDSU is really lucky to have Terry. USD has a beat writer to but he doesn't do anywhere near as much/as good of a job as Terry does. Some people think he is a "homer" but I think he just doesn't pull any punches. He does go against SDSU sometimes but normally he doesn't.

I look forward to watching SDSU and ORU play in the future. ORU has a special team that is fun to watch.

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I don't think asking Leslie Crane was the right thing to do either. I think it put her in a really tough situation. I do think she handled it really well. though.

I think SDSU is really lucky to have Terry. USD has a beat writer to but he doesn't do anywhere near as much/as good of a job as Terry does. Some people think he is a "homer" but I think he just doesn't pull any punches. He does go against SDSU sometimes but normally he doesn't.

I look forward to watching SDSU and ORU play in the future. ORU has a special team that is fun to watch.

Kudos to 91jack for coming over to an opponents message board and not starting a fight with incendiary remarks. :clap:

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Kudos to 91jack for coming over to an opponents message board and not starting a fight with incendiary remarks. :clap:

Well said, vcb.

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Leslie Crane and WIU have LONG been known as 'bullies'. She coaches and they play ultra-physical/aggressive. Borderline dirty. When she had some of her better teams a few years back, they would pound people and not let off the gas. Couple that with her assistant coach, who tried to instigate a fist fight/threatened an ORU women's player after his team lost in the conference tournament to ORU a few years back. Then, this year at the Mabee Center, when a fan heckled them, he turned around (during the game) and made a threat and suggested a fist fight back to the fan.

As far as Jerry/playing time/running up the score...it is his team and he is trying to use every minute of every game to improve his team. He can't and shouldn't limit what he does because the other team sucks. Especially, considering he had lost a couple of players to injury, including his starting point guard.

As a wise coach once said, "This ain't intramurals brother".

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