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Cards WBB vs. Northwestern

Sonja

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Jun 20, 2001
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Cards WBB vs. Wildcats today at 5 p.m. (No, not those Wildcats -- the Illinois version)

What will Jeff Walz's squad face today in second round action?

Northwestern comes into the game as the #7 seed in the Alamo region and advance to the next round with a 62-51 win over Central Florida. It continued a season that saw the Wildcats make the Big Ten semifinals for the first time in five years. Northwestern was 16-8 in the regular season and 11-7 in conference play. They made the tournament despite a 85-52 shellacking by Maryland in the Big 10 semis.

The Wildcats are a guard-oriented attack squad. Lindsey Pulliam and Veronica Burton are the main two threats. Burton, a 5'9" junior guard, was named 2021 Big Defensive Player of the Year and she also led the Wildcats in scoring at a 16.3 clip a contest. She's also the main three-point threat for the Wildcats, hitting 37 out of the 122 she's attempted. Pulliam, a 5-10 senior guard, was selected to the All-Big Ten second team. She averages 16.0 points a contest and had 25 points against Central Florida in the first round of tournament action. That was a bounce back from her one-point effort against Maryland in the Big Ten semifinals.

Besides Pulliam and Burton, the Wildcats also regularly start Jordan Hamilton and Sydney Wood. They went seven-deep against the Golden Knights last time out, Paige Mott getting the start but playing just 11 minutes.

Northwestern is not a tall team. Freshman Anna Morris is 6'3" but plays just 10 or so minutes a night and averaged 2.1 points an affair. Northwestern is not a strong rebounding team -- opponents out-grabbed them by three over the course of the season. UCF had a 39-24 advantage over them on the boards.

The teams had no common opponents this season, Northwestern did face Indiana and fell to the Hoosiers 74-61. They did beat Iowa and Caitlin Clark twice, though...77-67 and 87-80. Michigan, who has advanced to the round of 16, played the Wildcats three times and beat them twice.

If Louisville can avoid the slow start that hindered them against Marist, and establish a viable post-presence against the Wildcats, they should take this contest this afternoon. If not, we could see the five-guard, under 6-foot contingent that rallied the Cards to the drubbing over Marist. In any event, it should be a good one and let's hope UofL is up to the challenge.

--sonja--
 
Awful, awful start. Dana literally looks like she is just tossing the ball at the rim versus actually shooting the ball. So strange.
 
We really suck in the 1st quarter what is the deal. We don’t play defense or offense in the 1st quarter. CJW needs to take the starters out and put a whole new squad in.
 
I’ve been thinking that this team didn’t have it. They haven’t beaten a good team all year. Looks like this is going to be the first early exit for Walz in a while.
 
They are shooting 64%, they are out hustling us, out rebounding us and are blocking every shot we take. We were either totally unprepared for this game or way over confident. Who ever came up with the game plan needs to have a serious talking to.
 
Total lack of effort. Lack of concentration. Poor decisions.
-TOs due to lazy passing
-Outhustled under the basket for rebounds
 
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99% of the shots Dana is taking are long and just clank off the back rim.
 
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This has been in the making for some time now. I think Walz knew it and tried with the positive spin talk before the tournament started.

Something just isn't right and this kind of thing is a common occurrence in collegiate sports, especially basketball. Some groups gel with decent talent while great talent sometimes doesn't gel.

I don't know anything but we may see some transfers once their season is over. Which looks like today.
 
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Here we go again with missing layups and 2-footers. However, we should be working the ball into the lane every possession.
 
So, apparently, NW is incapable of fouling. Chipping away, but the stars seem aligned for the Cards to lose.
 
Why go away from using two bigs? Ramani or even the other Fr for her height.
Refs are not calling over the back on NW.
 
It's like they haven't played basketball before. The turnovers and missed layups look like a average high school team.

Maybe UofL is just cursed right now. There's not much going are way.
 
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If we come back and win this game and that is a big IF we won’t beat the top teams. You can’t play with the best teams that have talent, speed, size and coaching and spot them by 15 points and think you are going to compete.
 
Our players cannot miss point blank shots - period. They should be living at the FT line but are not going up strong enough.
 
Come out of the locker room and it looks like many heads are still firmly up their own arses.
 
They look so unfocused. Finally an over the back call.
 
E is back in but looks afraid to scrap. Can’t miss layups. How many have our bigs missed tonight sheesh.
 
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