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Post by longsuffering on Mar 19, 2024 10:08:52 GMT -5
Who was that clapping them off for the tnmt? Was it an HC team? Yes. But don't ask me which one.
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Post by rgs318 on Mar 19, 2024 10:10:02 GMT -5
I agree it was probably volleyball (because of the knee pads).
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 19, 2024 10:27:37 GMT -5
I agree it was probably volleyball (because of the knee pads). I defer to your knowledge as a triple threat, former AD, coach and sportswriter.đ
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Post by ndgradbuthcfan on Mar 19, 2024 10:32:25 GMT -5
Iowa is picking us to be their opponent on Saturday.
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Post by HC13 on Mar 19, 2024 10:33:10 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 19, 2024 10:52:52 GMT -5
Iowa is picking us to be their opponent on Saturday. Eight player rotation. Who is number eight, Munt or Cahalan? Is Donnelly serviceable to at least give some fouls as we smother Clark into one inch of asphyxiation?đ. Something tells me Clark has seen that defense before and beaten it, but we have to try. It worked against Lex and Weimar.
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 19, 2024 10:55:40 GMT -5
Silver Fox all the way to Newark Airport to save the NCAA money.
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Post by Ignutz on Mar 19, 2024 11:09:19 GMT -5
Silver Fox all the way to Newark Airport to save the NCAA money. OâHare
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Post by HC13 on Mar 19, 2024 11:15:44 GMT -5
It would not surprise me if Grace saw a fair amount of court time against UT. Plays pretty stout D & would seem to match up well against their wings & guards. UT plays pretty much a 4 guard offense. As to Iowa, anybody whose healthy will play, HC doesn't really have the size, athletic ability against that team. Iowa really only has 2 players under 6' in their rotation, one is off the bench.
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Post by hcpride on Mar 19, 2024 11:50:12 GMT -5
It would not surprise me if Grace saw a fair amount of court time against UT. Plays pretty stout D & would seem to match up well against their wings & guards. UT plays pretty much a 4 guard offense. As to Iowa, anybody whose healthy will play, HC doesn't really have the size, athletic ability against that team. Iowa really only has 2 players under 6' in their rotation, one is off the bench. As far as Iowa goes, they are an illustration as to why some folks have pointed out that the game is very different between the very top women's teams (where athletic six footers sprint up and down the floor dribbling effortlessly and flinging passes off the dribble to even-taller teammates) and the lesser qualifying teams like HC. Which is one reason we see many whopping mismatches in round one (like HC v Maryland last year). .
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The Dance
Mar 19, 2024 12:07:05 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 19, 2024 12:07:05 GMT -5
It would not surprise me if Grace saw a fair amount of court time against UT. Plays pretty stout D & would seem to match up well against their wings & guards. UT plays pretty much a 4 guard offense. As to Iowa, anybody whose healthy will play, HC doesn't really have the size, athletic ability against that team. Iowa really only has 2 players under 6' in their rotation, one is off the bench. UT/M is WBB's equivalent opportunity to FB's opportunity in the FCS tournament. FB got to the post season four seasons in a row, WBB three. They won't be favored to win the PLT next season, but with three post season tourneys available, a good goal is to go somewhere next year, too.
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Post by HC13 on Mar 19, 2024 14:38:25 GMT -5
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Post by HC13 on Mar 20, 2024 6:51:52 GMT -5
Holy Cross set for big stage as Crusaders meet University of Tennessee-Martin in NCAA Tournament Jennifer Toland www.telegram.com/story/sports/college/2024/03/19/holy-cross-focused-on-opening-ncaa-tournament-against-ut-martin/73025807007/
Worcester Telegram & Gazette WORCESTER â The Holy Cross womenâs basketball team, which captured its second straight Patriot League championship on Sunday, will face the University of Tennessee-Martin in a First Four NCAA Tournament game Thursday night at the University of Iowaâs Carver-Hawkeye Arena, college basketballâs current hotbed and where so much history happened this season. That court is where, on Feb. 15, the great Caitlin Clark, Iowaâs star senior guard, became the NCAA Division 1 womenâs career scoring leader, and on March 3, surpassed Pete Maravich to become the all-time NCAA Division 1 points scorer. If Holy Cross can beat UT Martin at 9 p.m. Thursday, the Crusaders would face the Hawkeyes and Clark in a first-round game Saturday. âRight now, (Carver-Hawkeye Arena) is probably the biggest stage in college basketball,â Holy Cross senior Bronagh Power-Cassidy said Tuesday morning before the Crusadersâ sendoff from the Luth Athletic Complex. âThe attention (Clark) has brought to the womenâs game is phenomenal. Just to be able to be in the tournament, no matter where weâre going, is exciting, and I know weâre really locked in on Thursdayâs game against UT Martin, but to be in that environment is going to be really cool.â Student-athletes and staff cheered the Crusaders as they rolled their luggage through the Luth lobby and onto the awaiting bus. The teamâs charter plane from Worcester Regional Airport was taking them to Des Moines, about an hour-and-45-minute drive from Iowa City. âItâs super exciting,â HC senior Cara McCormack said. âEverything is happening so fast and weâre so excited to get on the road and practice and get the game plan down.â Holy Cross (20-12) beat Boston University, 61-55, in the Patriot League title game at a raucous Hart Center and became the first team to win consecutive PL tourney titles since Navy (2011-13). The tournament championship was HCâs 13th overall. The Crusaders gathered Sunday night in Doran Auditorium for the NCAA Selection Show, and elatedly learned they were a No. 16 seed, facing UT Martin, also a 16 seed, in a play-in game in Iowa City and with a chance to face the hosts. âItâs so cool,â HC sophomore Kaitlyn Flanagan said. âWe were obviously excited to see thatâs where we are playing. It will be in such a crazy arena for womenâs basketball. There are some huge teams and players that have put womenâs basketball on the map, and this year itâs Iowa and Caitlin Clark. I feel really lucky to have this chance to go play there.â UT Martin (16-16) lost to Southern Indiana, 81-53, in the Ohio Valley Conference championship, but Southern Indiana, which is in a transition period to Division 1, is ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. As the OVC runner-up, UT Martin earned the conferenceâs automatic bid. The Skyhawks dropped their first six games of the year and lost seven players to season-ending injuries, but they finished 11-7 in conference play. UT Martinâs rotation has included only six players most of the year, but sophomore forward Anaya Brown and redshirt freshman guard Kenley McCarn earned All-OVC first-team honors. âTheyâre a really tough team,â Holy Cross coach Maureen Magarity said. âThe OVC is one of those conferences here in New England you donât get to see much, but just watching them on film, they are big and long. They will have a size advantage on us at the guard position. They are young, but they play really hard, they are scrappy and very versatile. They press, they sit in a zone. We are going to have to shoot well and really defend. The matchups will be interesting because they have a lot of length, but they donât play much inside. I like the matchup. Weâll be ready.â The Skyhawks are making their fifth NCAA appearance under coach Kevin McMillan, and first since 2014. Last year, when HC beat BU to capture its first Patriot League tourney title since 2007, the Crusaders faced Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and fell, 93-61. Holy Cross women's basketball coach Maureen Magarity has taken the Crusaders to the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons. âItâs a different mentality going into this game,â HC senior Janelle Allen said. âWeâre a little more focused this year and we understand that we deserve to be here and that we can compete with anyone if we just play our game. Weâre excited for this opportunity.â Holy Cross is the only Patriot League womenâs team to win a game in the NCAA Tournament. The Crusaders defeated Maryland in 1991.
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The Dance
Mar 20, 2024 9:14:02 GMT -5
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Post by bfoley82 on Mar 20, 2024 9:14:02 GMT -5
It would not surprise me if Grace saw a fair amount of court time against UT. Plays pretty stout D & would seem to match up well against their wings & guards. UT plays pretty much a 4 guard offense. As to Iowa, anybody whose healthy will play, HC doesn't really have the size, athletic ability against that team. Iowa really only has 2 players under 6' in their rotation, one is off the bench. UT/M is WBB's equivalent opportunity to FB's opportunity in the FCS tournament. FB got to the post season four seasons in a row, WBB three. They won't be favored to win the PLT next season, but with three post season tourneys available, a good goal is to go somewhere next year, too. All you need to play in the other tournaments is money...
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Mar 20, 2024 9:20:34 GMT -5
It would not surprise me if Grace saw a fair amount of court time against UT. Plays pretty stout D & would seem to match up well against their wings & guards. UT plays pretty much a 4 guard offense. As to Iowa, anybody whose healthy will play, HC doesn't really have the size, athletic ability against that team. Iowa really only has 2 players under 6' in their rotation, one is off the bench. UT/M is WBB's equivalent opportunity to FB's opportunity in the FCS tournament. FB got to the post season four seasons in a row, WBB three. They won't be favored to win the PLT next season, but with three post season tourneys available, a good goal is to go somewhere next year, too. Don't agree with this. WNIT is a consolation prize. Very different from the NCAA Tournament (and FCS playoffs).
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Post by WorcesterGray on Mar 20, 2024 9:51:23 GMT -5
All you need to play in the other tournaments is money... And sometimes that's the only way, isn't it?
On a completely unrelated note, here's a fun quiz. The University of New Hampshire has been playing men' basketball continuously since 1937, and D1 women's basketball since 1987. In those 122 seasons, they have never been to the NCAA Tournament.
Only one of those 122 teams won a regular season conference title. Only one went to an NIT. Only one won more than 20 games. Just one.
Who was the coach?
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The Dance
Mar 20, 2024 10:20:37 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 20, 2024 10:20:37 GMT -5
UT/M is WBB's equivalent opportunity to FB's opportunity in the FCS tournament. FB got to the post season four seasons in a row, WBB three. They won't be favored to win the PLT next season, but with three post season tourneys available, a good goal is to go somewhere next year, too. Don't agree with this. WNIT is a consolation prize. Very different from the NCAA Tournament (and FCS playoffs). The letters NCAA makes any tourney including the FCS tournament the gold standard in that division or subdivision of course. The similarities among FCS, NIT, WBIT etc, to me is they are national tournaments that Holy Cross has a better competitive position in than the M&W D-1 NCAA Basketball tournaments. I'm happy for Coach Magarity that NCAA bids are one of the main ways to judge college basketball coaches and she now has two and in a second important category of judging coaches, NCAA victories, she now has a shot at one despite the implied asterisk.
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The Dance
Mar 20, 2024 10:25:15 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 20, 2024 10:25:15 GMT -5
UT/M is WBB's equivalent opportunity to FB's opportunity in the FCS tournament. FB got to the post season four seasons in a row, WBB three. They won't be favored to win the PLT next season, but with three post season tourneys available, a good goal is to go somewhere next year, too. All you need to play in the other tournaments is money... You need money to field a team. Nobody forces a school to play in the NIT and schools have declined. Most find it an honor to receive a bid and play.
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The Dance
Mar 20, 2024 10:57:32 GMT -5
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Post by bfoley82 on Mar 20, 2024 10:57:32 GMT -5
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Post by bfoley82 on Mar 20, 2024 11:08:24 GMT -5
All you need to play in the other tournaments is money... And sometimes that's the only way, isn't it?
On a completely unrelated note, here's a fun quiz. The University of New Hampshire has been playing men' basketball continuously since 1937, and D1 women's basketball since 1987. In those 122 seasons, they have never been to the NCAA Tournament.
Only one of those 122 teams won a regular season conference title. Only one went to an NIT. Only one won more than 20 games. Just one.
Who was the coach?
Sue Johnson went to the WNIT in 1998-99.
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Post by HC13 on Mar 20, 2024 11:32:47 GMT -5
I was not aware it was a pay to play, but I guess it does make sense. I knew the WCBI was but not the WNIT. I don't think the issue came up when HC went a couple of years ago.
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Post by WorcesterGray on Mar 20, 2024 11:50:21 GMT -5
<abbr>O</abbr>nly one of those 122 teams won a regular season conference title. Only one went to an NIT. Only one won more than 20 games. Just one.
Who was the coach?
Sue Johnson went to the WNIT in 1998-1999. Ah yes - forgot, But she never won a regular season championship or more than 20 games. I was thinking of the only one who did all three, and had a better record at UNH.
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Post by WorcesterGray on Mar 20, 2024 11:52:39 GMT -5
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Post by WorcesterGray on Mar 20, 2024 12:02:27 GMT -5
Boston Globe article.
If Holy Cross women win Thursday, they get a special reward: Caitlin Clark and Iowa on national TV By Ethan Fuller Globe Correspondent,Updated March 20, 2024, 9:00 a.m.
When the Holy Cross womenâs basketball team landed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon, the representative who greeted them was buzzing about womenâs basketball â and specifically Caitlin Clark.
The Crusaders reached March Madness for the second straight year by beating Boston University in Sundayâs Patriot League championship game. Theyâre in the First Four as a No. 16 seed with a game against Tennessee-Martin Thursday â much more winnable than their Round of 64 matchup against second-seeded Maryland last season.
If they prevail, the Crusaders get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: A dance with Clark and top-seeded Iowa Saturday on ABC in front of a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd.
âWe have to play really well to beat UT Martin, but after that, the reward is we get to play Iowa, at Iowa,â Holy Cross coach Maureen Magarity said. âAnd we get to play somebody thatâs arguably the best womenâs basketball player to ever play the game.â
At first glance, Holy Crossâs banner season looks much like 2022-23. The Crusaders (20-12, 11-7) won the conference title with a very similar cast, again headlined by guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy, and beat BU in a rematch of the 2023 final.
But this season wasnât as smooth. After winning their first eight league games, the Crusaders went through a 1-5 slump in which they did not clear 50 points three times.
âIâm not going to lie, it was a really tough stretch,â Magarity said. âI thought we were practicing really well. Iâm really proud of how the team stayed together and really stayed connected throughout all that, practiced hard, stayed within the game plan.
âEveryone kept asking whatâs going on, are people injured, whatâs going on in the locker room, all that kind of stuff. Iâm like, âNothing, we just hit a tough patch there.â â
Magarity tinkered with the lineup multiple times and credited the playersâ willingness to change. Senior forward Callie Wright joined the starters for the last seven games, with Lindsay Berger and Simone Foreman shifting to major minutes off the bench.
Power-Cassidy, a senior wing from Dublin, stepped up with 26 points in a Feb. 21 overtime win against Bucknell that put Holy Cross back on track. She proceeded to average 22 points with a 49.1 percent 3-point clip across her final eight contests, including 21 points in the Patriot League championship game.
âNo one ever wants to lose, but we were worried about losing more than we were about, like, letâs go win,â Power-Cassidy said. âI think when that mind-set kind of switched for the whole team, and we were like, you know what, we just want to go out there and enjoy every moment, and really just take every game as it comes, and just focus on being present every single game. Thatâs when we were able to buckle down and really get some good wins under our belts.â
Selection Sunday was a whirlwind as Holy Cross found out its First Four status mere hours after beating BU. After coming 7 miles short of qualifying for a chartered flight in 2023, and having to take a bus down to Maryland for their first-round game, the Crusaders left at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning on a charter plane. It was a first for Magarity and Power-Cassidy.
âIt was just kind of really next-level â it was cool,â Power-Cassidy said. âYou always kind of see other teams doing it, so to be able to do it and land here in Iowa City was really fun.â
Holy Cross is already locked in on UT Martin and had a film session planned as soon as the team arrived at its hotel. The Skyhawks (16-16, 11-7) triumphed in the Ohio Valley Conference to reach their first NCAA Tournament since 2014. Magarity believes they have a versatile defense that could give the Crusaders some fits.
âYou never really like to say this, but Iâve really enjoyed watching them on film,â she said. âTheyâre a really well-coached team that just really plays hard.â
Holy Cross has enough motivation to pursue its first NCAA Tournament victory since 1991. But the prize of playing Iowa is tantalizing. Clark, the all-time leading scorer in Division 1, has helped the Hawkeyes smash ratings records all season. For one game, her spotlight also could shine on Holy Cross.
âI donât think you can put into words what that would mean, not only for our program, but for Holy Cross athletics and the college as a whole,â Magarity said. âWhat an amazing opportunity to promote our school, and talk about how great our school is, and to get people to Google us, and look us up and see what a great college it is.â
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Post by longsuffering on Mar 20, 2024 12:04:23 GMT -5
If a school can afford it most play in post season tournaments. The bids are based on performance during the season and are a positive resume item for the whole team, staff and program for the next half century. The 1954 NIT banner has not gone out of style at HC yet. It hasn't stopped being referenced by broadcasters. Tournaments cost money. Most sports are pay as you go unless ticket/tv revenue covers all expenses. There will be a post season entry for each of our players and coaches in online references in fifty years including the WNIT. Lafayette players and staff not so much.
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