Gopher Basketball
The 12th-ranked Gophers (15-3, 5-1) jumped to an early 26-9 lead and never looked back. For the 6th time in 7 games, the Gopher defense held its opponent to less than 50 points, although the defense wasn’t as good as it’s been in most of those recent games. Gopher defensive stopper Shannon Bolden limited Michigan’s leading scorer Tabitha Pool to only 8 points on 4 of 10 shooting.
Gopher Jamie Broback got her groove back offensively with 13 points on 5 of 6 shooting, including 2 three-pointers. Broback also recorded 7 rebounds. Gopher freshman Lauren Lacey scored 8 points in 7 minutes off the bench for the Gophers.
The taller and much stronger Gophers outrebounded Michigan, 38-23. Michigan (4-13, 0-6) lost their 9th straight game.
Fighting Illini Next. The Gophers will get a slightly better test Sunday when they host Big 10 Conference foe Illinois (11-5, 3-3).
Illinois has posted a couple of nice non-conference wins, beating nationally-ranked UCLA, 78-63, and Lousiana Tech, 71-65. The road win over Louisiana Tech, then ranked 21st nationally, ended a 30-game home winning streak for the Lady Techsters. It was the 1st time in 161 home games that Louisiana Tech had lost to an unranked opponent. The Fighting Illini, 6-2 in road games this year, are led by 6’0″ senior forward Angelina Williams (18.9 points per game) and 5’10” senior guard Tiffanie Guthrie (15.6 points per game).
Illinois has been plagued by occasional inconsistency, barely beating lowly Michigan, 65-63, to open Big 10 play. The Fighting Illini were also walloped by Wisconsin-Green Bay in a road game, 72-43. The Gophers beat UW-Green Bay in Green Bay, 60-51.
Notes and Observations:
- You’ve Gotta Be Kidding. Other Big 10 coaches have been complaining this week about the hard screens the Gophers have been making. After Purdue starter Sharika Webb suffered a concussion as a result of a Janel McCarville legal screen, Penn State Coach Renee Portland commented that she thinks these screens should be outlawed in the women’s game.
In Thursday’s game, Michigan Coach Cheryl Burnett campaigned to the referees unsuccessfully for a flagrant foul against Jamie Broback, who was called for a moving screen foul. Burnett also alluded to her team’s vulnerability against these screens in her postgame comments.
My opinion: Coach Portland’s comment about banning these screens in women’s basketball is ridiculous. Is she looking for women’s basketball to outlaw all body contact? Maybe she wants women’s basketball to be similar to women’s hockey, where checking is not allowed.
Screens and picks have been an important (and legal) part of basketball for years. Anyone who watched LSU beat the Gophers at Williams Arena earlier this year, saw LSU All-American Seimone Augustus score repeatedly as she curled around screens set by her teammates. It was a thing of beauty, albeit not for the Gophers. Eliminating screens would reduce the effectiveness of athletic pull-up shooters like Augustus.
The Gophers often use screens in the backcourt, usually to get opposing guards off Shannon Schonrock as she dribbles the ball into the frontcourt. This is usually done early in the game to let the opposing guard know that she’ll have to beware of a screen if she intends to hound the Gophers point guard.
Although we’ve often seen opposing guards crumble to the floor after running into legal screens provided by McCarville (and also Liz Podominick and Broback), whatever happened to the idea of someone on the opposing team yelling and letting their teammates know that a screen is awaiting? I learned this in 6th grade basketball …and I was a slow learner. But after you’ve run into a screen a number of times, you learn quickly to either stop pressing the opposing guard or to tell your teammates to let you know the screen is there.
These screens the Gophers use are seldom used by other women’s teams, either because the team doesn’t have anyone solid enough to set an effective screen, or because girls are not taught this in youth basketball programs.
- The Big 10 conference game of the weekend will take place Sunday when Penn State hosts Michigan State in a noon game televised by Fox Sports Network. Penn State is the only Big 10 team without a conference loss. Michigan State, Ohio State, and the Gophers are all within a stones throw at 5-1. In an early game at Penn State last year, Michigan State had the Nittany Lions on the ropes with a double-digit lead and only minutes remaining. The Spartans blew the lead, lost the game, and Penn State went on to win the conference with a 15-1 record.
- Former Gopher Associate Head Coach Melissa McFerrin is now the head coach at American University in Washington, D.C. She inherited an experienced team picked before the season to finish 3rd in the Patriot League. Her team is currently 6-9 overall, 1-2 in conference play.
- Gopher guard April Calhoun recorded her 3rd straight semester with a 4.0 grade average in the recently concluded 1st semester.
- It was good to see freshman Lauren Lacey get some minutes against Michigan. The Gophers have a glut of post players and power forwards with McCarville, Broback, Podominick, Natasha Williams, Christina Collison, and Lacey. However when senior McCarville departs after this season, she’ll leave a huge hole in the middle. As one of the most talented offensive players in this group, the 6’3″ Lacey will have a chance to become an important part of next year’s inside rotation.
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