Preview:
Sacred Heart won the Wednesday play-in game and becomes the 16 seed that will play Stanford on Friday, 4:30. Tara was scouting the game, and will have a couple of days to get ready for Sacred Heart.
Sacred Heart is 18-13 overall and is getting back to the NCAAs for the first time in 11 years. They play in the Northeast conference and beat Farleigh Dickinson, which had a much better record, in their tournament. They are 258 in NET. Massey has them at 285.
Sacred Heart was, frankly, mediocre even in their own league before their league tournament vaulted them over teams with better records. They are among the weakest teams in the tournament, and weaker than many many teams that did not make it to the tournament. They do not compare favorably with the infamous Harvard team of 1998, and worries about another 1/16 upset should be quashed.
That said, they played with spirit and poise on Wednesday, and they have an interesting and very talented point guard. 5'3" freshman Ny'Ceara Pryor was all-everything in her league this year and averaged 18 points. Wednesday night she had 10 assists, and showed some jaw-dropping moves and hustle, but shot just 3-15. She will be fun to watch, but she may not be that difficult to guard. She is only a 20% three-point shooter and much of her scoring was on curls and drives to the basket, where she might have problems against a much taller defense.
Sacred Heart had two players shooting 30% or so from three point range on the season, but they managed only 3/21 from range on Wednesday night against Southern. On offense, they are shooting 28% of their treys and making about 5 a game. I saw them running lots of curls around screens, and a lot of drives toward the basket.
Sacred Heart does not have much height. Their tallest regular player is one of their two Wood sisters, a 6''1" Kelsey, along with 6'2" Carly Stroemel, although neither usually starts.
On defense, they played a pesky 1-2-2 press much of the night, and played a quick 2-3 zone at times. They had 10 steals which forced Southern up to 20 turnovers, and those were really important to Sacred Heart's win. They average 10 steals a game, which is very high.
So what kind of game could they give us on Friday? A lot will depend on what kinds of changes Tara has implemented in the wake of our dismal performance against UCLA, and how many of those changes she will be willing to show in what amounts to an exhibition game. I don't expect to see anything new from our offense on Friday, and I do expect to see lots and lots of bench players contributing. Come Sunday we are more likely to get the "reveal" of whether, or how, Tara has reacted to our late season woes.
Given that Sacred Heart is not an awesome three point shooting team, I think we should be able to keep them out of the paint almost completely and stymie their offense. Whether we cruise to a mediocre win or break out for one of those rare 100 point games will depend on how well Tara has gotten our offense back in gear. I fully expect to see a lot of bench play--it is the ideal game for it. But I'd really love to see the first team all in sync and scoring at will first. I'm not necessarily predicting that, but hoping for it.
Sacred Heart won the Wednesday play-in game and becomes the 16 seed that will play Stanford on Friday, 4:30. Tara was scouting the game, and will have a couple of days to get ready for Sacred Heart.
Sacred Heart is 18-13 overall and is getting back to the NCAAs for the first time in 11 years. They play in the Northeast conference and beat Farleigh Dickinson, which had a much better record, in their tournament. They are 258 in NET. Massey has them at 285.
Sacred Heart was, frankly, mediocre even in their own league before their league tournament vaulted them over teams with better records. They are among the weakest teams in the tournament, and weaker than many many teams that did not make it to the tournament. They do not compare favorably with the infamous Harvard team of 1998, and worries about another 1/16 upset should be quashed.
That said, they played with spirit and poise on Wednesday, and they have an interesting and very talented point guard. 5'3" freshman Ny'Ceara Pryor was all-everything in her league this year and averaged 18 points. Wednesday night she had 10 assists, and showed some jaw-dropping moves and hustle, but shot just 3-15. She will be fun to watch, but she may not be that difficult to guard. She is only a 20% three-point shooter and much of her scoring was on curls and drives to the basket, where she might have problems against a much taller defense.
Sacred Heart had two players shooting 30% or so from three point range on the season, but they managed only 3/21 from range on Wednesday night against Southern. On offense, they are shooting 28% of their treys and making about 5 a game. I saw them running lots of curls around screens, and a lot of drives toward the basket.
Sacred Heart does not have much height. Their tallest regular player is one of their two Wood sisters, a 6''1" Kelsey, along with 6'2" Carly Stroemel, although neither usually starts.
On defense, they played a pesky 1-2-2 press much of the night, and played a quick 2-3 zone at times. They had 10 steals which forced Southern up to 20 turnovers, and those were really important to Sacred Heart's win. They average 10 steals a game, which is very high.
So what kind of game could they give us on Friday? A lot will depend on what kinds of changes Tara has implemented in the wake of our dismal performance against UCLA, and how many of those changes she will be willing to show in what amounts to an exhibition game. I don't expect to see anything new from our offense on Friday, and I do expect to see lots and lots of bench players contributing. Come Sunday we are more likely to get the "reveal" of whether, or how, Tara has reacted to our late season woes.
Given that Sacred Heart is not an awesome three point shooting team, I think we should be able to keep them out of the paint almost completely and stymie their offense. Whether we cruise to a mediocre win or break out for one of those rare 100 point games will depend on how well Tara has gotten our offense back in gear. I fully expect to see a lot of bench play--it is the ideal game for it. But I'd really love to see the first team all in sync and scoring at will first. I'm not necessarily predicting that, but hoping for it.
