Preview:
I thought about titling this post "Coach Vanderveer returns to Maples!" but that would be too clever by half. Coach Vanderveer is Heidi, Tara's younger sister, and we have played her team--UCSD--off and on for years now.
UCSD is off to a terrible start this year, although they do seem to be a hard-luck team. They are 1-6. However, strangely 3 of those games were overtime games and they lost all three. And they have never been blown out. Arizona beat them 65-54. Their sole win was against Occidental--a near-exhibition game. Massey has them at 300 which would make them one of the worst teams we have faced. I guess it is perfect for Black Friday.
Kayanna Spriggs, a 6'2" senior forward, leads USCD in scoring at 12 ppg, all from close in. Sabrina Ma, a 5'10" junior from San Francisco, is their next scorer at 10 ppg and is shooting 38% from three point range.
USCD is averaging 21 turnovers a game. (Can you say the word "Shay"?)
Scheduling:
This might be a good time to comment on the lack of strength in the home preseason schedule. At the last couple of chalk talks I heard grumbling about the weak opponents. And to be fair, we always used to have one marquee opponent (or more) come out to Maples. UConn, or Tennessee in its hey day, later on it was South Carolina. "These games are not going to help us get better" I heard someone say.
They might be right. But welcome to the ACC. The weak preseason schedule is mostly a function of the high travel demands that our new conference is placing on our team. Let me explain.
Apart from the Dec 13 game against Cal, league play in the ACC begins on January 2, which is also the beginning of Winter quarter. Our players have been advised to minimize their academic schedule during Winter quarter and to avoid in-person classes during that stretch, as a way of coping with the travel. To balance this, they have been increasing their academic load during summers and fall. And our scheduling has tried to create a basketball schedule that absolutely minimizes travel during their very (academically) intense fall quarter.
To play really good teams we need to offer them something. What we traditionally offer them is a home-and-away series. The other teams comes to Maples one year and we agree to travel to their place one year.
That no longer works well in the new regime. We kept it up with Indiana since they had already traveled out here last year. With Gonzaga we do home-and-aways but the travel to Spokane is not unreasonable. The question is who can we get to come to Maples who will NOT insist on a home-and-away? And guess who those teams are? They are the teams we are playing--usually mid-major or less and usually from California.
I thought about titling this post "Coach Vanderveer returns to Maples!" but that would be too clever by half. Coach Vanderveer is Heidi, Tara's younger sister, and we have played her team--UCSD--off and on for years now.
UCSD is off to a terrible start this year, although they do seem to be a hard-luck team. They are 1-6. However, strangely 3 of those games were overtime games and they lost all three. And they have never been blown out. Arizona beat them 65-54. Their sole win was against Occidental--a near-exhibition game. Massey has them at 300 which would make them one of the worst teams we have faced. I guess it is perfect for Black Friday.
Kayanna Spriggs, a 6'2" senior forward, leads USCD in scoring at 12 ppg, all from close in. Sabrina Ma, a 5'10" junior from San Francisco, is their next scorer at 10 ppg and is shooting 38% from three point range.
USCD is averaging 21 turnovers a game. (Can you say the word "Shay"?)
Scheduling:
This might be a good time to comment on the lack of strength in the home preseason schedule. At the last couple of chalk talks I heard grumbling about the weak opponents. And to be fair, we always used to have one marquee opponent (or more) come out to Maples. UConn, or Tennessee in its hey day, later on it was South Carolina. "These games are not going to help us get better" I heard someone say.
They might be right. But welcome to the ACC. The weak preseason schedule is mostly a function of the high travel demands that our new conference is placing on our team. Let me explain.
Apart from the Dec 13 game against Cal, league play in the ACC begins on January 2, which is also the beginning of Winter quarter. Our players have been advised to minimize their academic schedule during Winter quarter and to avoid in-person classes during that stretch, as a way of coping with the travel. To balance this, they have been increasing their academic load during summers and fall. And our scheduling has tried to create a basketball schedule that absolutely minimizes travel during their very (academically) intense fall quarter.
To play really good teams we need to offer them something. What we traditionally offer them is a home-and-away series. The other teams comes to Maples one year and we agree to travel to their place one year.
That no longer works well in the new regime. We kept it up with Indiana since they had already traveled out here last year. With Gonzaga we do home-and-aways but the travel to Spokane is not unreasonable. The question is who can we get to come to Maples who will NOT insist on a home-and-away? And guess who those teams are? They are the teams we are playing--usually mid-major or less and usually from California.