My extra tickets for the final four in Cleveland are up for auction on Ebay until next Wednesday night (1/24). Check it out if you are interested at -

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270079610012&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=017

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270079610012&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=017

Obama's administration killed US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki via drone because he was a terrorist. That was how they rationalized the assassination of a US citizen.

At Fort Hood, Nidal Hassan kills 13 people on his rampage. He exchanged emails with al-Awlaki talking about jihad and the afterlife.

Obama's administration says that Fort Hood was "workplace violence" and not a terrorist act.

What am I missing here?

workplace violence

The Nova Lady Cats took care of business once again, outscoring an out-manned Providence team by 69-42. Laura Sweeney kept up her phenomenal streak with a 10-15 shooting night, scoring 25 (18 in the first half) and pulling in 13 boards. Total domination in the first half.

After a somewhat sluggish start, the Nova offense went inside to build up a sizable lead. A pair of late threes including a buzzer beater by Rachel Roberts left the lead at 32-18 at the break. Providence only challenged once in the second half, paring the lead to 12 but a couple of quick scores later, Nova was off and running. Roberts finished with 14 on the night. Kendall Burton got on the court for the last two minutes and was able to drill a three ball for the hometown fans that came down to see her.

For the first time in seven years we started the Big East schedule with a win. Back to the non-conference schedule for a bit and an attempt to get the Big Five title before heading back into the B/E battles in January. St. Joes should give us a good test at home on Saturday afternoon. Let's give them some support!

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This post was edited on 12/7 3:53 PM by NovaTras22

Announced he will not seek reelection next year.
Won't miss him.

CBA wins the XC high school national championship. I presume Marcus has been to Lincroft NJ a few times recently.

GO CATS!!!

sounds like a nice one but have no details other than







sounds like a decisive win but have no details other than vu 67 -las 51

6-2, 4-1 road

Impressed by the frosh on the women's team - Faith Dismuke (500), Amanda Burroughs (1000), Leanne Tucker (800), Qualitra Brown (300) - and the newcomer, Erin Ryan (800). Bodes well for the 4x400, 4x800, which would be nice. Particularly excited by Erin Ryan. Four years on soccer team and now trying track. Appears to have been outstanding at track in high school. Has a little speed that may translate to success at 800. Nice use of available resources. How much track eligibility does she have? Soccer seems to prepare people well for track.

For the second year in a row, Lehigh took Nova into overtime but the Cats came away with the win, this time 62-54 in front of more than 3,000 screaming grade schoolers at Stabler Arena.

After Nova pulled ahead to a 30-24 halftime lead, the offense went south for the first ten minutes of the second half, scoring only four points. Fortunately Lehigh was not much better and could only wind up pushing ahead by one at 35-34 at the ten minunte mark. A Laura Sweeney layup and foul shot a minute later put Nova back on top for the duration of the regulation time.

Seemingly with the game in hand at 49-43 with only a minute left, Nova gave up two straight layups to cut the margin to two. Pearson was intentionally fouled and made both to put the margin back to four with 26 seconds left but Lehigh ran coast to coast for another layup with 16 seconds left and immediately fouled Rachel Roberts who made the first but missed the second.

Nova took both of the fouls that they had to give leaving Lehigh with the ball under their basket with only nine seconds to play. The perimeter players were hounded and Lehigh had no open looks but a twisting off balance rainbow from in front of Lehigh's bench hit nothing but the bottom of the net as the horn sounded. Lots of noise and high fives from the Lehigh team and fans and stunned disbelief from the Nova team.

A real gut check game and Nova responded. After going down two on foul shots early in OT, Nova scored ten unanswered (first eight by Sweeney) to win the game. No longer any doubt that Sweeney is our go-to player. Career high 27 points and 13 really tough boards were the game changers. Burford returned from a one game injury and responded by returning to her earlier three point form, hitting four of eight. Not much other scoring from anyone else. Roberts had eleven but took 19 shots to get there.

Despite the relatively low score, the pace was once again an up-tempo mode with several fast break baskets and still not many turnovers (8). A lot of that may have been attributable to the refs not calling any walks or turnovers - unheard of in a women's game. Although they may not all start, the fav five for Harry is definately Burford, Sweeney, Roberts, Kane and Pearson when the game is on the line.

The team must shoot better from the perimeter to put themselves in a better position to win games. No way this game should have come down to a final shot. Nevertheless we have won three games on the road this year that we would have found a way to lose last year.

A Sunday afternoon game at LaSalle will be another opportunity to see if the team can put all of the pieces together to be in complete control of a team that should not be there in the end. The prior games with them have always seemed to end that way however.

http://footlockercc.com/2011/results/northeast/2011_flnestseededg.htm l

Not a fast time but victorious Angel beat a bunch of pure distance girls who figured to be tougher opposition.


http://footlockercc.com/2011/results/northeast/2011_flnestseniorb.html Nike - NY


1 Jillian Fanning JR Manlius XC-NY 17:47.4
2 Samantha Nadel SR North Shore Running Club 18:14.7
3 Mary Cain SO Bronxville TC 18:19.4
4 Brianna Nerud SR North Shore Running Club 18:26.3
5 Rachel Paul SR Sachem Spiked Shoe Club-N 18:40.0 1


This post was edited on 11/26 6:31 PM by Or1on
This post was edited on 11/26 6:35 PM by Or1on

Nova hit 15 threes and dominated the boards in doing everything they were expceted to do against Div. II Phila. Univ. According to Mel Greenberg's blog, this was a filler game to make up for what should have been a continuation of the Drexel series. When Drexel was invited to participate in the pre-season WNIT the proposed date for Nova-Drexel became unworkable and an alternate date could not be found.

First ever Div. I game for Phila. Univ.; a long time since we played a Div. II school although long ago we faced off against the locals inlcuding West Chester, Cheney State and Immaculata, all of whom were national powerhouse women's programs in the early days of Nova basketball.

Downside - Lauren Burford did not dress and goes for an MRI to determine cause of leg pain. Pearl Mensah is on crutches and also going for MRI, a real downer for her since yesterday would have been one of the rare opportunities for her to see some PT. Virtually no one came out to the game which is probably understandable given the competition and lots of other things to do on a wonderful Saturday afternoon in November.

Upside - with a reduced roster, Emily Suhey started and saw significant minnutes for a change. For the second straight game she seemed more comfortable out there and banged in four of seven treys. Really need her offense coming off of the bench. Lindsey Kimmell had five threes and only missed on a couple. Kendall Burton came on with the first wave of five subs and canned a three for her first career points. Her father was in town for business and was on hand to see that happen. Of course Harry was yelling at her 10 seconds after stepping onto the court.

Odds and ends (or maybe just odd) - Harry used full court press most of first half. Very strange to see everyone up in the forecourt. Might come in handy later in the year to surprise someone into a turnover after a made basket or use it to try to get back into a game that is slipping away. Can only remember seeing a press a few times over the past ten years and not being very successful at it.

Off to Lehigh for a Wednesday mid-day game and then over to Lasalle for a Sunday afternoon game. Continuing on the road to Providence for the Big East opener next Wednesday and finally home again on Sat. Dec. 10th for an afternoon game with St. Joes.

Tough loss. Like our team. More driving to the hoop, some offensive boards etc. Great to see the super fans!! Tpenter, mario, Smith brothers, Uncle Bill, etc. Nice crowd Hope to be at the next one.

Nicki A. for us bested Cuffee of Stanford yesterday. Cuffee had to be one of the top five or so high schoolers in the country last year while Nicki had decent but not outstanding times as a high schooler in Ga. What did Gina see
in Nicki? We would have killed to get Cuffee

Incidentally, the TV I was watching had comments by other people; one had to be Nicki's dad by the name of Luke A. Go Cats.

Princeton's defense totally stymied Nova's offense and the final score did not do justice to how complete the job was as Nova scored the last eight points to cut the final deficit to 15.

The first half was filled with turnovers, missed shots and turnovers by both teams, punctuated by some bizzare referee calls and non-calls. The first half score was 20-17 and not much more needs to be said.

Princeton came out in the second half by pushing the ball inside and quickly extended the lead to double figures and Nova had no answer offensively. Nineteen turnovers against the press and extended defense, 3 of 21 three point shooting,lots of fouls and coming up empty on most loose balls and rebounds doomed the Cats to a very lackluster shellacking.

Bright spots? Not many. Emily Leer got offensive in the second half to post a 12 point game as an early career high and Emily Suhey shot 2 for 2 and grabbed a few rebounds to finally look comfortable in a game for some time. A loss today would not have been unexpected. Disappointing that we were not even competitive today.

Della-Ware in town on Tuesday for the home opener and a celebration of Harry's 600th win. Della Donne looked unstoppable scoring 40 against a good Penn State team this week, but her team looked beatable if we play with the defensive intensity of the first three games. An effort like today will put us on the mat early on.

I think.

I've started building a Villanova Running blog that may be of interest to some of you. I am still educating myself on the bells and whistles, so look for some improvement in the presentation. In any event, tt can be found at the link below. I'd be happy to hear any feedback or suggestions.

Villanova Running

2012 track rosters are up at the Villanova site. Several possible sprinters for men including a 48.4 400 man, Brian Murphy (NJ). Otherwise nothing really new or impacting that we don't already know.

The Kitties take down another Top 25 from last year in Marist. The girls are on a roll.

Nova closed came back from a 42-39 deficit by scoring 12 straight points to take a 51-42 lead about the five minute mark and then held on at the foul line to close out the victory.

Some chinks in the armor this game - a lot more turnovers and some poor decisions, too many missed foul shots at the end, but all in all a great win in a sold out newly renovated gym with a loud and rowdy crowd and a solid NCAA tournament tested team as the opponent.

Balanced scoring once again, with Burford, Roberts and I believe Pearson, Sweeney and Kane all at or near double figures. Sweeney with several key offensive boards. The team had just gone through a scoring drought before their run to take control of the game, so kudos for not folding when things were not going their way. For about five straight posessions Harry had Pearson iso on the left and we scored off of three or four of them. Some nice offensive sets, plenty of ball movement and more offensive boards. I think we had three offensive boards in the first minute of the game.

Princeton on the road on Saturday stands between us and a 4-0 mark to come home to for the home opener. Get out to see this team!!

Not many opportunities in the past few years to get noticed anywhere outside of Radnor. From Graham Hays ESPN opening week roundup blog -

Biggest surprise: Villanova beating Michigan State. Mulkey wasn't the only coach to hit a milestone over the weekend. In fact, Villanova's Harry Perretta doubled her up by collecting win No. 600 in Sunday's 76-47 win against Iona. He's just the seventh Division I coach to total 600 wins at one school. But nobody is probably more pleased than Perretta himself that the milestone was overshadowed by win No. 599. That came courtesy of a 75-64 win against No. 25 Michigan State on Friday, the first against a ranked foe for the Wildcats in more than two years.

Villanova's next three games come at Marist and Princeton and home against Delaware, quality opponents that should test what Perretta has on his hands with Rachel Roberts and Lauren Burford (a combined 13-of-24 shooting from the 3-point line through two games).

4-star '13 F Megan Quinn picks Big East school
September 16, 2011Sep 1604:28PM ET
Megan Quinn of Berwyn, Pa., has committed to Villanova University, according to her club coach, Lou Hilf of the Philadelphia Belles 15U.

The 6-foot-2 forward also considered Drexel, Lehigh, Richmond, Delaware, Harvard, Princeton and Penn.

"Megan had a great July, capped off at Nike Nationals," Hilf said in an email message. "She sees the court extremely well, can put the ball on the floor and can step outside and drain the three. Megan has that high basketball IQ that all coaches love."

Rated a four-star prospect by ESPN HoopGurlz, Quinn was a first-team, All-Inter-Academic League as a sophomore at Episcopal Academy (Merion, Pa.), where she also is an honor-roll student.

"Megan chose Villanova because she felt at home there," Hilf said. "When she met the coaching staff and players she knew this was the perfect fit for her. Megan plans on accomplishing a lot off the court and on the court."

Needatobaby -

My offhand reference to the above was not so much a comment on the potential quality of new conference opponents as to the ability of a small school like Nova to financially commit to such an arrangement and the abandonment of long-time rivalies and the sensability of geographical conferences.

Of course the big football and basketball powers can afford to, but can Nova really afford to run a sports program that would require the type of travel required to visit current Big Twelve teams (and Texas Tech who has already joined the Big East). Remember that we are just not talking about a few visits by the football and basketball teams. You have 2 soccer teams, field hockey, volleyball, tennis, baseball, softball, golf, cross country, track and on and on. The idocy of losing the regional rivalries and dropping any geographical considerations in college sports in the past decade is beyond me.

Not much more that I can or want to add to this. The almighty dollar rules all and the proponents will point to the potential income from league television contracts to offset the costs, but even if it does I don't have to like the end result.

men second to Georgetown. women tied with Georgetown at 57. Reid Infeld Mimic

By DOUG FEINBERG
NEW YORK (AP)

"Villanova only averaged 51 points last season and Perretta credits the offensive outburst to finally having more depth.

"We actually have a bunch of players who can score," he said. "We don't have to slow things down.""

So, is this confirmation that we will see a different women's game this year?

The coach has spoken... Looking forward to an exciting season...


Anybody going to the Marist game?

I am thinking of making an attempt...

The new runnin' Wildcats stun Michigan State to start off the year. Everyone will love the new uptempo game.