Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day

[UncleBill57]

#25 Villanova beat #22 Syracuse at the Pavillion tonight before a great crowd who were also there to celebrate our BE championship 2003 team that ended UConn's 70 game win streak.Trish Juline had her jersey raised to the rafters in honor off her great Villanoba career through that championship season. Many of the team members were there to be recognized and applauded.

Catherine Coyer had her redshirt ended tonight and proved herself to be another very talented freshman who played solid minutes and scored 5 key
points. I hadn't realized that her sister Carolyn has a broken hand.

The game was a really hard fought one with the talented Orange pressing the entire game. Roberts was the high scorer with at least 26 points making key buckets throughout, many from long distance. Laura Sweeney made key shots along with some great defensive ones along with key rebounds throughout the game. As usual our entire team played tough hoops throughout even though the Orange did get some easy buckets off of steals. Harry was a pretty calm general tonight directing our palers in beating the press and keeping the Orange from even taking a Trey when we were up by that number as the seconds wound down.

The Orange had tall and broad inside players to go along with excellent long range shooters and were good going to the basket as well.

It was a very supportive and vocal Villanova crowd nelpong to cheer our Cats onto a Great win.

 

[tpenter]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59


Yes it was definately not a day to be wearing orange. In a closely contested, highly entertaining game witnessed by a decent crowd of involved fans at the Pavilion, Nova captured a key Big East game by subduing Syracuse 64-59. After a somewhat embarassing upset loss up at Providence earlier in the week and losing Caroline Coyer for the season, the Cats rebounded nicely in this one.

Rachel Roberts, although clearly still battling the effects of the flu bug that kept her out of the Providence game, played a memorable game, surpassing her prior career high in points by seven in posting 26 total for the game. Coughing, wheezing at times, and having to take herself out for the last minute of play in the half, Roberts put up a 4 of 4 from three point land to have 14 at the break and a 38-33 lead. Syracuse once again obliged by playing us in a zone for most of the game, denying entry passes and cutters, but allowing the permiter passing to find Roberts open time after time. In a game that demanded three point production, Roberts delivered big time.

In a strange coincendence, Roberts career night came near the anniversay of her un-redshirting for the UConn game in her freshman year due to injuries to the guards. In this game, Kathleen Coyer suited up for the first time to replace her twin sister Caroline on the roster. In 23 minutes of action, Coyer performed pretty well, scoring her first points in the second half, scoring on a short jumper with about 12 minutes to go to keep us close and then nailing a three at the 9 minute mark to put Nova up 54-53, and they never trailed again after that.

Roberts continued her shooting assault in the second half, hitting 5 of her first 7 to wind up with her total 26 at the 6:40 mark with a 57-54 lead. Fatigue may have then set in as she missed three straight open shots in a little over a minute. The rest of the team responded and carried the day, with Laura Sweeney hitting a three and following with a layup to post a 62-57 lead at 1:28. Syracuse closed to 62-59 at 1:10. Sweeney's short shot wouldn't fall, but Megan Pearson rebounded and was immediately fouled. Cuse fouled on the inbounds to use up the last foul they had to give and then again fouled Roberts on the subsequent inbounds at 0:28. Roberts missed the front end of the 1 and 1 with Cuse getting the rebound and calling time out. They then used up a good 15 seconds of the clock before launching a three that was off the mark and out of bounds. Devon Kane was fouled on the inbounds and calmly deposited both ends of the 1 and 1 to ice the game at the 0:08 mark. A final heave by Syracuse was off the mark for the final score of 64-59.

Roberts played 31 minutes, finishing 6-11 on three pointers and 9-16 overall. Sweeney put up another double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds. No one else had more than 5 points on the night. We won the board battle at 37-36. A total of 14 turnovers, which wasn't bad considering that Syracuse went into full court press after almost every made shot. No player had more than two turnovers on the night. In a significant showing of confidence in her, Harry Perretta had Kathleen Coyer in this tight game with three minutes to go. Pretty impressive for a first showing against a tough pressing defense.

Notes - Nova now tied with UConn for second place in the Big East at 5-1, with Notre Dame the only undefeated team at 7-0. Nova travels to UConn on Tuesday night to break the second place tie. The 2002-2003 elite 8 team was honored at half-time and Trish Juhline had her number retired and hung from the rafters. Sweeney now resides in eighth place in career scoring with 1,367 points, surpassing Denise Dillon, the current Drexel coach and soon to be Villanova Hall of Fame member. Next up on the list is Jenna Skeeters at 1,387 and Jackie Adamshick at 1,392. Her 11 rebounds tonight puts her at a career total of 723, passing Stephanie Vanderslice into 6th place on the career leader list. Next up, Kathie Beisel at 729. All in all a pretty impressive win after the upset loss, leading some confidence going into the horrendous stretch coming up of UConn (ranked #3) and Rutgers away and then Notre Dame (ranked #2) at home. With 5 Big East wins in the bag, we probably need four more to guarantee a spot in the big dance. A really big win tonight.

This post was edited on 1/27 9:39 AM by tpenter - added link to game story and quotes.

This post was edited on 1/28 7:44 PM by tpenter

Greenberg game story and quotes

 

[UncleEd]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59


Congrats to Harry, staff and players. Nice to sweep the Orange.
Interesting that both ladies and men suffered a tough to PC.

 

[whitecat]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59

I gave a quick look to this morning's Syracuse
paper, and there was nothing in it. I will go back
and check. I will be at Syracuse early in March
for our game up there.

 

[steve_vu9196]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59

Was at the game as part of my son's participation in the "Cat Pack". They had a birthday party for the mascot before the game, and tickets to this one.

The Syracuse bigs were big but not athletic at all.

How did we keep getting wide open 3 look after wide open 3 look? Amazing.

I have admittedly not watched much women's hoops, but I can't imagine any other team taking advantage of no 10-second rule than Villanova. We regularly took 15+ seconds to advance the ball past half court. With a 30 second shot clock, that really accelerates things once we do get the ball up the court.

The biggest miss was Jenna Viani not being able to make the reunion. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean! ;-)

 

[whitecat]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59

steve_vu9196,

In one game against the Cuse up there some time ago,
we made fourteen treys for scores in a row. We missed
some two-pointers during that time, but not many. Harry's
new recruiting coordinator is doing a fantastic job, but Harry
can draw up offenses.

 

[tpenter]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59


Syracuse has a coach who is a good recruiter but seems to leave a lot to be desired in his coaching abilities. He either does not like to play man to man defense, cannot teach a man-to-man, or does not have the players to play man (unlikely).
The Nova-Cuse results from the past five games -

2009 Nova wins 69-51, shooting 16-36 on threes, Kurz 6 of 9 despite being ill and playing only 25 minutes.
2010 Nova wins 83-69, shooting 13-27, 9 of 20 in the first half.
2011 Nova gets blown away 70-49, but makes 13 of 36, 7 of 17 in the first half with Kimmell getting 7 for the game.
2012 Nova wins 68-60, shooting 14 of 26 threes, 10 of 15 in the first half, Kimmell 5-5 in the first half.
2013 Nova wins 64-59, shooting 10 of 26 threes, 6 of 9 in the first half, with Roberts 4 -4 in the first half.

How can you let a player who is hot from outside the line continue to shoot? Bad coaching in this case. I don't expect anything different from him in the rematch later this year in Syracuse.

 

[whitecat]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59

tpenter,

We all know Harry and his sideline yells; I still believe he yells
to his players, but not at them. I believe that the coach at Cuse
is a pain in the butt who can not coach at all.

 

[beehive]

Re: Lady Cats make it a CUSE sweep day, Women win 64-59


Harrys new recruiting coordinator, what is the insight?