. . . from the SMS perspective

[Dale8R]

Two good articles today. The Springfield News Leader gives good coverage to the Lady Bears. Here are the current offerings. http://www.springfieldnewsleader.com/bearsden/lady_bears/lbbears031703.html Favorable comments about TTU.
http://www.springfieldnewsleader.com/sports/Puryear031703.html Scott Puryear column, mostly focused on the Lady Bears.

[This message has been edited by Dale8R (edited 03-17-2003).]

[Bball Girl]

Thanks for the articles.

From your perspective, how different is SMS since Burnett(sp?) left. Our team still touts beating the SMS of Jackie Stiles a few years ago as one of their favorite victories. Has the ISU style of junk defenses crept in?

I have a cousin and family in the Springfield area who are HUGE SMS fans...traveled to the Final 4 with them a few years ago. Georgia's brother Jim has a box in the Portland area and when Georgia and Jack were visiting Portland and attended a WNBA game, Jim arranged for Jackie to come up to the box after a game. Jack evidently made a gibbering fool of himself..he was so excited and Jackie was her usual gracious self in dealing with this 50+ year old man babbling at her.

Looking forward to having SMS here in Lubbock...they are always competitive.

[SMSuperFAN]

The Lady Bears are completely different. I mean this used to be a program that would NEVER play a zone and ran motion offense all day. Coach Abe came in instilling a new philosophy to not only the freshmen and incoming players but also to the returning players as well so the whole season was a learning/building process. Even at mid-season they just were not playing well with the zone and with her set offenses, but a few weeks ago it just seemed to click with everyone on the team and they are playing lights out ball right now. The defense has been great of late and the shooting has come along. SMS has hit 210 three pointers this year, which is a school record and there are 5-6 players on the team that can drill them (that number will increase to 8-9 next year with KC Cowgill and the other newcomers). MVC Freshman of the Year Kari Koch is coming into her own. She has Jackie-like moves but is a GREAT defensive player, averaging 3 steals a game. She's also a pretty good passer and runs the point quite a bit.

[Dale8R]

Now that is JUST WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY! No, seriously, you said it better than what I could have.

I haven't been following the situation nearly as closely as SMSuperFAN obviously has. Mostly what I would have emphasized was the dreaded ZONE, which did antagonize a number of the fans. (THAT'S not the way CHERYL would have done it!!!!!)

Hopefully, most of the gloom and doom predictors held on long enough to see the results, which, as SMSuperFAN said, took a good bit of the season to kick in. My experience was limited to reading the News Leader and seeing them the few times they were on Fox TV, and I certainly could tell the difference as the season progressed.

They have a world of talent, I think, and virtually all of it young talent at that. Only Charlotte Nelson is a Senior, and her playing time nearly vanished this season. She started the majority of last year's games, but was close to the end of the bench this season. I cannot say why, not having been there to observe the situation.

Kari Koch is not the only new player to contribute. Two other Freshmen, Sara Klaassen & Tiffany Vincent, and most importantly (my opinion) Junior Meg Tierney have really been valuable.

Now that I have mentioned all those, I cannot help but add the holdovers Juniors Morgan Hohenberger and Stephanie Busbey and Sophomores Jenni Lingor and Nicole Lehman. Hohenberger is the only player to start every game, and (my opinion again) is the one that holds them together. She spent most of her first two years holding the bench down, but has really come through this season. So have the others.

Two more freshmen complete the squad, Annie Roberts, who I believe was injured and played little and Hannah Kirk, who got some critical playing time in the tournament finale.

While there are others coming in next year, most notable is KC Cowgill. Now I know she has her detractors on this board, but let's wait and give her the benefit of the doubt. My money is on her.

So to sum up, it is a group loaded with underclassmen, who were not expected to do much. While I don't see them as being nearly in a class with TTU, neither do I see them as total pushovers. They certainly are better than your average #15 in my book.

[Bball Girl]

Thanks for the great information.

SMS has a great tradition, they are used to playing in front of a large & noisy crowd, and clearly are a team peaking at the right time. I'm looking forward to the game and hope there's a good crowd of SMS supporters in the USA.

[Dale8R]

If you really want to read more on them, then go in the front door of the Bears Den ~~ http://www.springfieldnewsleader.com/bearsden/lady_bears.html I check in every week or so and like it better than the official SMS site ~~ http://www.sports.smsu.edu/wbasketball/

[dem]

I was at the MVC championship game in Des Moines and so I can add a few comments. (I decided that cheering on our former Iowa State Assistant Coach and her team was preferable to sitting around and feeling morose about the premature end of ISU's season.)

SMS played a fabulous, inspired game. Everyone played aggressive offense, attacking the basket and shooting open threes -- and making a bunch of them! Morgan Hohenberger had a spectacular first quarter and her hot shooting kept the Lady Bears in the game during a time when Indiana State was playing very well and very confidently. The other players seemed to pick up on her gutsy play and soon followed suit.

Jenni Lingor was heavily defended and so had a slow start, but Kari Koch and Sarah Klaassen kept finding the basket. Koch seems to me to be a major talent, really an outstanding player for just being a freshman. Indiana State's extremely aggressive and physical pressure defense -- which had totally frustrated and disrupted Northern Iowa just one day earlier -- seemed to be only mildly annoying to Koch.

Meg Tierney's injury was scary and allowed Indiana State's posts to beat up on her subs, Busbey, Lehman, and Kirk. When Tierney was able to return -- and somehow be effective even while hobbling on her injured foot -- it was a major confidence boost to the team. They had a several-minute spurt where they went crazy, connecting on long down-court passes for slick lay-ups, throwing in threes, running the Indiana State defense ragged and totally demoralizing them. This is when they built up their big lead. Throughout it all, they played ferocious defense and never let up the pressure. You could see Indiana State begin to lose confidence. (Their star player, Kourtney Mennen, later commented on this quite bitterly at the press conference.) I was very impressed, because I had watched Indiana State just destroy a very respectable Northern Iowa team in the earlier game.

The starting five are loaded with talent and they obviously are capable of playing hard and long. But I have to guess that the bench is thin, since Coach Abe avoided playing anyone not in the starting lineup. And, to be honest, Plenette Pierson is going to run rings around Meg Tierney even if her foot is completely healed. But I suppose that the Lady Bears will play an aggressive zone and dare Texas Tech to hit some jumpers. If Natalie isn't 100%, if the SMS zone can limit Pierson's touches, and if the SMS shooters are hitting, the game could get interesting.

The chances of Marsha Sharp underestimating the opposition are zero so there won't be any opportunity for a sneak attack. But if the Tech players take the Lady Bears too lightly, they could suddenly find themselves in quite a battle.



[This message has been edited by dem (edited 03-18-2003).]

[Dale8R]

Thank you for that, dem. I only got to see it on TV, but it is obvious that you were watching the same game. Your description was spot on.

About that time the starters played (all but Tierney played 40), I just checked the stats for the year ~~ http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaw/teams/scg/stats Koch, Lingor & Hohenberger averaged 35, 33 & 31 minutes for the year Tierney and Klaassen 25 & 29, and Busbey, Vincent & Lehman were all right at 15. Buzz was the starter over Tierney in the first game of the season, but went down with an injury and missed the next 10, and is slowly getting back to where she was.

[Dale8R]

Mechelle Voepel article in the Star, mostly about the turnaround that took them from 11-12 to 18-12 and brief capsules of the Lady Bears. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/sports/5442912.htm

And while I am here, here's a News Leader article mostly about Hohenberger and Busbey, the two remaining members of the Final Four team ~~ they logged a combined total of 31 minutes in the tournament that year. http://www.springfieldnewsleader.com/bearsden/lady_bears/lbbears032103.html