Best Region for Women's Basketball...

[RaiderPower1]

West Texas is arguably THE BEST place to play women's basketball. WOW! If there is any other region in the nation please tell me cause West Texas ball is just spectacular. Let's see...we got Canyon and Plainview...and Levelland hadn't been to bad either. You have Texas Tech who averages 13,000 a game. Then you have South Plains College in Levelland, TX (30 miles west of Lubbock). They are the 3rd ranked team in the nation and are 20-0! Just got back from the game where the Lady Texans pulled out a tough game 56-55 I think. Talk about clutch shooting...The freshman Melissa DeGrate(what a perfect name for bball) missed two free throws down by 54-55 with 16 seconds left, but a teamate gathered the rebound and passed it back to DeGrate who knocked down the 10 footer. It was amazing...then Midland came back down the court and the Lady Texans stole the ball away for the win with 1 second left. Some of you may recall that Sheryl Swoopes, Angie Braziel, and Aleah Johnson played for South Plains College before they had outstanding careers at Texas Tech. Lyndon Hardin is a great coach who knows the game. Melissa DeGrate and Tamesha Graves (both Frosh) will definately be playing D1 ball before it's all said and done. Go Lady Texans and Lady Raiders!

[aespinoza]

and let's not forget the smaller towns that have just as strong of reputations in women's basketball (as well as some state championships under their belts)...and all within an hour of lubbock...try nazareth, sudan, abernathy, shallowater, dimmitt, tulia, slaton...even my hometown muleshoe has a state-ranked girls team...i know that there are a few towns i have left out, but that's just because there are so many!

Go TECH!

[DblT81]

Espy- I knew you came from good people. So the old black and white team from Ave. D is state ranked, eh? That's great!

RP1- I saw Midland College play for the first time last week. They had some impressive players. A lot of height and looked to be good shooters. They were playing an overmatched Howard College team and won handily. I couldn't tell if MC was for real or if HC was just that bad.

I bet it was a good game. Where did Tamesha Graves come from? Is she a West Texas player? DeGrate's from Amarillo, right? Did she play on the Hawks AAU team with Chelsi Welch et al? She may have been too old and I may be confusing her with Leah Rush (sp?).

Hoopscoop, if this stuff bugs you, we can take it over to TexasHoops, but all those screaming HS fans get in the way over there.

[HoopScoop]

Are you kidding? Doesn't bug me. Talk away at your heart's content.

I'm also planning on adding an off-topic board if ya'll like. Especially once season ends and gives us another place to talk about non-basketball related things.

One thing I won't do that I've seen elsewhere is providing a "Smack-off board" or "Trash talk" board. I feel that is totally counter-productive to everything we try to do here. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to engage in debates. Just not stupid, lame-brain arguments over nothing.

[RaiderPower1]

Thanks HoopScoop...I just didn't know where to talk about SPC basketball. I mean, I even feel guilty to post on RP.com sometimes b/c it is the LR forum. Trust me though, if SPC basketball had nothing to do with Big XII ball I certainly wouldn't post it here. It's just that Tech has had some really great players come out of South Plains College. You know? So I figured that it had something to do with the Big XII.

Dblt-According to my media guide, Tamesha Graves is from Carrollton, TX. It doesn't say if either played AAU ball though. Both had impressive HS basketball years, but I am not too sure if they were looked at for D1 ball. Melissa was 2001 District MVP and Tamesha was District Offensive POY.

Concerning Midland: They have tremendous HEIGHT for JC basketball! They had 6'3" and 6'4" players in at the same time and our only 6'3" girl was in foul trouble. They came back strong from 17 pts. down in the first half, and they actually took a 5 point lead with 4 min. to go. SPC, though hung tough and like Jia Perkins did, an SPC guard kept stealing the ball and got a couple of layups to pull within 1. Then the whole last shot thing. I think DeGrate is special... http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/smile.gif

[swok34]

I think it's great, too........certainly gives me the opportunity to get to know the other Texas players, which of course,.........we get no news of here in Oklahoma.

Seems the only way I received any NAIA or DIV II bball was the women's basketball journal, which is now defunct....and Oklahoma is chunk full of these teams.

[This message has been edited by swok34 (edited 01-26-2002).]

[RaiderPower1]

REPORT ON CHELSI WELCH AND ALESHA ROBERTSON

The two played last night against the only team challenging them in district 4-4A. Boy did they ever take over the show. Chelsi Welch had 25 points on 9 field goals (2 threes) and 5-6 at the FT line. Alesha Robertson had 31 points on 10 field goals (1 three) and 10-10 FT shooting. This team is 25-1 and 11-0 in district play. Chelsi runs the floor incredibly well and OU will definatly like her. She takes the ball strong to the hoop and never shys away from physical basketball. Alesha is very strong and just looking at her build you can tell that she can get very physical. I think both are guards/forwards, but being the great players that they are, they both can play anywhere on the floor. Good luck to themon the rest of the season.

[Bball Girl]

Tech has at least two scholarships to give (outside of the three HS recruits already signed) with Cudnoski leaving in the summer and Brown. I've been wondering with Tech might try to snag a couple of the SP players over the summer? What do the rest of you think?

[RaiderPower1]

SPC doesn't have any "spectacular" sophomores right now. It is the freshmen that are winning the games for SPC.