I just looked at our box score of the game I'm still in bewonderment at how we out did them in TO's , we stole the ball from them 12 times, and we only turned the ball over 13 times. 13 TO's against a much faster and quicker team is pretty outstanding as far as I can see. We did very well in that catagory. But unfortuanatly we did nothing to make those stats mean much when we either missed easy bunny layups or when we got our layups blocked. There were a few times that Kate looked to be hammered with no call but usually her laups were just too short and were blocked rather easily by ucla.Peregrinner wrote:I have to say that even though we lost I still had a great time and really enjoyed the whole experience. Despite the uncomfortable prospect of trying to get a 6'4" body comfortable in a bus seat while trying to sleep, I enjoyed the ride (both there and back).
I honestly don't see how people can be thinking so negatively about this game though. UCLA was a 5 seed, arguably deserved slightly more than that, had a huge size advantage, and were on a hot-streak coming in... so how can people be so down and be knocking our conference play because we lost to them by 13? Our women had stretches where we absolutely dominated them, scoring often and stealing often (especially a big push in the second half), there just weren't enough of them.
I think the fact that we had three players in double-digit scoring and had 12 steals against a 5-seed team is awesome, and only shows that this team is excellent and can only get better.
All that aside, though, I have to say that I am not a fan of anything about UCLA after this experience. Their band's chanting of player names annoyed me (because it stretched on forever), their players were full of attitude, and they played very dirty.. how did Blue get away with all the complaining and bitching she did towards the officials? I saw her running her mouth after every call and pretty much throwing a hissy-fit at one of the officials, but it seemed nothing was said to her by any official, yet we get a technical early in the game...
I'm rooting for Purdue, both because their fans and staff were very kind to me (and our team) and because UCLA has jumped to a high position on my list of unliked teams.
Congratulations to the women on the stellar season, and here's to a bigger and better one next year!
We apparently got fouled more than we got called for but we again didn't help our selves there either with a ton of missed FT's. Those were especially frustrating cuz I know we're better than that at the line. UCLA's 6 blocks were the major difference in negating the 21 TO's they had. We could've had 40 steals in the game and it wouldn't have meant jack if we end up gettig all of our fast break shots/layups blocked or just missed. Thats one area where UCLA's superior athletism got us , they easily got back and stuffed our layin attempts. The fact that we still were aggressive even after the many blocks gave us plenty of oppertunities at the line but we just hardly could convert any of them. 10-15 from the line doesn't look really all that bad but surely wasn't enough.
We really made out big time with the location of this game but not so with the opponent. I would rather have taken on a Purdue than UCLA in the 1st Rnd. If we can accomplish whats needed for next year , hopefully we can get a 10 seed or better and not play such a loaded team next time.
