BG - Georgia Tech Game Thread

[Dayons_Den]

To everyone in St. John Arena- Show Your Spirit and Make them Fear It!

Ready for the tip.

[Falconboy]

With GT having so many bigs to throw at us , it is obvious that Danielle Havel has been an important part of our staying close so far. She's a fairly athletic 6'2 3/4 player that is helping us in the size matchups. What is killing us is the offensive rebounding. GT's big's arn't just big but wide as well making it hard to to keep them off off rebs. What does bode well for us is getting some fouls on GT. If we continue to rack up fouls on GT I like our chances a bit more.

[HoustonFalcon]

The girls are getting sloppy. Their pressure is good, but we are committing some needless mistakes. GT has done a great job of taking away our outside game, but we are also letting them set up their defense. We can beat their press if we catch it and start taking it up the floor when we have them beat. We are passing through it, but what it is doing is only giving us 15-18 seconds left on the shot clock. We end up rushing shots.

[Falconboy]

The girls are getting sloppy. Their pressure is good, but we are committing some needless mistakes. GT has done a great job of taking away our outside game, but we are also letting them set up their defense. We can beat their press if we catch it and start taking it up the floor when we have them beat. We are passing through it, but what it is doing is only giving us 15-18 seconds left on the shot clock. We end up rushing shots.

Yeah, we're just too slow to decide what we are doing in the press. The team is forgetting that a moving target is harder to defend than a stationary one. Dribble the ball up the court , don't let them get set up in the press.

[BrightStar]

It was a great year, and I will sure miss those seniors who provided so many thrills the past three years. Thanks for the memories, ladies!

[Falcon Fanatic]

It was a great year, and I will sure miss those seniors who provided so many thrills the past three years. Thanks for the memories, ladies!

AGREE!! Loved it when the team waved to the Falcon fans just before they walked off the floor! Brought tears to my eyes!

[footballguy51]

I don't understand it. We had quite a few of their key players in foul trouble. We should have been driving the ball at those players constantly until they fouled out. With their bigs out, we could have won.

[trooperden]

nice season for the girls,
but when you get into these tournaments, the quality of the opponent is so superior to that of what they were used to playing, the OSU would have killed them even worse IMO

[HoustonFalcon]

GT did a great job of hedging on the screens, making it hard for our girls to turn the corner and attack the basket consistently. We got a lot of our points on basket cuts and making the extra pass for the layup inside. Lauren was the only one that consistently could get to the basket on her own, and GT did a great job on her the second half. I was more disappointed that we let them keep the press on by passing and holding the ball, waiting for the next pass instead of advancing the ball up the floor with the dribble. Traps were still going to come, but at least we would have had the defense moving more. As a coach, that was the most frustrating thing for me to watch. We couldn't get a lot of open shots off, because we didn't have nearly enough time to run the offense. GT did a great job on defense today, and were clearly the better team. Our kids played hard, but I really think we were over matched today.

But, nothing can take away the fact that this senior class is a special class, and is the reason we have been able to maintain the excellence started by the players on that Sweet 16 team. We are going to be good as long as Curt is the head coach of our beloved Falcons, but next year I think will be a dog fight. I really believe that the MAC is going to be one of the best mid major conferences very soon if all of the quality coaches stay in the conference. Curt raised the bar as far as coaches in the MAC, and other teams are starting to come on. I think the MAC will be a two bid league soon, but that is only going to come if we can get better quality teams to play the good teams in the conference without ridiculous demands, and quit being scared to play away from home. Congratulations to Curt, the rest of the staff, all of the players, and everyone else associated with the program. Another NCAA tournament appearance is a great way to leave the old arena, and let's hope for the start of even better things with the opening of the new one!

[gmartin]

Excellent post HoustonFalcon. Being a former coach myself I know how hard it is to break a press when you see it once or twice a year. I would say that this GT team is the most pressuring team Coach Miller has ever coached against and he will use this as a learning experience himself. I truly believe Coach Miller will work this offseason on teaching this team how to be more efficient against the press. UT and EMU press but not to this extent. I also think Coach Miller may try and recruit a few more bigs in the upcoming year. Slender athletic shooters are great but when it comes to tournament time and facing big time programs you need to have more bigger players to compete. Remember our sweet 16 team? Ali Mann and Liz Honneger were very muscular/bulky and could push their way around. Our last class was more finesse. Regardless, another wonderful season by our girls and the coaching staff. And fwiw, OSU will have its hands full with GT.

[falconfan1]

Very good posts there. In my opinion, after watching all of our NCAA games, I would rate Georgia Tech as far and away the most athletic and tough minded team we have played. I think back to losses to KState and UCLA. Very good teams, but I think Georgia Tech was certainly better. ASU in the Sixteen? Very very good- probably best. But I put Tech head and shoulders above Ok State, Vanderbilt, Florida and even somewhat above MSU.

I have no idea how the Yellow Jackets will fare with OSU. Edge to Buckeyes at home for sure. Lavender and company playing very well.

This match up for us/this year's team was tough. Yes, if we attack a bit, take care of the ball a little better in general, we could defintely have beaten this team- despite their talent and depth. Their coach really had them ready to go- we were too- and used the NCAA decision for them to play versus two "home teams" as a real reason to show what they are made of. I give them credit.

And I give us a lot of credit. We played very hard right down to the end. This senior class was not only talented but also made us very proud on and off the court. Wonderful careers and great future alums (except for Maggie H who all ready is an alum and will be again!).

And how about Steffen just to name one underclass player? Tremendous game in a big time atmosphere. She will say she could have done better of course, but this bodes well in a very very wide open MAC East in 2012.

Very interesting that several of our incoming signees came from long distance to watch this game. I like that kind of dedication and desire.

Enjoy the moment! Thanks and congrats to our seven time champion Falcons. Seven. Unreal.

Go Falcons!

[bgsufalcon24]

This game was a blast, especially early on. I remember coming into the arena 5 minutes before the tip and seeing a whole bunch of ORANGE all over the arena, it was amazing. My friend who was once in the pep band told me that she thought it was Anderson Arena on roids, and that's pretty much what it was. After the first few minutes there was little doubt that we were athletically overmatched, but the girls just played so hard and they fed off the crowd throughout the first half. I was surprised at how much GT worked to take away the 3-pt shot and that we were taking most of our shots in the paint.

They made their run early in the 2nd half, but we started to cut into the lead with about 10 minutes left, and if memory serves, we were down maybe 8 with about 8 minutes remaining. Then came a stretch of about 2 minutes where it seemed like every single call against GT was missed and we had several bogus fouls called on us. The whole crowd was on their feet screaming and booing, even some of those wearing red, which surprised me. We probably wouldn't have won without that 2 minute stretch of cow manure, but it sure would've been much closer in the end.

I didn't realize going into this game just how much difficulty we would have breaking the press, that along with the inability to rebound against their bigs was what cost us the game. That all being said, it was a great atmosphere and the girls fought extremely hard. Prochaska in particular played a great game in her final game in the brown & orange.

Congratulations to all the seniors, Uhl, Hennegan, Pontius, Prochaska, and the others on another fine season. It would've been really nice to see BG mount another run like they had in 2007, but it just wasn't in the cards.

[Falconfreak90]

Hell of a year and THANKS to all the Seniors for their awesome contributions to the program. Gotta say as much as I despise O$U, St John Arena is a beautiful place...throwback city and just a great place to watch a game.

We played hard but the better team won....Ga Tech has an excellent chance of beating O$U, IMO>

TOGETHER WE ATTACK!!!!!