Our Honor Defend

Scoff if you must for me covering women’s basketball, but there’s probably a few things you know about this blog if you’ve followed it for any length of time¹. First, this is Title IX compliant blog and I find myself (earnestly) interested in the women’s hoops team though I don’t always have the time to follow the team faithfully.  Second, I hate Michigan.  I hate Michigan with every aching muscle in this tired body of mine.  I hate Michigan and will exhaust all possible courses of action until that great menace of our time is eventually conquered.

Evidently, our ladies hoops team felt the same way.  Earlier this day in front of a not-so-packed Schottenstein Center crowd of ~4,000 fans², the lady Buckeyes manhandled smited-in-a-gender-neutral-tone Michigan 70-50. The tone for the beatdown was set early into the matchup.  Michigan scored the game’s first 4 points in the game’s first two minutes.  The Buckeyes countered by scoring the next 22 over the next 8 minutes.  Up 22-4, the Buckeyes eventually settled with a 44-22 lead at intermission. With the enemy demoralized at halftime, the ~20pt lead held for a 70-50 victory.  The 22-0 run in question came from some opportunistic defense by the Buckeyes.  During that period, the Buckeyes tallied six steals from Shavelle Little (x2), Star Allen, Samantha Prahalis, Brittany Johnson, and Sarah Schulze.  The team finished with 9 steals for the game.

Jantel Lavender ain’t the lady you mess with, a point made particularly strongly with her performance this game.  Her 28 points (13/19fg) and 8 rebounds were game highs for all players involved in this contest.  11 of those points came in the second half with the Buckeyes principally in cruise control, but they were necessary as she and Ashlee Trebilcock were the only consistent sources of offense for the Buckeyes after intermission.  Trebilcock chipped in 7 second half points, finishing with 16 points for the game.  Trebilcock and Lavender combined for all but 8 of the Buckeyes’ 26 second half points.  Of those 8, 4 points came in the final minutes from reserves with garbage time in full gear.  Further, of those 8, only two came from a field goal (a Prahalis jumper with about 6 minutes left to play).

With the victory in the conference opener, the #17 lady Buckeyes improve to 10-2 overall.  In spite of the great record entering conference play, the tale of the lady Buckeyes seems to mirror the trajectory of the football team: good, but not great.  Great, but not elite.  Whatever terms you want to use, the ladies are consistently good enough to thrive in the Big Ten and enter the NCAA tournament every year.  Yet, it’s just not Tennessee, Stanford or Duke.  The Buckeyes have played 4 marquee games this young season by my measure, though I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on women’s basketball.  Of those 4, the Buckeyes have won 2.  The Buckeyes hosted now 9-2 Syracuse in their third game of the season and won 78-71.  Earlier this month, the Buckeyes traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska and handed the ‘Huskers their third loss of the season, though it was certainly no easy task to do so (see: above point made about Jantel Lavender not being the lady you should mess with).  Both were tournament teams last year.

The losses, however, stick out.  4 days after the Syracuse game, the Buckeyes traveled to Auburn³ and lost to the #10 Tigers in overtime 87-80.  In their biggest matchup of the season, the Buckeyes were smothered all game by #2 North Carolina in front of a home crowd in Columbus.  This doesn’t bode entirely well for what I want to see most from this team: a tournament run in March.  Jim Foster has had great success in Columbus since coming over from Vanderbilt.  Sadly, in spite of some great teams — one that even reached the 30 win plateau — the furthest he’s gone in the tournament with the Buckeyes is the Sweet 16 (with said 30 win team).  Worse yet, the past two seasons have ended in the first round.

Perhaps a strong tournament push is feasible for this year’s Buckeyes, though this team lacks the completeness of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 teams.  After all, this year’s team has who I think is far and away the best conference player (Jantel Lavender, conference leader in points and rebounds).  Samantha Prahalis, the freshman all-everything from New York and probably the most important 2008 recruit in Buckeye athletics not named Terrelle Pryor, could be the difference here.  Presently, she’s struggling with her 3pt shot (2-7 against Michigan, ~35% on the season) and with turning the ball over (6 TOs against Michigan, ~4 a game on the season).  Should the college game slow down for her, this team could be pretty lethal at the end of the season.  With Lavender in the interior, Trebilcock on the outside (~50% from 3) and Prahalis setting it all up, the Buckeyes should have the necessary prerequisites for success.

This might be just my little spiel, but I encourage anyone in and around Columbus who has some spare time and money to burn to attend these games.  If costs prohibit you from following the Buckeyes out to Glendale this winter, it shouldn’t prohibit you from showing up to the Schott and supporting our lady hoopsters.  Of course, I say that right as the Buckeyes take the next 10 days off for the holidays and play their next game on New Year’s Eve against Northwestern (in Evanston).  The next home game is on January 4th as the Buckeyes host 8-4 traditional conference contenders Michigan State.  Tickets never cost more than $11 for these things, and that’s for the lower bowl at the Schott.  Odds are, you can buy a $5 ticket and just “upgrade” during the game.

Show up, make some noise, and cheer on our lady ballers.

1. Most importantly, I need to do something to justify having this shitty blog in the Big Ten Bloggers RSS feed [↩]
2. who were making as much noise and fanfare as they do for the men’s team, no doubt… [↩]
3. Auburn is an IMPOSSIBLE place to travel to unless you can drive there within a couple hours.  Why the Buckeyes agreed to trek down to Auburn is beyond me. [↩]