March 22, 2014

NCAA Round 1: Cardinal cages the Coyotes

The South Dakota Coyotes made a good showing in their first-ever NCAA appearance. They fought hard to the final buzzer, but fell to the Cardinal 81-62.

The Coyotes have some fine shooters, in particular junior guard Nicole Seekamp, who racked up 22 of the Coyotes' 62 points.

But their defense was no match for the Cardinal's strength and skill. They (in particular senior forward Polly Harrington) did slow down Chiney a bit — she scored only 23 points and made just 58% of her shots — but the rest of the Cardinal stepped up and gave a great team performance.

Bonnie was the second-highest scorer for the Cardinal with 18 points from six of her ten 3-point attempts. This is the third time in her career that Bonnie has made six treys in a game.

Amber scored ten points on dribble-drives to the basket. Even better — she dished nine assists and turned the ball over just twice. Her assist/turnover ratio for the season is now 3.10 — #7 in the nation.

Lili made three of six 3-pointers, scored a total of eleven points, soared high above taller players to grab six rebounds and turned the ball over only once.

Mikaela played for only 13 minutes, during which she recorded six rebounds, four points, three assists and a steal. Late in the first half, as she was trying to snag a loose ball while falling out of bounds, she fell and hit her head hard on the floor. After a couple of minutes, she got up and made her way to the bench where Marcella Shorty poked through her hair looking for damage, but didn't find any nor did she administer any, "How many fingers am I holding up?" tests. Mikaela's ponytail may have saved her from serious injury. She sat out the rest of the game, but was walking around and appeared to be OK.

The Cardinal's second-round opponent will be the Florida State Seminoles, who upset the Iowa State Cyclones 55-44. The 7,000 or so Iowa State fans who overflowed the lower bowl of the Hilton Coliseum were even more upset as they watched their team give its possibly poorest performance of the season.

The Cyclones were thoroughly discombobulated by the Seminoles very effective two-three zone defense — they made just 18% of their shots in the first half. The Seminoles made four of four 3-pointers in the first five minutes, and that was about it. The Cyclones fell behind by as much as 15 points and never got any closer than six.

So much for Hilton Magic. The crowd, although large, was never a factor (granted — they didn't have much to cheer about today). Here's a game recap.

Here are reports of the Stanford/South Dakota game:

The box score and play-by-play,

The Stanford postgame press conference with Chiney, Bonnie and Tara,

The South Dakota postgame press conference with Nicole Seekamp, Polly Harrington, Tia Hemiller and coach Amy Williams,

A gallery of photos by Dave Cortesi,

A gallery of photos by Nati Harnik (Associated Press),

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