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@Purdue, Sat 1:30 ESPN2


MDZip

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Purdue will be without one of their best players saturday. Didn't realize this injury until I heard it today. Senior KK Houser tore her ACL on February 24th. Hate to see this, especially to a redshirt senior. Was hoping to get Purdue at full strength. Playing at their place will still be tough, and they still have some good players. Just a better chance of an upset I guess.

Here is Purdue's stats:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/pur/sports/w-baskbl/auto_pdf/2013-14/stats/season_stats.pdf

Houser actually tore her ACL on Feb 2 against Michigan State and Purdue went on to win their next 6 in a row before losing to Iowa in the 2nd round of the conference tournament. Too bad for the kid, but the team seems to have adjusted. Considering they are getting to play a home game as a #4 seed, I'll take whatever breaks we can get.

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There's still room on the bus to West Lafayette Saturday if you're still looking to find a way to go. Bus is $32 and the ticket at the game will be $18. Bus will leave 5:30am. You can pay at the bus. Just call the ticket office today or tomorrow to see if there's still room or not. Last time I heard, there were still a good amount of seats left.

I really wish UA had made the effort to make this an overnight trip. A one day 12 hour bus trip is a bit much.

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Agreed. Here's some more info on tomorrow's game.

Swish Appeal had a blog post from Luburgh and Tecca. Here they are:

Tecca: http://www.swishappeal.com/2014/3/21/5528122/ncaa-womens-tournament-akron-rachel-tecca-blog

Luburgh: http://www.swishappeal.com/2014/3/17/5517122/mac-womens-basketball-tournament-2014-championship-akron-blog


Purdue's preview of Akron:

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Zips down 12 at the half. 46-34. There were some bad calls in the last 1:15 against Akron. However, for the most part the refs are letting the girls play. Lady Zips are adjusting well to Purdue's offense...however they are not cashing in on the turnovers. Zips need to come-out of the half guns blazing.

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After letting Purdue get out to a 20-5 start, the Zips started fighting back and outscored them 29-26 the rest of the first half. Likely a case of nerves and getting caught up in all the pre-game stuff from the past few days. They'll look better in the second half.

It was actually 20-2 at the start and now the second half has started with Purdue 4-0.

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I know our women's program learned one thing today:

You're gonna need some beef to compete with programs outside of the MAC. They had a number of people they could put on the floor, even guards, who were big and tough. We had absolutely no answer. I love Rachel and what she has accomplished, but someone like her can't bang with those girls for 40 minutes. And even if she could, we still would have needed a few more people at least as capable. Even with our ability to run, which equalized things at certain stretches, we were no competition for that team. You could tell that the game was over after just the first few trips up and down the floor for each team.

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The game was decided in the first few minutes. Once they got down 20-2, it was going to be hard to come back against a team on their floor.

I don't think it was too much of a problem with our size. We actually had some in Cari Guyton. I was expecting Jodi to use her a bit against Purdue. I was surprised she didn't use her. Even just for a few minutes to bruise up those players and then bring Tecca in and have her go to work from the elbows. It was just an ugly first few minutes, and an ugly second half. Tecca gets hurt for a bit, Luburgh was something like 3-25 from the field, and the bench didn't score like they needed to do in this game. Plus being outrebounded the way they did isn't going to win you any NCAAW games. Hardly any MAC games.

It's a hard end to the season to swallow for the seniors, but any success from this point on, this class will be remembered for being THE class to turn it around. It all started with Kara Murphy, but this class finished the rebuild.

I thought the officials did well for the most part, but more frustrated on NCAA for the "road" game. When we got down 20-2, and the fact that over 90% of fans there were probably Purdue fans, of course every 50-50 call (or non-call) or decision would favor Purdue.


I expect a little drop off next season, but not much of one. Next year's incoming freshman class is the best class I've ever seen come to Akron for women's basketball. Would not surprise me if a couple freshmen are in the rotation by the beginning of the season, and one is starting by MAC season opener. I'll start a thread in mid-to late summer about the 2014-2015 season and what the roster looks like, but for now, I'm reflecting on how great and historic this season was for the Lady Zips.

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I just wanted to tell our wonderful girls basketball players not to feel bad that OUR HOMETOWN newspaper put a big picture on the front of the sport page on Sunday, and claimed that the player in the picture was "Sina King" (yes, the girl who has not played all season due to injury).

Don't fret. They did the same thing to the guys just a couple of weeks ago, when they called Ken+ State's #2 "Kwan Cheatham".

Would someone please tell the folks down at the newspaper on Exchange St., just a few blocks from our campus, that maybe they should pay more attention to what is going on with Akron Athletics than just looking at a numerical roster?

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Would someone please tell the folks down at the newspaper on Exchange St., just a few blocks from our campus, that maybe they should pay more attention to what is going on with Akron Athletics than just looking at a numerical roster?

They don't have enough staff for that. Not since they were bought by some Canadian company a few years ago.

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