Give me the Whistle

So the Lady Petrels are off to a great start (3-0) on this young season, but I'm going to limit the amount of praise I give them in this post because I would like to talk about referees today. If any referee assigners out there ever read this, which I seriously doubt, please stop sending your C team to referee our beloved Lady Petrels basketball team. This is not me ranting about bad calls because of a loss, no, I'm complaining even after the Petrels stomped Piedmont last night in Demorest. The final score was not truly telling of the beating, but I digress. This was the second game this season where the Lady Petrels have had to suffer through some poor officiating. In all fairness, the first such game came in Virginia a couple of weekends ago and the referees weren't in shape enough to keep up with the torrid pace that both teams were playing at, so both teams were the recipients of many unfavorable calls. If you're not there to see the play, then you guess on the call and you make some wrong calls and that's what happened. Last night, however, was just odd.

For starters, a three second violation was called at one point on the Lady Petrels as a player drove into the lane and kicked the ball back out to a perimeter shooter. The player was probably in the lane for three seconds, but who calls that. I thought the unwritten rule was that you don't call three seconds until it becomes so obvious that the opposing team and fans are counting for you. That play really wasn't a big deal in the game, but it added to the humor that was last night’s referee crew. The big issue for me last night was the insane amount of blocking fouls, off the ball fouls, and loose ball fouls that were whistled.

Had that referee crew been officiating a men's game last night, the game would have been decided by each team’s third-team as all starters and second-team players would have been sitting on the bench with five fouls apiece. The Lady Petrels are an aggressive basketball team, and when the referees take that away, you take away a lot of what has made them so successful the past couple of seasons. Notice I called them aggressive, not physical, there is a big difference between the two and last night's referees couldn't comprehend that. It was not as if the Lady Petrels were out there pushing around a bunch of 3rd grade kids on crutches, they were playing against a team that was just as capable as they are and our ladies were penalized because of there aggressiveness.

If referees were to actually call every foul as defined by the official rules of basketball then they would be blowing their whistle very 10 seconds in Today's style of basketball. The game has evolved, and yes, that means the women's game has evolved too. This is not 1950's basketball anymore. Our Lady Petrels would dominate Gene Hackman's Hoosiers (we've just got to cover Jimmy Chitwood on the perimeter). Just because one team does not play an aggressive style of basketball does not mean you penalize a team for playing aggressively and last night our ladies were penalized. In fact, they were penalized many times for just being out on the court, the whistle just kept blowing. As a referee, you have what they call discretion and just because something is a foul according to the official rules does not mean you have to call it; you get to ask yourself is this "foul" affecting the play in any way, if not can I maybe just give the player a verbal warning to let them know I'm watching? Basketball is an extremely tough game to referee, it's fast paced, lots of rules and all of the action takes place on a small playing surface (in comparison to baseball, football, soccer). That being said, I understand that referees are not going to make every call, but last night they almost did, and that doesn't go over too well in today's game. Not every "foul" is a foul. Ok, I’m done bitching now.

As tough as last night was with the foul situation The Lady Petrels got a great win over a Piedmont team that appeared in last year's National Tourney. Good win ladies and let's get two more great wins this weekend.

We'll Take 'em

If you haven't heard, Oglethorpe absolutely dominated their two opening weekend opponents this past Friday and Saturday at the Emory & Henry Tip-off Tournament. Neither of the games was ever really close and Coach Sattele was able to get a good look at many of his young players as Oglethorpe's defense put both games away early on. The Lady Petrels did exactly what I expected them to do...dominate their inferior opponents this past weekend. Just so you know, in case you weren't able to catch the action live, Oglethorpe was far from playing flawless basketball. I think that's one of the best things to come out of this weekend; there's plenty of room for improvement and the Petrels still dominated. I'm not trying to be overly critical of the ladies, but the fact is (and they should know this) they had their fair share of opening weekend miscues and errors. You can't expect them to play February type basketball in November...and they didn't, but if this weekend is their November basketball then I can't wait to see them in action come February. I thought their young players looked young at times, but they also were able to show me that there is some real talent in this freshmen class. In a few months, when the freshmen are sophomores (in terms of basketball experience), this team will be deep and I mean really deep. Yes, two blowout wins were a great way to start this season, but being able to play your subs against the opposing teams' starters, and extend leads during those minutes is what impressed and excited me the most about this past weekend. This team is good and I'm confident they will be great come February.

Lady Petrels Picked Second Behind DePauw

The SCAC has finally released its preseason predictions for the 2007-2008 basketball season, and the DePauw Tigers are the clear favorite in the conference. However, with one day to left to vote on the poll on this Blog, it appears that the lady Petrels are a clear favorite to win the conference. Yes, my poll may be slightly biased but it is still a poll of opinion and anyone in the World (who has access to the internet) can vote on our poll. So I know our poll is completely biased, but I think the way my poll is shaping up is very legit. DePauw has to be the preseason favorite in the conference, they're not only the defending conference champs but they're also the defending National Champs and as the SCAC press release points out, they're bringing back a solid core of players. There is no doubt that DePauw will be a good team this season. Just looking at their roster they have brought in about 30 new players (they seriously have 22 players on the roster12 are freshmen). There is a large crop in Greencastle to choose from they could probably field two competitive teams in the SCAC. However, there is no Liz Bondi on this year's roster. Someone for DePauw is going to have to step up and become that go-to player that Bondi was. The loss of Bondi is a lot more than just the 15 or 16 points a game she provided on offense. A great player, which Bondi was, makes your entire team better just by being on the floor. Opposing defenses have to pay a lot of attention to a player like Bondi, and this often leads to the offensive success of other players due to the lack of attention they receive from the defense. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure DePauw has plenty of players that can score, but are they going to have the player(s) this season that defenses have to key on? If not, DePauw may struggle...or they could be an extremely well balanced offensive team, we just don't know yet. But I do know that DePauw would much rather be with Bondi than Bondiless. The lady Petrels on the other hand had an extremely well balanced offense last season, and from watching them last Saturday, they're going to be even more balanced on the offensive end this season. I'll agree that DePauw is worthy of the top spot in the SCAC preseason rankings, but I'm going to have to disagree with number of first place votes they received (10, Trinity received the other one). If the sports information directors in our conference are almost unanimously picking DePauw to repeat as Conference Champions then they must know something that I don't (which is very possible). I will say this, this season won't be a cakewalk in the SCAC for the defending National Champs, nor will it be a cakewalk for any team in the conference. I expect a very competitive conference season, and I won't be surprised when the Lady Petrels win that first conference championship this season. You can find the complete SCAC Press release at http://www.scac-online.org/ The SCAC preseason rankings are as follows:

1. DePauw University
2. Oglethorpe University
3. Trinity University
4. Rhodes College
5. Austin College
6. Hendrix College
7. Southwestern University
8. Colorado College
T-9. Centre College
T-9. Sewanee-University of the South
11. Millsaps

D-III Voters reading our blog?

I am not 100% certain, but it does appear that a large percentage of voters for Women's DIII News have been reading our blog and have done their research on the 2007-2008 Lady Petrels Hoops team. The first two major preseason top 25 polls left the Petrels out, but after my criticism of the other polls, the Women’s DIII News poll gave our Ladies the #20 preseason ranking. I believe they were scared of being criticized like the other publications and knew that they had to do their research and make a true preseason top 25 poll. Now, you know how I feel about preseason rankings, but our Ladies are deserving of this and I am confident they will not let these voters down. #20 is only the beginning...#1 is the goal!

WOMEN'S DIII NEWS 2007-2008 PRESEASON TOP 25 POLL
# TEAM 2006-07 record
1. Capital 20-7
2. New York University 27-4
3. Washington University (Mo.) 25-6
4. Bowdoin College 29-2
5. Kean 27-4
6. DePauw 31-3
7. Calvin 28-3
8. Wisconsin-Eau Claire 19-9
9. University of Southern Maine 27-3
10. Illinois Wesleyan 22-6
11. Messiah 26-3
12. Hope College 24-4
13. Millikin 20-6
14. Luther College 24-5
15. Emmanuel College 29-2
16. Mary Washington 31-3
17. Wilmington 25-5
18. St. Benedict 22-6
19. Scranton 27-3
20. Oglethorpe 21-8
21. George Fox 19-7
22. Randolph-Macon 26-5
23. Puget Sound 24-7
24. Manchester 21-7
25. Carroll 22-5

Preseason Polls are in and OU's on the Outside

The 2007-2008 Preseason polls from D3hoops.com and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) agree that OU will not begin the season as one of the top 25 teams in the nation. However, OU did receive votes in both polls and is currently ranked 36th in the D3hoops.com poll and 34th in the WBCA poll. I must admit that I think the Lady Petrels are deserving of a preseason top 25 ranking, but does it really matter? Being in the preseason top 25 does not guarantee a 20 win season; in fact it doesn't even guarantee a single win. With the little media exposure that D-III athletics actually receives, there is no way to determine who the top teams are in the nation. Unlike D-I, freshmen and newcomers are absolute mysteries to opposing coaches. If any coach in the SCAC actually knew something of the OU freshmen class from 2005-2006, they would have never picked the Lady Petrels to finish last in the conference, they probably wouldn't have picked them second either but they surely wouldn't have been picked last. If you take a look at the final D3hoops.com poll from the 2006-2007 season and compare it to the 2007-2008 preseason poll, you will find that there are only four teams in the preseason poll that were NOT in the final poll last season. The latest top 25 poll seems to be more of a recap of last season, not actual expectations of the year to come. Basically, I think it's a shame that the Lady Petrels are not a preseason top 25 team, but come January, if they play up to their potential they will be amongst the ranked teams in the nation. Additionally, I'm sure that a ranking in the final poll in March will be more prized than a preseason top 25 nod.