Games I wish I'd seen: 23 November 2013

Today, I don't think I'm going to be seeing any games - my little on-line baseball league has its seasonal draft, which will keep me away from the TV from extended periods of time. 

But yesterday, I saw a great game on TV - that was Stanford at Texas (which you can read about at Swish Appeal), where the Longhorns really gave Stanford a run for its money.  Even though Stanford senior forward Chiney Ogwumike had a flashy 18 point, six rebound game the player of the game was really junior guard Amber Orrange with 13 points and eight rebounds.

One of the tough parts of watching women's basketball is that there's a lot of distance between the excellent teams and the good teams, and people get tired of watching 50+ point blowouts by UConn.  The most interesting thing about this game is that there was a game, that Texas didn't turn tail and run once they saw "Stanford" on the enemy jersey.  Texas didn't win because they don't have the pieces - intellectual or physical - that Stanford has, but it looks like they're doing the right things in Austin and they might close the gap in a few years.  I'm going to be keeping my eye on Texas women's basketball.

Here are the other games I'd wish I'd seen.

Georgetown beat visiting Princeton 66-64 in DC.  Jim Lewis is currently the interim coach at Georgetown, and he's got a lot on his plate.  He inherited a team in turmoil.  Freshman forward Shayla Cooper is transferring.  With all that's happened, I'm very interested in seeing how he handles it.

Looking at the box score, it looks like senior forward Andrea White basically willed a Hoyas win - 23 points on 10-for-15 shooting with seven rebounds.  Georgetown freshman center Natalie Butler hit the buzzer beater with three seconds left that handed the Tigers the loss.

Virginia Tech beat Hofstra 77-72 in overtime on the road. Wow.  The Hokies are 5-0!  Not only that, but Hofstra's probably the best team they've played all year.  Yeah, I don't expect this to last when Virginia Tech starts playing in the ACC, but the Hokies haven't had much to cheer about in WBB the last few years.  It was senior guard Monet Tellier who managed to send the game into overtime for Virginia Tech and the Hokies took control when it counted.  Tellier finished with 20 points and eight rebounds, behind senior forward Uju Ugoka's 26 points and eight rebounds.

Some highlights from the game:

Pacific beats Arizona at home, 75-66. The Wildcats fall to 1-4 and I don't see how head coach Niya Butts can hang on to her job with another losing season.  The Wildcats had 26 turnovers in the game.  With about 12 minutes left in the game it was tied up but the Tigers went on a 14-0 run that spelled lights out for Arizona.  Junior forward Kendall Kenyon led Pacific with 20 points and 10 rebounds.