A Quick Look At Friday's NCAA 1st Round Games For MIAC Teams

Well, hard to believe we're almost here but today is a big day for MIAC Women's Basketball as not one, not two but THREE teams try to work their way through a murderous NCAA Tournament.  This is where you're playing the best of the best and you've got to bring your absolute best with each possession if you hope to advance.  That said, let's take a quick look at each of the three games involving MIAC teams.


1.  GAC vs Rose-Hulman (at UW-Whitewater)

This is the first contest of the evening at Williams Center on the campus of UW-Whitewater and it's certainly one of the more intriguing matchups of all the first round games.  Considering it is the first-ever meeting between these two teams I think makes it that much more intriguing.  The Engineers come into the NCAA Tournament with a solid 24-3 overall record and they won a tough one against Transylvania in the HCAC Championship Game.  They average 66.4 ppg and are a good rebounding team as well averaging 40.3 rebounds per game.  Their free throw shooting, IMHO, leaves something to be desired just by looking at their stats as they are shooting 69.9% from the charity stripe.  They're not what you would call a great three-point shooting team either as they average 37% from behind the arc.  Rose-Hulman's leading scorers are junior forward Ally Bromenschenkel (12.9 ppg) and Chiarra Franklin (10.4 ppg).  That would seem to indicate to me that they like to pound the ball down low to their bigs so they can do the dirty work which would also seem to suggest that GAC senior forward Miranda Rice absolutely has to have a big game tonight to counter this.  This Rose-Hulman team has some size as well as the aforementioned Bromenschenkel is 5'11" and the Engineers have five other players 5'11" or taller so I think it's safe to say that the Gusties have their work cut out for them down low.  This is an Engineers' team that is dominated by juniors so we'll see how their experience (or lack of it) works for them or against them in an NCAA Tournament setting.  Again, this is a huge opportunity for GAC which has been defined for so long as a program that can't seem to win the Big One.  As we saw last year, it's one thing to get to the NCAA Tournament but it's another thing to win and advance and the Gusties have yet to prove that they can do that.  Let's hope that tonight is the night that they change all that.


2.  CSB vs George Fox (at Wartburg)

Of all the first-round matchups in the NCAA Tournament, this one may be the juiciest of all as the Blazers take on NWC champ and perennial powerhouse George Fox in the first game down in Waverly, Iowa tonight.  Like Rose-Hulman, they come into tonight's contest with a 24-3 record but two of those losses came to MIAC teams during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend - at Bethel and at UST the following day.  The only other blemish on the Bruins record was a road loss at conference arch-rival and NCAA-participant Whitman in early January.  This is not a senior-laden team either with only two seniors on the roster.  They are, however, despite their relative youth, incredibly experienced and they have been in these big-game/NCAA Tournaments before so it's not like they're coming fresh out of the woods.  George Fox is led by senior post Kaitlin Jamieson with her 11.9 ppg and both sophomore guard Emily Spencer and junior forward Tavin Headings aren't far behind with their 9.1 ppg, respectively, so this is a pretty well-balanced team scoring-wise anyway.  And this is a team that knows how to rebound as well as they normally snare 39.5 rebounds a game.  The Bruins aren't what you would necessarily call a great three-point shooting team as they average 34% from behind the arc but when you have someone like Jamieson down low, you probably don't have to be a great three-point shooting team.  Again, this is a team that plays very smart and has experience and CSB will have their work cut out for them on this night.  It would be awesome to watch the battle down low between Jamieson and CSB senior post Niki Fokken but as good as that will be, I think the bigger key for CSB tonight will have to be solid play from their young backcourt of freshman Megan Thompson and backcourt mate sophomore Sidney Schiffler.  I think Thompson has to be on fire from behind the arc tonight to lessen the burden on Fokken and seniors Kate Banovetz and Chelsey Guetter and Schiffler has to protect the rock tonight at all costs.  A great match-up to be sure and you can't completely discount CSB's chances in this one.


3.  UST vs Chapman (at UST)

The Panthers had to survive double-OT to get past SCIAC arch-rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps to win that conference's championship game to get the automatic bid.  Chapman makes the trip from the Motherland to the Twin Cities with a solid 23-4 record but, other than the win over the Athenas in the SCIAC Championship Game, they don't have a whole lot to show for it.  On paper anyway, this would appear to be a relatively easy win for the Tommies but this is the NCAA Tournament and you simply can't take anyone for granted.  This is a team that can score as they average 72.9 ppg though I wonder about their rebounding (38.2 rebounds per game average).  Chapman has also been a bit permissive when it comes to turnovers as they average 16.8 boo-boos per game which could be an immediate death sentence when going up against a team like UST.  To be sure, the Panthers do have some prolific scorers.  Sophomore post Lucy Criswell averages 15.2 ppg and senior guard Jaime Hum-Nishikado (13.2 ppg) and junior guard Jaryn Fajardo (11.3 ppg) aren't far behind and Fajardo had an outstanding performance in that SCIAC Championship Game against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps as she led the way with 25 points to save the Panthers hind-end in that one.  This is not a team with a lot of experience (two seniors) and they're dominated by sophomores and juniors so we'll see how they handle this NCAA experience against a team that's been there millions of times like UST. 


So there you have it.  The action gets going here late this afternoon at the respective venues and here's wishing the best of luck to all MIAC teams.  Let the NCAA Tournament begin!