Women’s College Basketball Miners, Blazers, Falcons, and Aztecs February 2-3, 2018

2-2-18

UTEP Miners vs UAB Blazers Women’s Basketball

If you’re questioning why I’m covering any college women’s basketball team not named NM State, I’m right there with you.  My nearest excuse is: Well, it was on.    If I was watching the game, instead of just listening to the radio call, I could at least say that I couldn’t resist seeing Katharine Zec.  Though I was at work, I got to listen to much of the game.

The crowd was reported at 700 for this game versus the UAB Blazers, but they were pretty active and into it.  The Miner Men’s team was there cheering them on.  Unfortunately, the girls came out cold and flat to start to the tune of 9-0 UAB.  But UTEP came back and it was 18-12 UAB after ten minutes.  In the second, the Miners went down by as much as 10, but clawed their way back into it.  Zec hit a three before the buzzer to give UTEP a 34-32 lead going into the half.

Steve Kaplowitz and Tracy Miller on the radio call spent some time in the third quarter talking about the food that’s served at Coach Kevin Baker’s weekly show.  I’m kicking myself that I can’t remember the restaurant.  They also noticed he was calling out plays named after states: “Arkansas!  Tennessee!  Oklahoma!”  UTEP led for most of the entire third quarter, but the Blazers took a slim 54-52 lead at the end. 

For the fourth, the Blazers went on a 5-0 run for a seven-point lead.  That became an 11-point lead after just three minutes.  That became a 22-point lead after seven minutes.  Almost needless to say, the Miners were not defending or shooting well.  By the end, Kappy and Tracy were calling out the team for quitting during the quarter.  The final was 84-64 UAB.  Here’s a couple of stats.  Rachel Childress on the Blazers hit five three’s in the fourth quarter.  UTEP was 8 of 19 on free throws.  Their main inside player, Tamara Seda, was particularly bad.  Coach Baker seemed flummoxed in the postgame.  I’m a bit shocked as well.  I’ve seldom seen games that close turn out so badly. 

KROD is unfortunately dumping the girls’ Sunday game on the Internet so that they can carry the Superbowl pre-game over the air.  It may be my disdain for the NFL talking, but who cares about the pre-game?  The basketball would still be ending over an hour before the football started.  UTEP Coach Baker may have initially thought they’d been scheduled to play at the same time as the football and said earlier that they’d have an ipad on the sidelines with game on.

(What has happened to me that I’m advocating for Women’s sports over the Superbowl?  The girls on the team probably wouldn’t even be arguing for themselves over the NFL.)

2-3-18

Air Force Falcons vs SDSU Aztecs Women’s Basketball

In spite of a myriad of Men’s college basketball games on, I decided to watch this Women’s game.  Perhaps I was missing the Aggie girls this afternoon.  They weren’t here, or on TV, or on the radio.  I was just glad to see Stadium putting on some live sports, instead of rerunning that high school tournament again. 

For this Mountain West matchup in Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy Falcons were wearing blue, with the SDSU Aztecs in white, reverse of the usual home colors.  One of the Falcons female assistant coaches was in a matching blue jacket and another was in a matching blue dress (and looked pregnant).  The starting lineups were a bit non-traditional.  All of the Falcons were guards.  Only one of the Aztecs was a forward and the other four were guards.  I wonder if this may be the future of basketball.     

They were playing in an arena, not a gym, which was probably about the same size as the Pan-Am Center.  I was also a bit surprised by the light crowd.  It looked like a nice place to watch a game.  I would have thought the other cadets would be there supporting their team.  There wasn’t a band there, which surprised me, since I know they have a band.  There were cheerleaders, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but for some reason it struck me as incongruous to be a military cadet and a cheerleader.  (This is making me sound bad, isn’t it?  Sorry.) 

The two guys doing the commentary were very knowledgeable and enthusiastic.  They were definitely questioning the officiating at times, as they were seeing obvious fouls that the refs weren’t.  Unfortunately, my unfamiliarity with teams and that I was just sitting back and enjoying the game meant that I was being pretty lax in taking notes.  For the first half, all I have is that the game was pretty physical and the quarter scores: first 17-10 Air Force, second 28 all.  It was a tight game.

 In the third, Air Force had one possession where they got three rebounds and a steal, but still came away with no points.  They did get a deep two, a steal, and a layup to take the lead.  That got the crowd into it.  However, the Aztecs were leading 49-47 going into the fourth.  SDSU was using a lot of players in the game, trying to combat the altitude fatigue.      

The fourth quarter got wild and rough.  Players were hitting the deck left and right.  Five minutes in, the Falcons had retaken the lead, 57-49.  During a timeout, one of the announcers was startled when he realized that the Aztecs hadn’t scored for the entire time.  Coming back from commercial, they showed the Falcon mascot along with a fan holding a white board.  He had, “Baylee fix your shorts,” written on it.  This was referencing one of the Aztec girls who was wearing her shorts hiked up.  The announcers were a bit baffled by this fashion choice as well.  I’d noticed her too.  She was a rather attractive blonde that was chewing gum the whole game.

The Aztecs were down by eight with about two minutes left.  For some reason, they didn’t try fouling to stop the clock.  They were playing almost like it wasn’t the fourth quarter.  Ultimately, they just let the Falcons run it down to zero.  Then again, the Aztecs only scored two points in the quarter and those were free throws.  Maybe they were conceding defeat.  Our final: Air Force 61, SDSU 51. 

The coverage ended almost right after the final buzzer.  No interviews or postgame.  It was still 15 minutes until the top of the hour.  The game had finished well ahead of schedule.  Someone did mention that they were playing a hockey game after this.  That couldn’t be right.  Don’t you need an overnight to put the ice down?  Regardless, this was a pretty entertaining game.  Certainly you got to see a little of everything.  At times, I thought either team would have easily taken the Aggies, but just as many times, I was pretty sure the Aggies could have taken them.  Given the physical nature of the game, certainly they would have taken a beating either way.