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Message: [QUOTE="Carnac, post: 2932340, member: 5798"] I like:[B] Mississippi State[/B] over Texas and [B]Baylor[/B] over South Carolina for the same reason, a 6-7 post player that neither opponent has an answer for. [B]Mississippi State (6-0) - [/B][URL='https://hailstate.com/cumestats.aspx?path=wbball&year=2018'][Stats][/URL] Miss St - has played no ranked teams to date. Only 1 major program (Virginia on the road) won 72-44. The rest of their 5 wins were at home against mid-majors. Team scoring average: 97.5 / Opponents: 44.5 McCowan averages: 18.8/11.2 with 24 blocked shots. Four other MS players are averaging double figures in scoring. [B]Texas (6-0)[/B] - Five of six of the Longhorn's 6 games have been against unranked mid-majors. They beat Quinnipiac at home by 1 point 56-55. Texas' starting post is 6-4 [B]Jatarie White[/B] (a transfer from South Carolina June 2016). Texas also features 6-5 freshman Charli Collier. I don't look for Collier to be much help against McCowan. Collier fouled out in 16 minutes against Duquesne on Nov 8. [URL='http://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401090684'][Box score][/URL]. Duquesne's tallest player is 6-3. I like Mississippi State BIG in this one. [B]Baylor (6-0) - [/B] Three games at home. Five against unranked mid-majors. They beat #23 Arizona State 65-59. Baylor's[URL='https://baylorbears.com/cumestats.aspx?path=wbball'] team avg scoring[/URL] in 6 games is 85.7, their opponents is 52.8. Brown is avg 14.6/6.6. NaLyssa Smith is avg 13.3/7.7. Baylor has 4 players averaging double figures. [B]South Carolina[/B] [B](3-3) -[/B] Has has played 6 games so far, and lost 3 of them. 85-61 to #9 Maryland, 70-68 to #9 Oregon St, and 90-85 to an unranked Drake. [URL='http://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/team/roster/_/id/2181']Drake's tallest player is 6-2.[/URL] If They couldn't beat a "height challenged" Drake team, how are they going to handle/stop 6-7 Kalani Brown? South Carolina's tallest player is 6-3, Sr Alexis Jennings. She gives away 4 inches and probably 40+ lbs to Brown. Bad mismatch there. :eek: Baylor improves to 7-0. [B]Notre Dame (6-0) - [URL='https://und.com/documents/2018/11/24/Combined_Stats.pdf'][Stats][/URL] [/B] With the top four scorers returning — seniors [B]Arike Ogunbowale[/B] (20.8 points per game) and [B]Jessica Shepard[/B] (15.6), junior [B]Jackie Young[/B] (14.5) and senior [B]Marina Mabrey[/B] (14.4) — plus the addition of the two-time All-American [B]Brianna Turner[/B] with sophomore forward [B]Mikayla Vaughn[/B], who had a strong start as a freshman before getting sidelined with an ACL tear (8.0 points and 4.3 rebounds in the six games she played), there is no team in the country that bests the Fighting Irish frontcourt and backcourt. Freshman [B]Jordan Nixon[/B] is the most natural point guard on the team and will see extensive action, while classmate [B]Katlyn Gilbert[/B] — both McDonald’s All-Americans — also has played point but will be an off guard her first season, per McGraw. ND has played 2 ranked teams, #15 DePaul (won 101-77), and #9 Oregon St (won 91-81) after being down by 9 at the half 50-41. Ogunbowale leads the team in scoring averaging 25.2 / 5/6. She likes to drive the lane. She gets to the line a lot. She's 32-39 (82.1%) from the stripe. When Ogunbowale drives, she will either score, or get fouled. Rarely does she pass it out to open shooters once she begins her drive. ND [B]is not[/B] a prolific 3 point shooting team. They are 11-46 (23%) Ogunbowale is their main 3 point shooter. She still keeps opponents in the game by taking a lot of 3's that miss. She's shooting 8/29 behind the arc (27.6%). [B]UConn (5-0)[/B] [URL='https://uconnhuskies.com/cumestats.aspx?path=wbball&year=2018'][B][Stats][/B][/URL] UConn will play its first ranked opponent on Wednesday at 7:00 pm when they host #16 DePaul at the XL Center. You should already know all the details of the Huskies. No need for me to note them here. We've watched them for 5 games. We know what to expect at this point, and from who. [B]This game is the BIGGEST game on UConn's schedule this year.[/B] UConn must play great defense for 40 minutes to have any chance of pulling this one out. No easy or uncontested layups. A couple of easy baskets given to ND could be the difference in what should be a close game. I expect Geno to use his bench sparingly. The reserve players with the most minutes are Mikayla Coombs at 58 and ONO with 55. This is the game that some "learned" basketball fans (some here in the yard) and media members predict UConn will lose. This one is a tough one to call. Let's hope this game does not come down to a bad call (or a no call) by the referees. Postscript edit - After watching the Iowa/ND game Thursday night, I'm going to amend my predicted score to I have no idea. ND looked unstoppable against Iowa. ND was getting whatever they wanted against the Hawkeyes. [/QUOTE]

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