Feb 12th, 2010
Items for the day after Thursday’s college basketball action:
Mickey McConnell (left), St. Mary's No. 2 scorer at 13.2 a game, went scoreless against Gonzaga and needs more production against Portland -- Associated Press photo
– St. Mary’s junior Louella Tomlinson holds the Division I record for blocked shots as of Friday and will no doubt hold it when she finishes her career, but she may not have that record at the end of this season. Stranger still is that one of the players Tomlinson passed to break the record held the mark for just three hours. Michigan State senior Allyssa DeHaan gained a share of the NCAA record when she got her 480th career block against Michigan on Thursday. But later on Thursday,Tomlinson bettered that mark against Gonzaga and now has 483. Tomlinson can increase her three-block lead over DeHaan on Saturday before DeHaan has a chance for rebuttle on Sunday. But Tomlinson has only four games left before her conference tournament and DeHaan has five, so DeHaan might re-pass Tomlinson before this season ends. Tomlinson presumably would re-re-pass DeHaan next season.
– St. Mary’s crippled its chances for an NCAA Tournament at-large berth on Thursday. And it wasn’t just that it lost, it was the way it lost, falling by 19 points at Gonzaga after holding an early 12-5 lead. The game was on national TV, and the NCAA Tournament selection committee would have looked at that game closely. Those guys could not have liked what they saw, and despite all the malarkey about RPI, strength of schedule, good road wins and blah, blah, blah, their decisions are often based on subjective opinions. The Gaels desperately need to win at Portland on Saturday. If not, they would almost certainly need to win the WCC tournament to get into the NCAAs, and after losing six straight to the Zags, we don’t like St. Mary’s chances to do it. Even if St. Mary’s beats Portland on Saturday, an NCAA berth is in question now.
– Cal’s 12-point win over Washington added to the Husky enigma. Washington has won its home games by an average margin of 17.1 points and lost its games away from home by a margin of 12.6 points. The rule of thumb is that the homecourt is worth about 10 points. For Washington, it’s worth about 30. It makes no sense because the Huskies are a veteran team for the most part. And on Saturday, the Huskies play at Stanford, the only Pac-10 team unbeaten in conference home games.
– Stanford’s comeback from an 18-point deficit with 11:44 left to beat Washington State 60-58 on Thursday was what got the immediate attention, but what was more significant was that the Cardinal won a game that came down to the last possession. Since Johnny Dawkins arrived at Stanford, the Cardinal had been 0-7 in games that either went to overtime or were decided by two points or fewer. That changed Thursday. “It’s an acquired skill,” Dawkins said.
– What has got into USF? The Dons have won three of their last four games, including a 30-point win over Pepperdine, their largest winning margin under Rex Walters. If they can knock off Loyola Marymount Saturday, the Dons will have a firm hold on fourth place, which would give USF a first-round bye in the WCC tournament.
