Lady Shox top pre-season favorite Bears

by **iSASO** » January 14th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Congrats to the Shockers for a thrilling win over the Bears.

The Shockers, at 5-0, are off to their best conference start in school history.

:dance:

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by **CaseyGarrisonforPrez** » January 15th, 2012, 11:42 pm

Sounded like questionable coaching by Milleson. In over her head apparently. Should have stayed at Drury where she'd probably have a couple of National titles by now. For D1 you can't be as nurturing as she is you need to crack skulls. It may not be PC but I almost think that this particular group that we have right now would respond better to a man's voice. Someone that was sterner. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out but I hate seeing the Garrison years squandered without meaningful wins in March that mean something.

by **1972Shocker** » January 16th, 2012, 2:17 pm

Shocks had a great chance to make it a not so thrilling victory when they went up 40-28 and had numerous chances to extend the lead at that point and failed to do so with some not-so-smart basketball.

Casey Garrison finally asserted herself as you would expect and got the Bears back into the game late. Christiana Shorter was also very good for the Lady Bears.

The one thing that did not waiver though was the Shocks effort on the defensive end and that was just enough to carry the Shocks to a win. Shocks received very good performances out of their two primary post players Chynna Turner and Jazimen Gordon although MSU dominated the boards. The difference in the game may have been the 24 turnovers by the Lady Bears.

As far as I am concerned the Lady Bears are still the team to beat. They have the best talent and they have the most experience.

Indiana State will be tough because they have the most dominate post player in 6'4" Shannon Thomas. Drake's Rachel Hackbarth is right there with Thomas but Drake doesn't have a lot to go with her. The Sycamores have 4 players averaging in double figures and a 5th averaging 8.8 ppg.

Not sure UNI is quite up to the challenge without Jacqui Kalin but I don't totally count them out. UNI is a little undersized inside.

The Shocks can contend if they can sustain the high energy defensive effort they have shown in their 5-0 start. However, the Shocks offense can come and go and they have a tendency to hit scoring droughts on occassion. So far they have survived this but they could make things a lot easier on themselves if they could minimize these scoring droughts. Also, the Shocks bench does not have a lot of experience. However, having never won a MVC Championships the Shocks are a pretty hungry team.

These 4 teams look like the contenders to me. A lot of basketball yet to be played though.