Early game with Illinois thread

[Royalclone]

Cyclones up 29-21 at half. Of course Pop is out with the concussion from yesterday. Hallie and Fallon got in early foul trouble. Prins and Maddie have held UI leading scorer to one point. Another physical game.

[Royalclone]

ISU let hem back in, but have now pulled ahead 57-43 with about 5 min left.

[Royalclone]

Hallie caught fire when she had to come in for Prins. 60-45 with 3:27 left

[Dryburn]

68-50 Final. Brynn makes all-tourney team and Hallie was MVP. Good job!

[terryleebr]

Good win playing without Pop. Don't want to have to do that again.

[CY9008]

Impressed with baiers defense...a few solid blocks...I think she will be a good player.

[BoxsterCy]

Good win playing without Pop. Don't want to have to do that again.

Me either but great game experience for the new kids playing without Pop. There will be games where she is going to be in foul trouble and the oterh will have to step in and sounds like they did today (missed this game, forgot about the early start).

[cydney]

Coach Fennelly sound pretty excited on the radio postgame. Said he didn't know if the team could (paraphrasing) come together without Pop. He said he knew they had it inside them, but didn't know if they would be able to show it yet. He complimented everyone, and pointed to Moody as orchestrating the team perfectly and cutting it like a surgeon sometimes (near quote); credited the dynamic duo of Moody and Brynn, while each playing 39 minutes; referred to Anna's "lock-down defense" (quote) on/around Illinois' star player Penn; and of course Hallie stepping up with big 3's in the key stretch under 10 minutes to go.

[twistedredbird]

while the stream stunk - my observations:

Nicki and Brynn were great in dealing with the on ball pressure Illinois put on, including full court, 1/2 court, and 3/4 court press defenses, and double and triple team traps.

Both Nicki and Brynn had some beautiful drives to the bucket. Nicki definitely has some ankle breaking moves (especially her spin move) when defenses play us on man.

Anna looks so impressive. Some of her negatives of previous years have improved tremendously. She would rebound the ball, and keep it high and go back for a put in, instead of bringing the ball down and getting stripped or tied up. She also dealt with a lot of bodying up from Penn and was strong, and played good straight up defense.

Solid minutes from Fallon.

While Pop has tended to be foul prone, one thing I think we have seen, and will continue to see is Hallie picking up some hand check calls when defending on the perimeter, her foul trouble early in this game was worrisome, but her feet looked good, just has to watch putting her hands on them.

[Kitkat]

The stats are interesting: of the five starters, only one (Anna) was a senior; of the bench points, all came from our freshmen guards.