Women's hoops: Pre-season tournaments

One powerhouse looks set to dominate while another may struggle to replace graduating players...and if "Haligonian" isn't the best demonym in the world, I don't know what is...

Break up the Pandas: Alberta, who did very well to manage a first-place finish in the Canada West Group of Death Central Division in '07-'08, knocked off a team from every other conference this weekend. They now have an 8-0 record in preseason play, including a win over UBC on October 4th that would be impressive if it counted for anything. Speaking of which, the T-Birds and Pandas play this weekend in the second regular season game for each team. Mark your calendars.

Look out for Dal: Haligonian Chad Lucas pointed out in September that the Tigers are "built to win" and so they did this weekend. Wish I could tell you who the standouts were, but the AUS must be saving money on boxscores for now. Apparently Alex Legge was player of the game at some point.

That's why they renamed the Metro stop: UQAM has a 4-0 preseason record. They won three in Waterloo this weekend and may be set up well this year to take a run at the Rouge et Or.

Maybe if she also donated $100 million to the business school... McMaster, the best team east of the Central Time Zone, was pounded by Windsor, 94-56 at a tournament in Toronto. Mac only shot 16 of 62 from the floor that game, with 34 of those shots coming from Lindsay DeGroot and Taylor Smith, and were outrebounded 48 to 22. They fared better in their other two games at Ryerson (Saint Mary's and Laval, not sure why the Rams aren't involved here), but their reliance on DeGroot, who's a fantastic player, may prove to be a disadvantage this year.

But what would Matt Stairs say? An unfortunate preseason for UNB, who went 0-6 including three straight losses to Winnipeg: 77-59, 70-59, and 64-60. Maybe if they kept playing each other those scores would converge to a tie. It looks like the Varsity Reds no longer have Kathleen Singh and Leah Corby, two of their top players from last year, so it may be difficult to repeat or exceed that 11-9 record out in Frederiction.

Lani who? Simon Fraser and Calgary are about the only teams capable of triple digits against decent opponents, and the Clan did that against Concordia yesterday in Winnipeg. With leads of 8, 21, and 26 after the first three quarters, it really wasn't much of a game. Lisa Tindle (profiled by the Province) sank five treys as part of her 18 points (also, 6 rebounds and a pair of steals) in the Concordia game and Laurelle Weigl picked up 40 of her own in 41 minutes across that game and Saturdays' 78-52 win over Manitoba. The Clan ran up a 15-2 lead against the Bisons and kept going from there.

Speaking of SFU, the on-court whereabouts of logophile Kate Hole have yet to be determined. Search parties have reached Burnaby Mountain and will report back soon.
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1 comment:

  1. People from Newcastle, England are known as Novocastrians. I think that takes it!

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