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Tiger women on the bubble the rest of the season
2/1/2010
By CONOR NICHOLL
cnicholl@dailynews.net
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- Gene Steinmeyer is in his 11th season as head coach for the Northwest Missouri State University women's basketball team. As one of the conference's more experienced coaches, Steinmeyer has had several teams similar to the 2009-10 Fort Hays State University squad.
The Tigers, at 14-5, 7-5 in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, are on the bubble for making the NCAA tournament. FHSU ranked seventh in the first South Central Regional poll that came out Wednesday; top eight reach the NCAAs.
On Saturday, the Tigers lost at Northwest, 75-54.
Steinmeyer knows the tournament selection committee can be fickle, especially this season with several new members. Sometimes certain criteria, like number of wins or strength or schedule, is weighed differently.
"The personality of the committee has a lot to do with it," he said. "The dominators of the last several years' committee is off, so nobody knows how's that committee is going to think."
Steinmeyer, though, has seen a trend in his tenure -- no matter who is on the selection committee.
"I've always thought that if you get to 18 (wins), they are going to think about you," Steinmeyer said Saturday. "If you get to 20, it's hard to keep you out. After that, it is all gravy. ... I think if Hays gets 20 wins and gets to the second round (of the conference tournament), I would feel pretty good about their chances of getting in."
Second-year Tiger head coach Tony Hobson has similar thoughts. After Fort Hays finished the non-conference and first half of MIAA play with a 13-4 record, Hobson said the Tigers needed "at least" a 7-3 mark in the second half of conference to make the NCAAs. After Saturday's loss, Fort Hays is 1-1 in the second half of games -- with the three top teams in the conference still to play.
On Monday, the Tigers complete a three-day, two-city trip when they travel to Missouri Western State University (7-13, 5-8 MIAA) for a 5:30 p.m. tipoff. FHSU defeated Missouri Western 75-61 in December. Sophomore Jessica Koch leads the Griffons at 14.9 points a contest.
"I thought this (Saturday) was a winnable game for us if we showed up and played and we obviously didn't," Hobson said. "So it just puts a little more pressure on us for Monday night. That's a game we really need to get to stay anywhere within reach especially with Washburn coming up on Saturday (Feb. 6). This is definitely a tough stretch and we didn't respond very well."
Saturday's loss marked the third straight road defeat for FHSU and also yielded the team's worst shooting percentage (27.9 percent). Only one player, senior Naomi Bancroft, finished in double figures, collecting 11 points.
"I don't think we had a good player today," Hobson said.
Two freshman continue to progress for Fort Hays. Traci Keyser started her second straight game, had some defensive breakdowns, but finished with seven points. Keyser has four contests of at least seven points in her last five games; she collected three contests with seven or more points in her first 14 games.
"Traci works hard and she will crash the boards every time and that's where she gets a lot of her points is just off of outworking people," Hobson said. "She did okay today, but she had her struggles defensively just like we all did. It looked like we were totally unprepared."
Whitney Taylor, an Ellis native, missed seven games with a stress fracture before she played one minute against University of Nebraska-Omaha last Wednesday. On Saturday, she played the final two and a half minutes.
"We just put her in there at the end just to kind of get her feet wet so she can kind of keep making progress," Hobson said.
"She isn't ready yet to play. We are just trying to work her back in there. She is not sharp enough. Physically she might be able to play, but she hasn't done hardly anything in the last month. We are just trying to work that out."
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| BB | 03/17 | Missouri S&T | W 2-1 (10) |
| SB | 03/17 | Bethany | W 6-1 |
| SB | 03/17 | Bethany | W 8-1 |
| BB | 03/16 | Misosuri S&T | L 13-4 |
| MB | 03/14 | Central Missouri | L 80-73 |
| BB | 3/13 | NW Missouri | W 13-10 |
| BB | 03/13 | NW Missouri | W 4-3 |
| MB | 03/13 | Central Oklahoma | W 80-64 |
| SB | 03/08 | Fort Lewis | W 5-4 |
| BB | 03/07 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 13-7 |
| BB | 03/06 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 16-4 |
| BB | 03/06 | No. 9 Emporia State | W 3-0 |
| MB | 03/05 | Emporia State | L 65-61 |
| BB | 03/05 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 10-3 |
| WB | 03/04 | No. 15 Emporia | L 72-66 |
| WB | 02/28 | No. 12 Emporia State | L 87-80 |
| MB | 02/28 | Emporia State | W 94-47 |
| SB | 02/28 | Quincy | L 6-0 |
| SB | 02/27 | Mo Southern | W 9-3 |
| SB | 02/27 | Missouri S&T | L 8-3 |