By Paul Sykes
In a game marred by technical fouls and shoving matches at the end, Rutgers blew by the University of Louisville women’s basketball team 72-52 in the regular season finale.
With her team up by 20 with seconds remaining in the game, April Sykes decided to drive to the basket instead of letting time expire. Gwen Rucker, who had earlier bloodied Sykes’ nose with an elbow shot, fouls her one more time. Rutgers sub Erika Wheeler shoves Rucker, Rachel Story shoves Wheeler and the whistles erupt.
The officials give Rutgers the ball out of bounds with five seconds remaining. Sykes proceeds to hurl the ball off Monique Reid’s back during the in-bounds play. More shoving and both teams are sent to their benches. Sykes should have held the ball and let the clock run out. It’s what you do when you’re up by 20 points.
In basketball action:
Rachel Story had a career high 16 points for Louisville, most of it mop up duty but an impressive performance, Monique Reid with 13 after sitting eight minutes in the first half with foul problems … Keisha Hines with nine turnovers, mostly traveling violations … Becky Burke with three three-pointers but playing matador defense.
With its 16th loss in 29 games, Louisville will enter the Big East Tournament as the No. 13 seed, playing in the first game on Friday at noon against Pittsburgh, the 12 seed.
Wow. Sounds like a rough and tumble affair. Certainly not the season Walz anticipated but a lot of tough breaks for Louisville.
We drove up from Naples to watch the USF women play DePaul last night in Tampa. Attendance nothing like it is in Freedom Hall for women’s basketball. Less than 1000 in the Sun Dome and so quiet at times you could hear the coaches talking to the team in the huddles during timeouts.
Allyson Speed, the Cardinal killer, had a pitiful game. No points, drew a technical and played about half the game in the loss.
Contrary to my report on here, Sonja has learned directly from coach Walz that it was C.Vivian Stringer, the head women’s basketball coach at Rutgers who motioned for Sykes to go to the hoop in the final possession.
Way to be classy, C.Viv.
If I remember correctly she is a good friend of John Chaney. Hmmmmmmm. Two of a kind I guess.
As much as I like Burke she is a one dimensional player. Good shooter (usually) but couldn’t spell defense with a five letter head start and is a turnover waiting to happen. Check her TO to assist ratio. She really needs to work hard on her game this summer or she will never be anything but a complimentary spot up shooter.
i understand she has been playing with a torn calf muscle for months now, that could definitely hurt her defensive effort. Summer work is needed for all the Lady Cards if you ask me.