Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Seattle University's men's and women's basketball teams split a pair of games, but in ways that produced decidedly different emotional outpourings.
On Saturday at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, the men dropped a nail-biter to Wofford, losing 84-83 on two free throws with 14 seconds left in regulation. Charles Garcia missed what would have been a game-winning jumper with two seconds remaining.
Garcia threw down 41 points and owned the floor throughout the afternoon, but in a scenario akin to what the Cleveland Cavaliers have often experienced with LeBron James, the dominating performance by a superstar caused the supporting cast to stand around and watch, with generally poor results. SU falls to 4-3 on the season, and has a new teachable moment to learn from after a four-game winning streak.
For the SU women's team, a weekend split - seen by casual observers as a modest achievement - is anything but pedestrian. Joan Bonvicini's ballclub used the Seattle U Thanksgiving Tournament to post its first win of the season.
Following a Saturday evening 69-58 loss to William and Mary, the Redhawks finally cracked the win column on Sunday afternoon with a rousing 68-63 triumph over Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Bonvicini Bunch finally found the scoring punch that's been missing for much of the season, as the Redhawks hit 14-of-30 3-pointers, with five from Ashley Brown (23 points), three from Maggie McCarthy (14 points), and three more from reserve Samantha Messersmith (9 points), who have SU a huge lift coming off the bench. Now at 1-7, the pressure is off for a team that no longer has to worry about breaking the ice.
The remainder of the women's season - which begins on Tuesday at home against Pacific Lutheran at the Connolly Center (tip time at 7 p.m.) - can allow this team to simply focus on continued improvement and growth.
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