Close it in on seven o'clock, about nine minutes away from your news nine minutes. Welcome back to Ronail Carrier Sports Talk presented by Kelsey Chevallet. I'm Lance Pacallister. Let's do this, Kelly and I last night enjoyed you see women's basketball. We were there. They upset number eleven Iowa State seventy three sixty. I had that in front of me. They win last night, highs ranked win in program history.
My next guest played for the Bearcats was a graduate assistant, was an assistant now in her third season as head coach. What a treat to welcome in the head coach that would be Katrina Meriwether coach lancemacallister, how are you.
I'm doing great, Lance, Thank you so much for having me.
Man oh man, the environment last night, over three thousand on hand. Congrats on the winning. What a shot of confidence it must be for your team.
It was a good night, and I think that we had an opportunity to show was that when we have our full roster, they will have a chance to do something really special. So we were just happy be out there and competing together with everybody who was available.
Seventy one sixty three. The final score. I knew I had that written down somewhere. Man watching Maya Perry last night, twenty six points. I think she scored in double figures at eighteen sixteen straight games. Now what her performance she turned in for your group last night.
She's amazing. You know. My favorite thing about Maya is her mentality. She works incredibly hard. She practices really hard. She is an example for our entire team, but especially our or sixth person of what it looks like to be a pro and to show up every day and be committed to your craft. And I could be happier. This year wears Brando and black.
I believe you held the Cyclones twenty six points below their season average and going in the story. One of the storyline, maybe the biggest storyline in college basketball this year has been Audie Crooks, who plays for Iowa State. She leads the country in scoring twenty nine a game. Your group collectively holds her to twenty three, six point below her average. She is such a force. Tell me how you went about doing the job you guys did on her.
I love how you said the group, because that's exactly what it took. We talked a lot about winning the position. And we have four or five players on our team, and they all give different looks offensively and defensively, and we just kept rolling them out there, one at a time, every couple of minutes. Mary Carden, whose minutes had been limited practice as Audie Crouks for the last two days, and then she turned around and went in there and
guarded her destiny and alliance. They are very strong, but they're short in comparison to Audi. And then Delaney lacks a little bit of girth, but she's got long spaghetti arms that we think are pretty annoyed. So we just ran all for problematter and then just try to keep her off balance and then put an emphasis on everyone else and then the paint rebound in the ball boy.
We were really interested to see the three time Miss Ohio basketball stand out from Priscell, Mary and d Alexander. She missed the first does her show games for you guys with an ankle injury. Seven big points last night? I remember early in the fourth the arena play for she scored what and those were big points she contributed in the fourth quarter, weren't they?
Absolutely? And I mean everyone knows that these are McDonald's All American. And my favorite part about her is she very well could just tap out this season and say, hey, I know I'm not where I need to be in terms of, you know, having this surgery and being out, and say I'm just gonna wait, Maria, I'm gonna wait till next year. But what she realizes is that she can have a positive impact on this season for her team.
And honestly, she's chosen Cincinnati and basketball and her teammates over you know, anything that anyone may say individually about her and where she may be in her journey. And I'm really really proud of her and grateful that she's making that decision for us.
You know, there were moments last night I had to laugh at the legendary basketball coach Al maguire once famously said the best thing about freshmen they become sophomores. If she had big moments, then there are a couple of moments. I look to you and I think you may have mouthed what are you doing?
I'll tell you if you come to our game, we'll see that a lot. I mean, you just can't help it. I mean, I think that every coach and every team has a university right, but join at Crawford, who does a great job for us coming off the bench, who played in one game then miss seven. It comes back in the first game she plays and Kalia de Vilasi is out, so she plays thirty five minutes. We Louise Kylie Torrance, who is our starter at the fourth spot. Like you mentioned, we didn't have d for twelve games.
I mean, you name it. It has happened. And I only have the three people out of thirteen that played in every game so far this year. And all that matters to us is that we hear the people that support us and are positive and know that it may not look the way we thought it would or the way we wanted it to. But all we can do is keep taking steps forward every day.
Coach, I'm big in to bang for your buck and the value of an entertainment dollar. You've got a huge one coming up Saturday at home two seventeen of No Texas Tech. My wife and I went last night. We sat I think ten rows up from the floor, ten dollars a piece for tickets, six bucks to perk and Corey Garage. Big win, big environment. That was bang for our buck.
Last night, and that makes me feel good. I'm really happy you had a good time, and we tell people that all the time. Just come check us out. I think you're gonna love how hard we play. I think you're gonna love how gritty we are. And yes, you're gonna see some mistakes. And we're playing four of our six freshmen, heavy, heavy minutes, a lot of the situations that they're in therein for the first time, and there's gonna be a learning curve there. But you're gonna see
a diving from loose balls. You're gonna see us flying through the air for rebounds, and in all of my hearing's knocking down shot you'll be able to see some good offense too.
Hey, please, if you think about it, pass along my best to what are your assistants? Who was great seeing her on the sidelines last night, Abby Owings. She's one of my all time favorites, A feisty point guard from my part of the woods in Independence, Kentucky and Simon Kenton and Thomas Moore. I'm a big fan of her. It was great to see her on the sidelines last night.
Yeah, she's a champion and such a great coach, and we talked a lot of the time about how you know, when we're recruiting, I'm like, find me. We call her Ao, you know, find me in Ao, right, somebody who can knock down shots, that's quick, fast, athletic, that can handle the ball. That's the nation's on defense. And she probably killed me if she knew. But I mean we throw her in practice sometimes and she she gives these kids.
Hell.
I'm telling you that she is. They don't pay attention to her, so knock down the free in their face. He'll take the ball from them. You know, it's just a I can't tell you. This is the first time that we've had a losing non conference record, right, this is the first time that we've had this type of adversity with being young and being injured. And I cannot imagine feeling this good about the season and the team.
And I know it's just because of the people that we've recruited and the people that I've hired.
So well said hey, I'm so happy for you. It was a cool scene seeing everybody celebrate on the court and on the postgame TA cameras on the court and just to look on everybody's faces. It was a really cool vibe. Last night, congrats and best of luck the rest of the year.
Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you again.
All right, Take care, coach.