Mothers, Daughters & Basketball

There is something special about the bond between and mother and daughter. For the third consecutive year, the Pacific women's basketball program has taken it to a new level: bonding through basketball.

The Boxers hosted nearly 50 mothers and daughters at the Pacific Athletic Center on Dec. 6 for their annual Mother-Daughter Basketball Clinic. The clinic was offered free to girls in first through sixth grades and their mothers.

The clinic allowed mothers and their daughters to spend time together practicing basketball skills, while giving the moms helpful tips on how to help their girls the basics of the game. While focused on hoops, Head Coach Sharon Rissmiller said that she hopes the clinic also promotes and encourages the participants to continue to lead healthy, active lives.

“My hope is that all who attended had fun together, that some new things were learned and that our Pacific women’s basketball team represented the university as positive role models to the younger girls,” Rissmiller said.

Rissmiller and members of the team led daughters and mothers alike through a series of dribbling and shooting drills and other activities designed to teach the basics of the game. The clinic also included a little fun, including competitions where the younger girls raced to put on full-sized Pacific uniforms.

Playoff Scenarios

Here are the tiebreaker and playoff scenarios as it pertains to Pacific and Pacific Lutheran and their quest for the NWC Playoffs...

PACIFIC ADVANCES TO PLAYOFF IF...
• Pacific wins twice
• Pacific wins once and PLU loses once


PLU ADVANCES TO PLAYOFF IF...
• PLU wins both games and Pacific loses both games (makes PLU 9-7 and Pacific 8-8)
• PLU wins one of two games and Pacific loses both games (both teams 8-8, PLU owns tiebreaker with 1-1 record vs. UPS)
• PLU beat George Fox and tie at 8-8 with Pacific and Whitworth (PLU would own tiebreaker with win over GFU)
• PLU loses to George Fox, but beats Linfield, Pacific loses both games and a three-way occurs at 8-8 (Pacific owns tiebreaker over WHTW based on head-to-head, but PLU would own tiebreaker with 1-1 record vs. UPS)

Whitman is in the playoffs regardless of their result this weekend. If Whitman falls to 8-8, they would tiebreaker over both Pacific and PLU based on their 2-0 record against PLU.

Whitworth cannot advance even if they tie at 8-8 with PLU and Pacific and/or Whitman (see above).

PLAYOFF SEEDING (Should Pacific succeed in earning playoff berth)
Whitman will own the No. 3 playoff seed over Pacific if Boxers lose to UPS.
Whitman will own the No. 3 playoff seed over PLU based on head-to-head vs. Lutes.
Pacific will own No. 3 playoff seed over Whitman if Pacific ties with Whitman and beats UPS.

The NWC Basketball Playoffs begin on Thurs., Feb. 26. The No. 4 seed will play at No. 1 and the No. 2 seed will play at No. 3. Game times will be determined by Sun., Feb. 26. The winner of the two semifinal games will play in the tournament championship on Saturday, with the game played at the highest remaining seed.

From The Mouths Of Babes...

Please allow me a moment to brag about my oldest daughter.

I work a lot of nights and weekends, and my wife is great about bringing my kids to games. They not only enjoy watching and running around the gym, but she also wants to make sure that they don't go a day without seeing their dad.

The family came to the Jan. 31 doubleheader against Whitworth. Towards the end of the women's game, Whitworth's Alida Bower left the game with an apparent knee injury. Bower spent most of the men's game on the PAC's north bleachers, her leg elevated and iced.

My family left to go home with about 10 minutes left in the men's game (bed time, you know). On the way out, Sydney (my three-and-a-half year old) made a point of stopping and asking Alida if she was going to be okay. Sydney was genuinely concerned about if her knee was going to be alright.

As she often does, Sydney's heart put a smile on my face on a night when I needed it. It also reminds all of us of what is really important in these games that we play.

Five Games In Nine Days...And Some Tired Legs

The Northwest Conference basketball is indeed a marathon. Teams play 16 games over a span of seven weeks, two games per week, with trips that send teams to three different regions of two states.

The season is a rigorous test. Now, thanks to the flooding in the Northwest earlier this month, Pacific will play over a quarter of their conference schedule in a span of nine days.

The Boxers played in Tacoma, Wash., on Friday, and then bussed home to take on Linfield on Saturday. The flooding forced the postponement of games against Pacific Lutheran, originally scheduled on Jan. 9, to Tuesday night. That’s wedged right between last week’s action and this weekend’s tough home series against Whitman and Whitworth.

Five games in nine days. Combine that with practices and you have to think that the Boxers may not be able to climb out of bed on Sunday.

Pacific’s head hoops coaches are taking everything in stride. Men’s coach Jason Lowery sees it as a challenge that he expects the Boxers to rise to. "If this was November I'd be concerned,” Lowery said, “but it's the end of January and we've been going at it for over three months. We're in shape and prepared. If we're not ready to go now then it's not going to happen. It's time for us to go out and perform."

Sharon Rissmiller, head women’s coach, expressed some concern when the Jan. 9 games were cancelled, but is looking at the positives of the situation. "I knew when we had to reschedule the PLU game that this was going to be a tough stretch,” she said. “On the positive side to having five games in nine games is that besides our five-hour bus ride to Tacoma last Friday, the rest of the games are at home. We are taking it one game at a time."

Another positive is where the string of games fall in terms of the academic calendar. Pacific’s Winter III term, a three-week cram term where students take one three-credit class over the course of 23 days, ended on Monday. There will be plenty of time for the Boxers to rest up. It could very well be a week where Lowery’s and Rissmiller’s charges do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe basketball.

Boxers In California: Part 2

This is the second post from Mallory Goldammer on the Pacific women's basketball trip to Los Angeles, written after their game against Occidental.

We are all excited for our “play day” tomorrow. The plan was to head to Great America Amusement Park, but because of the rain and weather we have decided to head to UCLA and the town around there to hang out. It should be a fun day, hanging out with the team, more bonding time together. Hopefully with all the snow and ice getting home won’t be too much of a problem!

We are ready for the upcoming break, getting time to rest and relax before the plunge into league. Although we are excited for league to get under way we cannot over look our last non-conference game against Corban College. We learned a lot from this trip to LA and will only build as a team from here. We showed both a lot of strengths and weaknesses between the two games played down here but look forward to the strides we are making in becoming a team.

Like said before, we are continually learning about each other on the court and still working towards playing together as a team. We look forward to the strides we are continuing to make and will look forward to the season and finishing up with non-conference season.

Boxers In California

During their trip to Southern California, Pacific women's basketball player Mallory Goldammer will be sending in periodic blog entries. Here is her first entry following Monday's loss to Whittier.

After a long day, the team was disappointed with the turnout of the game versus Whittier but is excited to play again tomorrow. We are always hopeful because we know that each game will only bring us closer to putting the pieces together as a team.

Each day of practice and each game we are growing as a team, continually learning, and getting to know each other more and more. Team trips like this one to L.A will really bring our team closer than we already are. We love hanging out in the hotel rooms, just goofing around and bonding. Most of the time 1 or 2 of the rooms is filled with the entire team laughing and playing games, our favorite being Catchphrase.

We are very excited for the direction in which the team is going and are looking forward to the up and coming season.

A Quiet Weekend In The PAC

This is a weekend I have been looking forward to for a while. For the first time since Labor Day weekend, no Pacific teams will be in competition over the weekend. After the men's wrestling team duels Clackamas CC and Highline CC on Friday, Pacific teams will be completely out of action until Sat., Dec. 13, when the men's wrestling, women's wrestling, men's basketball and women's basketball teams will be back in action.

Don't get me wrong. I love working our home Pacific athletics events and making sure you all have the most current information when they are away, but even the most dedicated employees need a break every once and a while.

Pacific's athletes, however, will not be taking a break. This is finals week, so all of our athletes are studying hard as they finish up their fall semester classes. There are finals on Saturday and continue on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Once finals are over, the teams will be back at it at a feverish rate. The women's basketball team will have the most action with four games over the Christmas Break, including home games against Concordia (Ore.) on Sat., Dec. 13 and Corban on Tue., Dec. 30.

The men's basketball team will play two more non-conference tilts before beginning Northwest Conference play on Jan. 2. They won't be easy as the 4-2 Boxers face a pair of tough Cascade Conference foes in Northwest Christian in Eugene on Dec. 13 and Concordia in Portland on Dec. 16.

The wrestling teams will also be loaded with dual meet competition. Both the men and women will compete next weekend in Canada, engaging Simon Fraser and Douglas in a pair of duals. The men will also take a trip to Las Vegas for the Wartburg Desert Duals on Mon, Dec. 21. The competition will give the Boxers their first taste of NCAA Division III competition this season (tough to come by as the only NCAA III program west of Iowa).

But...until then...I am going to enjoy some well deserved time with my two young daughters, who have been more than understanding about the amount of time daddy spends covering his teams.

A Case Of Mistaken Identity

With a school named Pacific, we are commonly mistaken for many other schools. In a recent study done by the consulting firm that has spearheaded the University's new integrated marketing initative, there are at least 26 other colleges with Pacific in their name. And this Pacific University of Oregon gets mistaken for all of them every so often.

We often times get mistaken for our Division I brethren located down in the Sacramento Delta. Switch one word here and you can get the name of both schools. It happens to the best, as illustrated by this wrap-up on women's college basketball games that appeared in Saturday's online edition of the Boston Globe.

North Carolina 98, Pacific 62 - Italee Lucas scored 25 points to help the No. 2-ranked Tar Heels (7-0) rout the Boxers (1-2) in the Junkanoo Jam in Freeport, Bahamas.

I am sure that Head Coach Sharon Rissmiller would love to take the Boxers down to the Bahamas, but not if they have to play North Carolina. They'll settle for a matchup with Carleton College of Minnesota in Forest Grove on Sunday.

Proof, though, that even some of the top papers in all of journalism get confused as to which Pacific is which. That or they just aren't paying attention. (I will give them bonus points, however, if our nickname "Boxers" got into the print edition.)