A Sea Of Red

Frazee provides off-court support
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sunday, March 19, 2006


ROSEMONT, Ill. - Whenever Molly or Moriah Frazee left the floor Saturday night at Allstate Arena, injured sister Megan was there to supply words of encouragement.
Since Megan went down with a torn ACL in January, the Flames struggled through rough patches on offense, ugly droughts in which they struggled to score.

Liberty's defense was solid enough to compensate. The Flames survived and went 15-1 sans Megan, but they never had to play an opponent as accomplished as DePaul during that stretch.

The Flames had Megan for games against power-conference foes North Carolina, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and Florida and they still lost all four.

So Saturday's outcome in the first-round NCAA tournament game was fairly predictable. DePaul won 68-43 as Liberty's offense encountered another of those extended droughts. This time, the drought came early on, and the Flames couldn't recover.

Liberty not only went nearly six minutes without scoring as it fell behind 21-5 in the first half, but it struggled to even get looks during that span. In one five-minute span, the Flames attempted just four field goals.

"DePaul did a really good job of pushing us away from the basket," said Liberty guard Allyson Fasnacht, who missed all four shots she attempted and went scoreless for the first time this season. "They put us in situations that we didn't want to be in. It forced us to take bad shots and that fueled their fast break."

Liberty's Moriah Frazee and Karolina Piotrkiewicz each echoed the disappointment of LU coach Carey Green at the Flames' mental toughness and lack of execution on offense.

DePaul had plenty to do with that. Fueled all week of talk of revenge for last year's NCAA tournament loss to the Flames, the Blue Demons played inspired basketball from the opening tip. There was another factor, too. The passing of legendary DePaul coach Ray Meyer Friday gave the Demons a greater purpose.

DePaul coach Doug Bruno stressed that Meyer was not only a legend in the men's game, but a friend to the women's game as well. With that in mind, DePaul played passionate defensive and smothered Liberty from the start.

"Defensively, I know we worked and focused in practice to come out ready to play," DePaul guard Jenna Rubino said. "It just happened tonight."

Liberty shot 29.6 percent and was outrebounded 47-26. The only time Liberty scored fewer points was in an 89-36 loss to North Carolina in December.

Green did come away impressed with DePaul's flex offense. He was so enamored with it that he was discussing weaving some parts of that offense into Liberty's package next season.

"It's really a good offense that they're running," Green said. "Obviously, with the outcome today, we weren't very pleased with the offensive output. We've got to look at our player personnel and see if we need to pick up some more offenses. Doug does a tremendous job. It's a good offense."