RU looks to straighten out in second round

All it will take now is one more sloppy performance for everything to come crashing down.

The Rutgers women's basketball team should know that better than anyone.

"Champions are made in March," Rutgers head coach C. Vivian Stringer said yesterday in an off-day press conference. "Whatever you can do, you are going to do now. It's now or never.

"The moment is now, the time is now."

The No. 9 Scarlet Knights (26-4) know they can't afford another lackluster performance like in the Big East Tournament or in barely sliding past Dartmouth Sunday night.

They will face the Cleveland region's No. 11 seed in Texas Christian University tonight, a squad that finished the 2005-06 season with an overall record of 17-10 (11-5 in the Mountain West Conference) and ended tied for third with New Mexico in the MWC.

"TCU is athletic and very quick," Stringer said. "They are tournament-tested and they will represent a formidable task for us, but one we look forward to playing."

The Horned Frogs pulled off the first-round upset over No. 20 Texas A&M, a six seed, by a score of 69-65 to break a 13-game losing streak against the Aggies and advance in the tournament.

After sweating out a narrow five-point win over the Ivy League champions in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, third-seeded RU will look to straighten up, dust itself off and snag the win tonight to advance to its second consecutive Sweet 16.

The Knights led by as many as 16 in the Dartmouth game but watched it slowly fade away until they were finally able to clamp down, and for that, Stringer would like to know what it will take for her players to sense urgency. She hopes it will be the knowledge that one more mistake could spell the end of an unfulfilled season.

"Kids don't play every second like it's their life," Stringer said. "Those kinds of people are probably the ones who think that in the last seconds we're going to come back, or wait until we do this or do that, but they don't understand how quickly it escapes."

TCU had been led this season by 5-foot-10 inch guard Natasha Lacy, averaging 14.1 points-per-game.

But the junior did not play against Texas A&M after taking a leave of absence from the team to attend to personal business, and it was announced yesterday that the All-MWC second-team member will also not appear in tonight's match-up with Rutgers.

The emotional task of playing without its standout seemed to motivate TCU Sunday night, and the Horned Frogs' nothing-to-lose mindset is something the Scarlet Knights are keenly aware of.

"Every team has something to prove now that it's March Madness," Rutgers senior guard Cappie Pondexter said. "Everybody wants to win. One thing I noticed on TCU is that everybody rallied up knowing that their best player wasn't there."

Having fallen to Oregon in the first round of the 2005 tournament, TCU may not have much experience when it comes to fighting for trips to the Sweet 16 or beyond.

But Rutgers certainly does.

"To advance to the Sweet 16," Pondexter said, "we know what we have to do as a team."

For starters, they can focus on bringing their bread-and-butter defense. In addition to the "55" press Stringer chose to deploy from the start against Dartmouth, she hopes they will also find themselves comfortable in zones if the situation presents itself against a TCU team that isn't afraid to run.

"I do love zones, but I wish my team would embrace zones more than they do," Stringer said. "We need to be able to use a zone to protect ourselves and change things up. TCU is a great team with great athletes, and they love to push the ball down the floor."

Also in the heads of the Knights should be attacking the Horned Frogs under the net. Stringer called them a good rebounding team, and with the TCU coach busy praising Rutgers' guard brigade, the dual threat of a strong post presence could make the difference.

"Rutgers begins with Cappie, but it doesn't end there," TCU head coach Jeff Mittie said. "They are very athletic."

Coming off what she said was a three-hour night of sleep the night before, Stringer will need her team to use that athleticism as well as the attention to fundamentals they used for most of the regular season. All of that in a time of year that allows very little preparation time.

"It's too late to memorize because there's no time to memorize," Stringer said. "I think it really comes down to fundamentals. It comes down to inches and seconds and that's what will win the championship.

"You an only escape so many times."

KNIGHT NOTE: Stringer will be looking for the 750th win of her career tonight in her 1000th game as a Division I women's basketball head coach. With the win, Stringer would become only the third women's coach to reach the mark. She trails only Pat Summitt of Tennessee (908 wins) and Texas' Jody Conradt (882 wins).

"I think it's amazing," Pondexter said. "That's incredible just to coach 1,000 games, that's a long haul, a lot of dedication to the game. The ups and downs you go through as a coach and dealing with the players, that's incredible.

"I'm very proud of her."

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