[81alum]

Thank you MT for starting a good conversation.  As always, I find your observations very useful.

(Re 81alum (short post):  Turnovers were lop-sided. You apparently misread our TOs.  We had 20 (not 15) TO for which Dayton got 27 pts.  They had 13 TO for which we got 15 pts

Mea culpa.  I did misread the line.  That makes the points off turnovers make a lot more sense.  About three charges, probably a few more ill advised entrance passes which is why our point guards all have lousy assist-to-turnover ratios these days--Lili probably being the best, and she had 7 assists to 5 turnovers.  And a lot of sloppiness.  Several screening fouls--that was reminiscent of Chattanooga and Tennessee last year.  At least they called a couple of those on Dayton too.  But it all adds up to a collection of reasons for turning the ball over.

      81alum (main post):  In the first half, as you said, Dayton hit 7 of 19 threes, while we hit 3 of 9.  But I wouldn't characterize Dayton as "caught on fire from three" when they're hitting 36.8% to our 33.3%.  Perhaps you were influenced by listening to the Dayton audio feed?

Those notes were written live with the game in the second quarter--note the paragraph opening.  At the end of the second quarter Dayton hit 4 three pointers in a row.  It seemed at the time that they had caught on fire.  It was at that moment I wrote that comment. 

The game didn't turn out to be an acid test of Stanford vs a zone.

All the pregame publicity had emphasized the Dayton zone, how they used it to shut down Maine, etc.  But I was not too sure what they were running at first.  I presumed it was some kind of loose zone with switching going on.  But then late in the second quarter the announcers said they had just switched to a zone, and it was indeed a much more obvious zone.  In any case, it does not seem to me as if anyone has really taken a page from Santa Clara yet.  It is hard to believe that Santa Clara has the personnel for an active 2-3 zone and none of these teams do.  Or is it something we are doing to prevent or discourage another Santa Clara style defense?  I am mystified.

Interesting stat:  Alanna had more points than minutes.  (I haven't figured her out.  I don't see the flashiness of an Ogwumike, nor the sheer aggressiveness of a Appel.  But she is being effective.)

Alanna plays like an international player--which she is.  That means lots of face-up jump shots and the inside-out game.  She is the perfect 3 or stretch 4.  Unlike the Ogwumikes or Appel, she should not live under the basket--that would be wasting part of her talent.  It is not that she lacks good moves there--hers are probably better than anyone on the team except McCall (perhaps) at the moment.  But unlike those posts she can hit treys and thus force opposing posts to come out to guard her, opening up the interior.  Remember Bonnie playing the stretch four last year?  Alanna can do that too, but with the added benefit of being stronger and more gifted on those occasions when she is under the basket fighting for rebounds and putting them back.

While I am glad to get the online streaming, it is frustrating for it to be about 4 frames per second, as you can't discern details such as fouls, travels, etc.

Mine was fine, almost high def.  Comcast cable, nothing special, and the feed was much clearer than many of them in the past have been for me.  I know that blurry-out look--but none of that so far from this tournament for me so far.  I think a lot depends on your local connections and the bandwidth issues in your neighborhood.  You might be better off taking a wireless laptop to various coffee houses until you find one with a faster stream.

While we won, we confirmed we're not a top team this year.  I suspect we're overranked at #13.

Well, we are not a top team yet.  Tara's teams always learn more and improve more over the course of a year than most other teams do.  Her system and coaching is simply more effective than most competitors and thus her teams often show much greater improvement over a season than we would expect.  Combine that with a dearth of experience--not a single senior starter, even the juniors are more like sophomores in experience, the greatest talent on the team being a frosh from the other side of the planet still adjusting to our funny accents--and I think there is enormous room for improvement as the year goes along.  Today's game and the coming games against Texas, Chattanooga (nearly beat Tennessee again this year), and Tennessee are going to be quite difficult for us.  I hope we can win a couple of them.  Because if the Pac 12 started right now I doubt we would finish higher than 4th.  But something tells me we will be looking at a very different team by the middle of March.  Let's hope so.

[81alum]

Thank you MT for starting a good conversation.  As always, I find your observations very useful.

(Re 81alum (short post):  Turnovers were lop-sided. You apparently misread our TOs.  We had 20 (not 15) TO for which Dayton got 27 pts.  They had 13 TO for which we got 15 pts

Mea culpa.  I did misread the line.  That makes the points off turnovers make a lot more sense.  About three charges, probably a few more ill advised entrance passes which is why our point guards all have lousy assist-to-turnover ratios these days--Lili probably being the best, and she had 7 assists to 5 turnovers.  And a lot of sloppiness.  Several screening fouls--that was reminiscent of Chattanooga and Tennessee last year.  At least they called a couple of those on Dayton too.  But it all adds up to a collection of reasons for turning the ball over.

      81alum (main post):  In the first half, as you said, Dayton hit 7 of 19 threes, while we hit 3 of 9.  But I wouldn't characterize Dayton as "caught on fire from three" when they're hitting 36.8% to our 33.3%.  Perhaps you were influenced by listening to the Dayton audio feed?

Those notes were written live with the game in the second quarter--note the paragraph opening.  At the end of the second quarter Dayton hit 4 three pointers in a row.  It seemed at the time that they had caught on fire.  It was at that moment I wrote that comment. 

The game didn't turn out to be an acid test of Stanford vs a zone.

All the pregame publicity had emphasized the Dayton zone, how they used it to shut down Maine, etc.  But I was not too sure what they were running at first.  I presumed it was some kind of loose zone with switching going on.  But then late in the second quarter the announcers said they had just switched to a zone, and it was indeed a much more obvious zone.  In any case, it does not seem to me as if anyone has really taken a page from Santa Clara yet.  It is hard to believe that Santa Clara has the personnel for an active 2-3 zone and none of these teams do.  Or is it something we are doing to prevent or discourage another Santa Clara style defense?  I am mystified.

Interesting stat:  Alanna had more points than minutes.  (I haven't figured her out.  I don't see the flashiness of an Ogwumike, nor the sheer aggressiveness of a Appel.  But she is being effective.)

Alanna plays like an international player--which she is.  That means lots of face-up jump shots and the inside-out game.  She is the perfect 3 or stretch 4.  Unlike the Ogwumikes or Appel, she should not live under the basket--that would be wasting part of her talent.  It is not that she lacks good moves there--hers are probably better than anyone on the team except McCall (perhaps) at the moment.  But unlike those posts she can hit treys and thus force opposing posts to come out to guard her, opening up the interior.  Remember Bonnie playing the stretch four last year?  Alanna can do that too, but with the added benefit of being stronger and more gifted on those occasions when she is under the basket fighting for rebounds and putting them back.

While I am glad to get the online streaming, it is frustrating for it to be about 4 frames per second, as you can't discern details such as fouls, travels, etc.

Mine was fine, almost high def.  Comcast cable, nothing special, and the feed was much clearer than many of them in the past have been for me.  I know that blurry-out look--but none of that so far from this tournament for me so far.  I think a lot depends on your local connections and the bandwidth issues in your neighborhood.  You might be better off taking a wireless laptop to various coffee houses until you find one with a faster stream.

While we won, we confirmed we're not a top team this year.  I suspect we're overranked at #13.

Well, we are not a top team yet.  Tara's teams always learn more and improve more over the course of a year than most other teams do.  Her system and coaching is simply more effective than most competitors and thus her teams often show much greater improvement over a season than we would expect.  Combine that with a dearth of experience--not a single senior starter, even the juniors are more like sophomores in experience, the greatest talent on the team being a frosh from the other side of the planet still adjusting to our funny accents--and I think there is enormous room for improvement as the year goes along.  Today's game and the coming games against Texas, Chattanooga (nearly beat Tennessee again this year), and Tennessee are going to be quite difficult for us.  I hope we can win a couple of them.  Because if the Pac 12 started right now I doubt we would finish higher than 4th.  But something tells me we will be looking at a very different team by the middle of March.  Let's hope so.