[2006alum]

I was reading recaps of games in past seasons and during Chiney's freshman year, there was a conference game against UCLA.  It was relatively close at halftime and Nneka didn't play that game because of an injury, and the article quoted Tara telling Chiney to "take over the game" and do what she needed to do at halftime.  This was on a team that had Pedersen and Pohlen.  It would be nice to see an elite freshman have that type of immediate impact.

It also stands in contrast to what seems like Tara's reluctance to use Brittany and Alanna more frequently even though they've been producing a little more offensively.

Totally agree. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg situation, though: on the one hand, perhaps no one is rising up and taking charge because Tara doesn't think we have a Chiney-like playmaker who can effectively take over. On the other hand, it's hard to find one when we have offense-by-committee and a rotating cast where every game we feature a different leading scorer. Remarkably, we've had a different leading scorer in each of our last four games (Kailee at OSU, Karlie at Oregon, Kaylee vs. Colorado, and Lili and Brittany vs. Utah). That doesn't count the fact that Erica, our second-leading scorer, has also been our top scorer in four games, or that both Alanna and Bri have been our leading scorers in two games each. In total, we've had seven players take top billing on a given night, and while that probably makes us slightly harder to scout, it also makes it really hard to establish an offensive rhythm for longer than 40 minutes. It'd sure be nice to have a player (or couple of players) we could reliably count on game after game. We really haven't had that since Chiney left, and it shows. I really thought we were there with Bird through the end of non-conference play, but the last five games have been really dispiriting. (On the other hand, since she rarely starts with the ball, our drop-off in guard play probably unfairly punishes her numbers).

[2006alum]

I was reading recaps of games in past seasons and during Chiney's freshman year, there was a conference game against UCLA.  It was relatively close at halftime and Nneka didn't play that game because of an injury, and the article quoted Tara telling Chiney to "take over the game" and do what she needed to do at halftime.  This was on a team that had Pedersen and Pohlen.  It would be nice to see an elite freshman have that type of immediate impact.

It also stands in contrast to what seems like Tara's reluctance to use Brittany and Alanna more frequently even though they've been producing a little more offensively.

Totally agree. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg situation, though: on the one hand, perhaps no one is rising up and taking charge because Tara doesn't think we have a Chiney-like playmaker who can effectively take over. On the other hand, it's hard to find one when we have offense-by-committee and a rotating cast where every game we feature a different leading scorer. Remarkably, we've had a different leading scorer in each of our last four games (Kailee at OSU, Karlie at Oregon, Kaylee vs. Colorado, and Lili and Brittany vs. Utah). That doesn't count the fact that Erica, our second-leading scorer, has also been our top scorer in four games, or that both Alanna and Bri have been our leading scorers in two games each. In total, we've had seven players take top billing on a given night, and while that probably makes us slightly harder to scout, it also makes it really hard to establish an offensive rhythm for longer than 40 minutes. It'd sure be nice to have a player (or couple of players) we could reliably count on game after game. We really haven't had that since Chiney left, and it shows. I really thought we were there with Bird through the end of non-conference play, but the last five games have been really dispiriting. (On the other hand, since she rarely starts with the ball, our drop-off in guard play probably unfairly punishes her numbers).