[M T]

Yeah, of course we can always find things to improve on, but a four quarter (we outscored them in each of the quarters), 27 point win over a top-25 team.  I'll take that any day.

My thought as I left Maples was that the team played like the tide.  Steadily coming at you and there's nothing you can do about it.  Try to stop it in one spot or two or three and the others just flood in their place.  Fight the tide and it will wear you down in the end.

I'm sure Tara loves the fact that she can keep rotating players, forcing different match-ups for the defense.  I think that also is going to keep our foul numbers down.   Belibi fouled out, but I think Tara left her in so she'd learn (in the future) how to play differently when she's got too many fouls.

Who believes we got out rebounded??  Under our basket, we got 15 out of 40 rebounds (37.5% !!) while under their basket we got 35 out of 54 (64.8%).  37.5 + 64.8 = 102.3 (so TN would be at 97.7)   Plus, I like the fact that we had 9 blocks to their 5.  That's against a taller team.

On the TV, they were touting TN's rebounding & defense at the start of the game.   In the seconds after the game was over, probably when the announcers had a chance to look at the final stats, Stanford's defense was finally acknowledged.   That's ok.  Let everyone talk about scoring, while the defense winds up beating them.  A good defensive team rarely has off nights on defense.

We didn't steal the ball anywhere near the pace of the previous game, but we managed an advantage (7-6).  Maybe TN was focussed on that.  But I felt Stanford didn't take the risks (probably with good reason).

All this said, we have lost enough of our depth to injuries that we are one more injury from dropping our play significantly.   I don't think it is against NCAA rules to wish/pray/chant the best of health to our players!

P.S.  I don't know what the origin is of "Next Starts Now", or even really what it is supposed to mean.   But, I did notice the use of a logo "Next Begins Here" by UTAustin (non-athletics).

[M T]

Yeah, of course we can always find things to improve on, but a four quarter (we outscored them in each of the quarters), 27 point win over a top-25 team.  I'll take that any day.

My thought as I left Maples was that the team played like the tide.  Steadily coming at you and there's nothing you can do about it.  Try to stop it in one spot or two or three and the others just flood in their place.  Fight the tide and it will wear you down in the end.

I'm sure Tara loves the fact that she can keep rotating players, forcing different match-ups for the defense.  I think that also is going to keep our foul numbers down.   Belibi fouled out, but I think Tara left her in so she'd learn (in the future) how to play differently when she's got too many fouls.

Who believes we got out rebounded??  Under our basket, we got 15 out of 40 rebounds (37.5% !!) while under their basket we got 35 out of 54 (64.8%).  37.5 + 64.8 = 102.3 (so TN would be at 97.7)   Plus, I like the fact that we had 9 blocks to their 5.  That's against a taller team.

On the TV, they were touting TN's rebounding & defense at the start of the game.   In the seconds after the game was over, probably when the announcers had a chance to look at the final stats, Stanford's defense was finally acknowledged.   That's ok.  Let everyone talk about scoring, while the defense winds up beating them.  A good defensive team rarely has off nights on defense.

We didn't steal the ball anywhere near the pace of the previous game, but we managed an advantage (7-6).  Maybe TN was focussed on that.  But I felt Stanford didn't take the risks (probably with good reason).

All this said, we have lost enough of our depth to injuries that we are one more injury from dropping our play significantly.   I don't think it is against NCAA rules to wish/pray/chant the best of health to our players!

P.S.  I don't know what the origin is of "Next Starts Now", or even really what it is supposed to mean.   But, I did notice the use of a logo "Next Begins Here" by UTAustin (non-athletics).