12-19-2012, 10:20 PM
All season I have been worried about what will happen when a team takes Chiney away, as probably Connecticut will. What happens when someone does to Chiney what we did to Griner? Now we know--sort of. And so does everyone else. The Connecticut boards have had a lot of discussion about Stanford being a one woman team this year--their fans are thinking what we are also thinking. In fairness, we are certainly not a one woman team. But when it comes to offense, we are getting pretty lopsided.
In her early career, Jos's offense was erratic. She would have high scoring games against inferior teams and then struggle against good defensive teams. I had hoped that she had matured out of that. She had 11 points against Baylor, for example. But tonight is cause for alarm as far as her offense is concerned. On the other hand, you could say she won the game for us with a remarkable defensive performance. Seven blocks in one game! Is that some kind of record? Amazing.
What is it with our three point shooting? Two games in a row it has been horrible, simply horrible. But we only took 4 shots, and only one in the second half. This has to be a coaching decision not to feature the three. Was this decision a cause or a symptom of poor long range shooting? What happened to that 8/14 three point shooting we had against Gonzaga?
I noticed that we outrebounded South Carolina 36-27, but they had many more offensive rebounds than we had--11 to 5. How did that happen? How is it that they had no one over 6 feet and we had three who were 6-3 and they got so many more chances than we did? Their steals and offensive rebounds resulted in their taking 63 shots to our 47. When one team gets 16 more chances to score than the other, you have to think that they will usually win. Fortunately, they made only 29% of their shots, which I would guess is due in part to our height advantage. Or were we just playing absolutely spectacular defense? Hard for me to know without having seen the game. How will this same defense of ours hold up against UConn?
How about some praise for shooting free throws? After Chiney missed her first two free throws, we went 100% from the charity stripe. They shot 64% That could be the game. Something positive we did, anyway. Special kudoes to Toni who was 7-7, including critical free throws down the stretch.
What is it that cuts assists down so sharply? Was that South Carolina's style of defense, or our own lack of imaginative offense? This is the second game in a row with sub par assists. Amber had 3 assists and 7 turnovers, Toni was 0/3. Mikaela got a lot of assists last game but 0 this game, suggesting that she was not able to get the high-low passing going at all.Â
While we cringe at 18 turnovers, keep in mind that 10 of those 18 were steals by South Carolina, which is almost exactly their average. That is just what they do. And at least a couple of the other 8 were travels or errant throws caused by aggressive defense. What I don't know is whether Tennessee or UConn have the personnel to duplicate the South Carolina steals.
Right now the Tennessee coaches are studying this game and dissecting it, trying to see if there is anything they can learn or use from it. I think they will learn a lot more to help them get ready for us than we will learn by watching the Tennessee-Baylor game. We have another dangerous game around the corner.
In her early career, Jos's offense was erratic. She would have high scoring games against inferior teams and then struggle against good defensive teams. I had hoped that she had matured out of that. She had 11 points against Baylor, for example. But tonight is cause for alarm as far as her offense is concerned. On the other hand, you could say she won the game for us with a remarkable defensive performance. Seven blocks in one game! Is that some kind of record? Amazing.
What is it with our three point shooting? Two games in a row it has been horrible, simply horrible. But we only took 4 shots, and only one in the second half. This has to be a coaching decision not to feature the three. Was this decision a cause or a symptom of poor long range shooting? What happened to that 8/14 three point shooting we had against Gonzaga?
I noticed that we outrebounded South Carolina 36-27, but they had many more offensive rebounds than we had--11 to 5. How did that happen? How is it that they had no one over 6 feet and we had three who were 6-3 and they got so many more chances than we did? Their steals and offensive rebounds resulted in their taking 63 shots to our 47. When one team gets 16 more chances to score than the other, you have to think that they will usually win. Fortunately, they made only 29% of their shots, which I would guess is due in part to our height advantage. Or were we just playing absolutely spectacular defense? Hard for me to know without having seen the game. How will this same defense of ours hold up against UConn?
How about some praise for shooting free throws? After Chiney missed her first two free throws, we went 100% from the charity stripe. They shot 64% That could be the game. Something positive we did, anyway. Special kudoes to Toni who was 7-7, including critical free throws down the stretch.
What is it that cuts assists down so sharply? Was that South Carolina's style of defense, or our own lack of imaginative offense? This is the second game in a row with sub par assists. Amber had 3 assists and 7 turnovers, Toni was 0/3. Mikaela got a lot of assists last game but 0 this game, suggesting that she was not able to get the high-low passing going at all.Â
While we cringe at 18 turnovers, keep in mind that 10 of those 18 were steals by South Carolina, which is almost exactly their average. That is just what they do. And at least a couple of the other 8 were travels or errant throws caused by aggressive defense. What I don't know is whether Tennessee or UConn have the personnel to duplicate the South Carolina steals.
Right now the Tennessee coaches are studying this game and dissecting it, trying to see if there is anything they can learn or use from it. I think they will learn a lot more to help them get ready for us than we will learn by watching the Tennessee-Baylor game. We have another dangerous game around the corner.