12-30-2016, 08:02 AM
Preliminary:
Arizona State has beaten us both home and away the last two years, and last year it did so with a suffocating defense that led to our worst offensive output in school history. They have all their key posts back this year (Moos, Dornstauder, and Brunner) and start all three of them now. They graduated their top guards. 5'10" sophomore Sabrina Haines and 5'11" freshman Reili Richardson have been starting, but Charli always rotates a lot and no one has more than 25 minutes in the game. They have a 9-2 record by steamrollering lesser opponents, but also beat Kentucky by two. Maryland, however, beat them by 41. ASU's hallmark has always been very close, frenetic man defense. They are holding opponents to 53 ppg on 42% shooting. That is not quite as good as last year, and they are through the easy part of their schedule. By the way, our "scouting report" sagging man defense may not look like much, but it is currently #12 in the country, holding opponents to 33% shooting, and puts us way in front of UConn and slightly behind Oregon State and South Carolina. Tara always seems to get our defense ready, especially for the first game of a weekend series, and so we might anticipate a low scoring day on both sides.
Overview:
We win a very tight game, overcoming ASU's 22-12 offensive rebounding advantage with scoring distributed among 8 players, and 60% three point shooting. This breaks a two year drought since we won a regular season game against ASU, and is especially impressive coming on the road and without Kaylee. The announcers said that Kaylee is expected back next week.
Flow of the game
We scored more points in the first half (32) than we did one year ago in the entire miserable game. Murphy pointed that out to Tara at the half and Tara said "low bar!" In the first half, the ASU defense was clearly not up to the level it has played the last two years at the perimeter. They tried to do the same things--they play very close man and cut off passing lanes, making it difficult to pass the ball around the perimeter. We responded in two ways. First, Sniezek kept trying to make them pay for the close perimeter defense by taking the open lanes to the basket and she put up a lot of layups--not too accurately unfortunately. Second, Karlie curled around screens to take passes at the elbow and make mid range jump shots--something we have rarely seen from her. So we did much better offensively than a year ago. Last year Tara told the team that ASU's style of defense gives up a lot of layups and that we would have to make them, and we frankly were not making them at the rate we should have. But we were also helped by Britt and Karlie hitting all their treys.
Defense, however, was another story. ASU got many more offensive rebounds and had a few of those 3-possessions-in-a-row situations. Brunner is incredibly accurate anywhere within 10 feet of the basket and she was converting offensive rebounds. As a result, the game was notched at 32-31 Stanford at half time.Â
We had a much better third quarter defensively, holding ASU to 11 points while scoring 16, pulling us to a six point lead. Offensively it did not start well, with our first field goal not coming until Carrington made a layup at 5:59. Then Roberson made a trey and Carrington made a trey and we got our lead back. Layups by McPhee and Fingall and a trey by Karlie got us to a 6 point lead going in to the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter opened with tough defense on both ends, and things did not start heating up until after Alanna stole the ball and took it in for a layup to give us an eight point lead with 4:41 left in the game. ASU scored four unanswered points on a single possession--a foul with recovery of the second free throw miss, a layup-and-one with a recovery of the missed free throw, and one of the two free throws after yet another foul. It felt like the lead was dissolving. After a foul, an ASU free throw, and a Sniezek turnover, the ASU freshman point guard made a layup to cut our lead to 1 point with 1:19 left. After we made a free throw, we were leading by 2 with 19 second left.
Tara called a play coming out of a timeout to get the ball the Erica for a three point attempt. Erica was briefly open but Dornstauder clipped her on the arm as Erica was shooting and the refs called a foul. The ASU crowd booed lustily for the rest of the game, but the replay showed definite contact. Erica sank her three free throws, Karlie added a couple more, and the game was on ice.
Performances:
This was clearly a team win, not a win led by one or two stars. We wound up with a major 22-12 deficit in offensive rebounding--or the game would not have been close. We shot 44% to their 38%, we made 6/10 treys while they made 2/10 treys--so you could call that the difference too, I guess. Every other stat--assists, turnovers, fouls, blocks--were fairly even.
Karlie led our scoring with 16 points--particularly in the first half. I can't emphasize enough how unusual it was to see her hitting all those mid range jump shots. They were beautiful to behold. She went 6/9, played good defense, and had the usual enormous hustle for 50/50 balls.
Erica was next in scoring with 12 points, but they were very hard earned. She made only two field goals on 2/6 shooting, but added 8/9 free throws. It was rough inside. She also pulled down 11 rebounds to make it the hardest earned double-double of her career.
Fingall started again, and had 8 points on 4/9 shooting. While she did not have a 100% day as she did against Yale, her ability around the basket just gets more obvious the more she plays. She collected 3 offensive rebounds and curiously 0 defensive rebounds. That last statistic bears some watching--she was on Dornstauder a lot and Quinn got 4 offensive rebounds.
McPhee also had 8 points but on 3/11 shooting. ASU defense is clearly tough and it took a toll on her. But she had 4 much needed rebounds, 2 assists, and a block--she is an all-around player.
Roberson started but Sniezek seemed to play more and got a lot of positive attention from Mary Murphy. However, their stats seemed similar. 6 vs. 7 points, 2 vs 3 assists, 3 vs. 3 turnovers. Anna did not play. Both seemed to play good defense--they were actually much more experienced than the ASU guards they were guarding.
Alanna played quite a few minutes and contributed 4 blocks and 2 points. Carrington chipped in 5 points and at a critical juncture.
Conclusion:
The offense was just good enough, but I think our defense is improving as the season goes on. A very impressive win--certainly the best since Texas and an important one to build confidence.Â
In 2015 we lost to lowly Arizona at their place. We need to avoid that ever happening again. Let's hope for a great win on Sunday that will give Tara the chance to get Anna into the game. And then when we return to Maples on Friday we might see Kaylee back. But for now, we can be happy for a good win that shows much progress by our team.
Arizona State has beaten us both home and away the last two years, and last year it did so with a suffocating defense that led to our worst offensive output in school history. They have all their key posts back this year (Moos, Dornstauder, and Brunner) and start all three of them now. They graduated their top guards. 5'10" sophomore Sabrina Haines and 5'11" freshman Reili Richardson have been starting, but Charli always rotates a lot and no one has more than 25 minutes in the game. They have a 9-2 record by steamrollering lesser opponents, but also beat Kentucky by two. Maryland, however, beat them by 41. ASU's hallmark has always been very close, frenetic man defense. They are holding opponents to 53 ppg on 42% shooting. That is not quite as good as last year, and they are through the easy part of their schedule. By the way, our "scouting report" sagging man defense may not look like much, but it is currently #12 in the country, holding opponents to 33% shooting, and puts us way in front of UConn and slightly behind Oregon State and South Carolina. Tara always seems to get our defense ready, especially for the first game of a weekend series, and so we might anticipate a low scoring day on both sides.
Overview:
We win a very tight game, overcoming ASU's 22-12 offensive rebounding advantage with scoring distributed among 8 players, and 60% three point shooting. This breaks a two year drought since we won a regular season game against ASU, and is especially impressive coming on the road and without Kaylee. The announcers said that Kaylee is expected back next week.
Flow of the game
We scored more points in the first half (32) than we did one year ago in the entire miserable game. Murphy pointed that out to Tara at the half and Tara said "low bar!" In the first half, the ASU defense was clearly not up to the level it has played the last two years at the perimeter. They tried to do the same things--they play very close man and cut off passing lanes, making it difficult to pass the ball around the perimeter. We responded in two ways. First, Sniezek kept trying to make them pay for the close perimeter defense by taking the open lanes to the basket and she put up a lot of layups--not too accurately unfortunately. Second, Karlie curled around screens to take passes at the elbow and make mid range jump shots--something we have rarely seen from her. So we did much better offensively than a year ago. Last year Tara told the team that ASU's style of defense gives up a lot of layups and that we would have to make them, and we frankly were not making them at the rate we should have. But we were also helped by Britt and Karlie hitting all their treys.
Defense, however, was another story. ASU got many more offensive rebounds and had a few of those 3-possessions-in-a-row situations. Brunner is incredibly accurate anywhere within 10 feet of the basket and she was converting offensive rebounds. As a result, the game was notched at 32-31 Stanford at half time.Â
We had a much better third quarter defensively, holding ASU to 11 points while scoring 16, pulling us to a six point lead. Offensively it did not start well, with our first field goal not coming until Carrington made a layup at 5:59. Then Roberson made a trey and Carrington made a trey and we got our lead back. Layups by McPhee and Fingall and a trey by Karlie got us to a 6 point lead going in to the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter opened with tough defense on both ends, and things did not start heating up until after Alanna stole the ball and took it in for a layup to give us an eight point lead with 4:41 left in the game. ASU scored four unanswered points on a single possession--a foul with recovery of the second free throw miss, a layup-and-one with a recovery of the missed free throw, and one of the two free throws after yet another foul. It felt like the lead was dissolving. After a foul, an ASU free throw, and a Sniezek turnover, the ASU freshman point guard made a layup to cut our lead to 1 point with 1:19 left. After we made a free throw, we were leading by 2 with 19 second left.
Tara called a play coming out of a timeout to get the ball the Erica for a three point attempt. Erica was briefly open but Dornstauder clipped her on the arm as Erica was shooting and the refs called a foul. The ASU crowd booed lustily for the rest of the game, but the replay showed definite contact. Erica sank her three free throws, Karlie added a couple more, and the game was on ice.
Performances:
This was clearly a team win, not a win led by one or two stars. We wound up with a major 22-12 deficit in offensive rebounding--or the game would not have been close. We shot 44% to their 38%, we made 6/10 treys while they made 2/10 treys--so you could call that the difference too, I guess. Every other stat--assists, turnovers, fouls, blocks--were fairly even.
Karlie led our scoring with 16 points--particularly in the first half. I can't emphasize enough how unusual it was to see her hitting all those mid range jump shots. They were beautiful to behold. She went 6/9, played good defense, and had the usual enormous hustle for 50/50 balls.
Erica was next in scoring with 12 points, but they were very hard earned. She made only two field goals on 2/6 shooting, but added 8/9 free throws. It was rough inside. She also pulled down 11 rebounds to make it the hardest earned double-double of her career.
Fingall started again, and had 8 points on 4/9 shooting. While she did not have a 100% day as she did against Yale, her ability around the basket just gets more obvious the more she plays. She collected 3 offensive rebounds and curiously 0 defensive rebounds. That last statistic bears some watching--she was on Dornstauder a lot and Quinn got 4 offensive rebounds.
McPhee also had 8 points but on 3/11 shooting. ASU defense is clearly tough and it took a toll on her. But she had 4 much needed rebounds, 2 assists, and a block--she is an all-around player.
Roberson started but Sniezek seemed to play more and got a lot of positive attention from Mary Murphy. However, their stats seemed similar. 6 vs. 7 points, 2 vs 3 assists, 3 vs. 3 turnovers. Anna did not play. Both seemed to play good defense--they were actually much more experienced than the ASU guards they were guarding.
Alanna played quite a few minutes and contributed 4 blocks and 2 points. Carrington chipped in 5 points and at a critical juncture.
Conclusion:
The offense was just good enough, but I think our defense is improving as the season goes on. A very impressive win--certainly the best since Texas and an important one to build confidence.Â
In 2015 we lost to lowly Arizona at their place. We need to avoid that ever happening again. Let's hope for a great win on Sunday that will give Tara the chance to get Anna into the game. And then when we return to Maples on Friday we might see Kaylee back. But for now, we can be happy for a good win that shows much progress by our team.
