12-17-2017, 10:45 PM
Preliminary:Â
Western Illinois is ranked 91 by Sagarin, so somewhat better than UNLV. They beat 9-4 Illinois at Illinois. They are led by experienced guards that are very good at steals and three point shots, so cutting down on turnovers and perimeter defense will be important to us. Given that--I expect that Tara will play a smaller lineup. I'd be shocked to see the same 5 starters as against UNLV, rather I expect to see three guards who can handle the ball.Â
Before the Game:
Kate talked to us before the game, confirmed that McPhee and Carrington were still out. During warmups they were on the court helping with the drills. I did not see any sign of gimpiness on either McPhee's ankle or Carrinton's elbow, no boots or slings or pads--they looked normal to the untrained eye.
Kate noted that Western Illinois is an excellent three point shooting team and talked about how they had three shooters who each had twice as many threes as any of our players. WI also plays exclusively in the 1-3-1 zone and is aggressive in it, meaning we had been practicing our zone breaking offense. We were told we would have to hit our three point shots from the deep corners to break it.
We were also told that we were going to stick with the same starting lineup. This shocked me since I imagined that we would need faster, smaller guards to keep up with this quick team.
Overview of the Game:
A scrappy Western Illinois gained confidence the longer they hung in the game, while we seemed to lose confidence as we proved to the world that we are seriously behind in the rebuilding of our team. Most shocking statistic: little, undersized Western Illinois had 34 points in the paint; we had 24.
Analysis:
Let me just list the reasons for this loss, in descending order of importance:
1. Poor defense. We could not defend against the slashing attacks to the basket of their little 5'4" senior guard Emily Clemens, who is practically the only player on their team who is NOT a three point threat, and who racked up 26 points on 9/16 shooting and who dished under the basket for 4 more assists when we did get someone in front of her. This bodes very, very ill for us, given that we have Evina Westbrook, Jordan Canada, and Sadie Edwards coming to town in our next three games. We are only now learning that the departure of McCall/Samuelson/Roberson cost us a lot more on defense than it did on offense. Tara tried every healthy guard except Brewer and no one could shut down Clemens--a good but far from elite guard from a mid major conference.
2. Lack of mental toughness. Our team lost confidence when the game got tense in the third quarter and did not play with confidence when playing from behind. This might be a function of youth unless you consider Alanna. While Alanna was our leading scorer with 18 points and also had 15 rebounds, she was only 8/24, 0/3 from three point range and a miserable 2/7 free throws. It seems that she and our team were playing with fear in the second half, short arming shots, over thinking free throws, double clutching etc. Fear of losing makes losing more likely. This is where I put our awful, awful free throw shooting. We were only 8/19, while WI was 20/26.
3. Inadequate scouting. Kate made it clear that we were chiefly concerned about their three point threat. However, their three point shooting was not particularly good. We left them open many times, and they were only 5/29--not because of our defense but mainly because they were just slightly missing--probably 10 balls rimmed out. On the other hand, we clearly were not expecting the slashing moves to the basket, or we would not have started with a big, slow lineup. Tara pretty rapidly pulled out Coffee and sent in three guards, and this stabilized the game in the second quarter. But it is not like us to be surprised in that way. Higgenbotthem, who is their leading three point shooter at nearly 50%, was 0/3, so we seem to have done a good job on her at the expense of leaving lanes open.
4. Poor officiating. Our old favorite Missy Barlowe is at least consistent--she doesn't believe in calling any fouls on body contact in the paint. She never has. In this game the undersized Leathernecks repeatedly converged on Smith, Dodson, or Johnson and squeezed them between two bodies. An example of Tara's criticism of sumo-wrestling defense, and it was responsible for our bigs being a total of 8/29. The officiating greatly diminished what should have been our biggest advantage.
5. Turnovers. We had 19, which was not as bad as it could have been, or I would have put this one higher on the list. Western Illinois is in the top 10 teams in the nation for steals, and yes they did have 12 of them tonight, but it could have been worse. But one way you keep an inferior team in the game is to repeatedly hand the ball to them, and we did.
6. Zone offense. Our zone offense seemed to do quite well in the 2nd quarter, but we clearly did not know how to solve the 1-3-1 zone in the first. That is forgiveable--no amount of practice could really prepare us for a completely new kind of defense, and it did seem as if we settled in and solved it in the 2nd after floundering in the 1st. But we went back to floundering in the 3rd, and by then the damage was done--WI was inspired and we got tight and lost our nerve. Still, we scored 64 points, made more baskets and more three point shots than they did, so it was not as if we were hopeless against this zone. But our offense did seem to regress after the progress we saw last game.
7. Injuries. Having McPhee especially, and maybe Carrington, would have made a difference on defense. They are both streaky shooters so there is no guarantee that they would have scored more than their replacements, but the senior's experience on defense (she is a good shot blocker) might well have been enough to stop Clemens.
Performances:
I'm not going to go through one by one. Alanna's struggles are documented above. Kiana Williams was our second leading scorer with 17 points, but she was only 3/11 from three point range. Anna Wilson was 3/15 from three point range. Kaylee had 18 rebounds but fouled out with 1 point. Marta played for 29 minutes in our new three guard lineup, had 6 assists to 3 turnovers but 0 points.Â
As a team we shot 31%, they shot 35%. We had 24 offensive rebounds to their 14--and didn't convert on a lot of them.Â
Conclusion:
This is as bad as it has been in a long time. Fortunately this week's polls are out, which means we have a chance if we can do a turnaround miracle and beat Tennessee to stay ranked. If we lose to Tennessee then it is a certainty that we will become an unranked team for the first time in my memory.
Looking ahead, we are now in a fight to 1) reclaim a ranking, 2) having a winning record in the Pac 12, and 3) make the NCAAs. It is quite possible that we could lose the next three games at home, leaving us 6-8 heading into the new year.Â
Western Illinois is ranked 91 by Sagarin, so somewhat better than UNLV. They beat 9-4 Illinois at Illinois. They are led by experienced guards that are very good at steals and three point shots, so cutting down on turnovers and perimeter defense will be important to us. Given that--I expect that Tara will play a smaller lineup. I'd be shocked to see the same 5 starters as against UNLV, rather I expect to see three guards who can handle the ball.Â
Before the Game:
Kate talked to us before the game, confirmed that McPhee and Carrington were still out. During warmups they were on the court helping with the drills. I did not see any sign of gimpiness on either McPhee's ankle or Carrinton's elbow, no boots or slings or pads--they looked normal to the untrained eye.
Kate noted that Western Illinois is an excellent three point shooting team and talked about how they had three shooters who each had twice as many threes as any of our players. WI also plays exclusively in the 1-3-1 zone and is aggressive in it, meaning we had been practicing our zone breaking offense. We were told we would have to hit our three point shots from the deep corners to break it.
We were also told that we were going to stick with the same starting lineup. This shocked me since I imagined that we would need faster, smaller guards to keep up with this quick team.
Overview of the Game:
A scrappy Western Illinois gained confidence the longer they hung in the game, while we seemed to lose confidence as we proved to the world that we are seriously behind in the rebuilding of our team. Most shocking statistic: little, undersized Western Illinois had 34 points in the paint; we had 24.
Analysis:
Let me just list the reasons for this loss, in descending order of importance:
1. Poor defense. We could not defend against the slashing attacks to the basket of their little 5'4" senior guard Emily Clemens, who is practically the only player on their team who is NOT a three point threat, and who racked up 26 points on 9/16 shooting and who dished under the basket for 4 more assists when we did get someone in front of her. This bodes very, very ill for us, given that we have Evina Westbrook, Jordan Canada, and Sadie Edwards coming to town in our next three games. We are only now learning that the departure of McCall/Samuelson/Roberson cost us a lot more on defense than it did on offense. Tara tried every healthy guard except Brewer and no one could shut down Clemens--a good but far from elite guard from a mid major conference.
2. Lack of mental toughness. Our team lost confidence when the game got tense in the third quarter and did not play with confidence when playing from behind. This might be a function of youth unless you consider Alanna. While Alanna was our leading scorer with 18 points and also had 15 rebounds, she was only 8/24, 0/3 from three point range and a miserable 2/7 free throws. It seems that she and our team were playing with fear in the second half, short arming shots, over thinking free throws, double clutching etc. Fear of losing makes losing more likely. This is where I put our awful, awful free throw shooting. We were only 8/19, while WI was 20/26.
3. Inadequate scouting. Kate made it clear that we were chiefly concerned about their three point threat. However, their three point shooting was not particularly good. We left them open many times, and they were only 5/29--not because of our defense but mainly because they were just slightly missing--probably 10 balls rimmed out. On the other hand, we clearly were not expecting the slashing moves to the basket, or we would not have started with a big, slow lineup. Tara pretty rapidly pulled out Coffee and sent in three guards, and this stabilized the game in the second quarter. But it is not like us to be surprised in that way. Higgenbotthem, who is their leading three point shooter at nearly 50%, was 0/3, so we seem to have done a good job on her at the expense of leaving lanes open.
4. Poor officiating. Our old favorite Missy Barlowe is at least consistent--she doesn't believe in calling any fouls on body contact in the paint. She never has. In this game the undersized Leathernecks repeatedly converged on Smith, Dodson, or Johnson and squeezed them between two bodies. An example of Tara's criticism of sumo-wrestling defense, and it was responsible for our bigs being a total of 8/29. The officiating greatly diminished what should have been our biggest advantage.
5. Turnovers. We had 19, which was not as bad as it could have been, or I would have put this one higher on the list. Western Illinois is in the top 10 teams in the nation for steals, and yes they did have 12 of them tonight, but it could have been worse. But one way you keep an inferior team in the game is to repeatedly hand the ball to them, and we did.
6. Zone offense. Our zone offense seemed to do quite well in the 2nd quarter, but we clearly did not know how to solve the 1-3-1 zone in the first. That is forgiveable--no amount of practice could really prepare us for a completely new kind of defense, and it did seem as if we settled in and solved it in the 2nd after floundering in the 1st. But we went back to floundering in the 3rd, and by then the damage was done--WI was inspired and we got tight and lost our nerve. Still, we scored 64 points, made more baskets and more three point shots than they did, so it was not as if we were hopeless against this zone. But our offense did seem to regress after the progress we saw last game.
7. Injuries. Having McPhee especially, and maybe Carrington, would have made a difference on defense. They are both streaky shooters so there is no guarantee that they would have scored more than their replacements, but the senior's experience on defense (she is a good shot blocker) might well have been enough to stop Clemens.
Performances:
I'm not going to go through one by one. Alanna's struggles are documented above. Kiana Williams was our second leading scorer with 17 points, but she was only 3/11 from three point range. Anna Wilson was 3/15 from three point range. Kaylee had 18 rebounds but fouled out with 1 point. Marta played for 29 minutes in our new three guard lineup, had 6 assists to 3 turnovers but 0 points.Â
As a team we shot 31%, they shot 35%. We had 24 offensive rebounds to their 14--and didn't convert on a lot of them.Â
Conclusion:
This is as bad as it has been in a long time. Fortunately this week's polls are out, which means we have a chance if we can do a turnaround miracle and beat Tennessee to stay ranked. If we lose to Tennessee then it is a certainty that we will become an unranked team for the first time in my memory.
Looking ahead, we are now in a fight to 1) reclaim a ranking, 2) having a winning record in the Pac 12, and 3) make the NCAAs. It is quite possible that we could lose the next three games at home, leaving us 6-8 heading into the new year.Â
