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WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - 2006alum - 11-04-2017

No looking good at the half - 21-17. None of the frosh (or, for that matter, sophomores) have scored. Been kept alive by McPhee so far. Interestingly, starting lineup is the seniors, Smith, Sniezek, and Romano. Wonder what the thinking is there, as I wouldn't have predicted her to be above both Wilson and Williams on the depth chart for the 1 or 2 positions. OTOH, Romano is the only player who's nailed a trey as of halftime. Hoping for a big leap in the second half...

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CompSci87 - 11-04-2017

McPhee sprained her ankle in the first half and Carrington started the 2nd half in her place.

The half-court offense has been the main problem, with the players seeming slow to make their reads and not much generated. But we've been creating turnovers and running and have built a 38-22 lead.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - mbdude - 11-04-2017

It sure sounded ugly listening to game. Lack of offense glaring - the only way we could score was on layups. 3 pt shooting 4 fot 23?.
Tara was very optimistic - hope she wasn't just trying to convince herself. Hope McPhees sprain isn't bad.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - TheFarm07 - 11-04-2017

Ugh, even though we won, from the box score and this thread discussing McPhee's injury, this was not a good day.

Only 60 points on 39% shooting? Not the way you want to warm up when you have the #5 and #1 teams in the country waiting next week, especially if your most seasoned, reliable scoring threat may have suffered an injury.

First, our frustrating loss in football, then this.  * Heavy sigh *

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - 81alum - 11-04-2017

Overview:

Both offense and defense seemed very rough, even for this early in the season.  The fact that UCSD was competitive tells me that we are going to lose quite a  few games while we learn and improve.  I am very concerned about McPhee, by far our best offensive player, who left with ice on her ankle.  She had the ice off by the end of the game and was walking around the bench area, but with a noticeable limp.

As for the new offense and the "Warriorization" of the team, you can't make it work when you go 4/25 from three point range.    It also doesn't help when a short, inferior team rebounds almost as well as we do.  We have a lot to fix and improve if we are going to have a decent season.

Performances:

Tara started her seniors and juniors--Johnson, Smith, McPhee, Sniezek, and Romano.  Four of those could have been expected but the new face was Romano.  Romano has shown hints of her capabilities in prior years, but Tara seems to be giving her a chance to play significant minutes in her junior year.  Her defense always seemed good to me and she did hustle today.  She probably helped her cause by going 3/6 from three point range and doing well with the rest of her stat line.  So Romano was the main surprise today to me.

Tara rotated many players, but the number of minutes played is probably a pretty good indication of who she thinks have the best chances of contributing this season.  Smith Sniezek and Romano were the only three with more than 20--McPhee would probably have joined them but left with the injury.  Dodson and Carrington each had 19 minutes.  Dodson didn't score a point but had 7 rebounds and 3 blocks.  Carrington's shot was off today but she finished with 8 points. 

Smith seemed quiet to me in the first half, but gradually asserted herself and wound up with 13 points and a developed stat line.

Johnson was 2/3 but played just 11 minutes.  Fingall also had only 11 minutes, and Fingall did not look much better than Dodson or Johnson to me.  They all have potential, but Dodson may have the most physical talent. 

Moschkau and Jerome got a little time but they won't be ready for serious college minutes for a while, I think.  Jerome had 11 minutes, hit a couple of free throws and snagged 4 rebounds.  Physically they remind me a little of Bonnie as a freshman--except they are not just three point specialists.  It took Bonnie a while to give significant help.

Wilson looked fully healthy to me but she did not have enough time to make a big mark--11 minutes.  She stroked one nice trey.  This is one of the few times we have seen her playing healthy.  I hope she continues to develop.

Williams moved like a really good athlete and got 14 minutes.  Clearly Tara is watching her.  But she was 1/6 with 2 turnovers and 0 assists.  You could tell that her physical skills were superior to many on the team, but she is not yet integrated into the team in an effective way.

We should not count Sniezek out.  Her lack of offense in prior years had me wondering if Williams or Wilson would be our starting PG this year.  Sniezek, however, had 7 assists, 1 turnover, and 4 steals.  She seemed a bit more aggressive about taking shots--but she only made one, sadly.  Meanwhile, it did not seem to me that Williams or Wilson are ready to run the offense, yet. 

Takeaways:

The first half was dreadful--we scored only 21 points against a small, overmatched team.  The offense did better in the second half--scoring almost twice as much at 39.  There was visibly more cutting and movement.  I have a hunch, though, that our offense is not going to be ready for prime time 6 days from now against Ohio State, or 8 days from now against UConn. 

Defense also was not so great--we gave up 20 points in the fourth quarter.  I think it is clear that our frosh and sophomores are not up to college level defense as yet, which is why Tara is sticking with her seniors and juniors to start the season.  Some of the youngsters will come along.  It seems that Tara is giving Dodson, Carrington, and Williams minutes and hopes they will develop in time to help this season, and she has already decided that junior Romano is her strongest fifth player for now.





Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - JJJ - 11-04-2017

I didn't get to watch this game, but always thought Romano was a high-energy defensive star. If she can get her O to come close to the D, I'm all for giving her starter PT.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - TheFarm07 - 11-04-2017

Thanks 81 for the recap.

Judging from your comments and re: Tara's optimism from the article, it seems a bit strange that she would be so confident with our team that she would schedule such a tough non-conference schedule when we struggled with a team that on paper, we should handle pretty easily.

When I went to check on the scoreline on the team's schedule page, I initially skipped it, because I couldn't believe we only scored 60 points, when we usually score 80+ points or at least have a more significant margin of victory in our exhibition match.

I know the timing of when we play opponents is not always under our control, but I wish we had a couple easy games before facing the Buckeyes or Huskies. With McPhee's injury, (I hope it's not serious and that by Friday, she'll be ready to go) and our difficulty with UC-San Diego, we certainly could have used an overmatched opponent or two to get our flow going.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - chimera - 11-04-2017

The early tough games may not be pretty.  The chedule does us no favors this season.  We may play 5 top 10 or even top 5 teams this year out of conference - UConn, Baylor, OSU (twice maybe) and TN.  I don't know where TN will be ranked but they always have top 5 talent.  If McPhee is out or limited, the early games could be ugly.  Today I saw a lot of individual potential from the younger players but as a team, it was not a great showing.  Probably much, much too early to say this but I will anyway - I did not see the improvement I hoped to see in our sophs.  Tara said a whole lot of good things about Nadia, to the point I wondered if she might even start, but she did not play much and though she had one nice post move for a score, did not do much else in her short time in the game.  DiJonai had some nice steals and drives, but also some ugly passes and still looked like she did as a frosh - just powers on through, sometimes it works out, sometimes not.  She seems not yet totally in sync with how the offense should run.  I hoped she would have a break out season, and she still may, it just was not apparent to me that she's been able to correct the things holding her back. 

As for the frosh, agree with the post above about Dodson.  She could be super good.  She is a physically very talented athlete and she played under control, did not rush.  Williams looked like she could be quite good too.  Harder to tell with Jerome, who we also heard good things about from the coaches.  She does look promising but also maybe not quite ready yet.  Moschkau did not play enough to really tell. 

Two major problems were poor shooting generally, and poor three-point shooting specifically, and rebounding.  We got out-rebounded by a smaller, slower team.  Ick. 

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - TheFarm07 - 11-04-2017

(11-04-2017, 09:28 PM)chimera link Wrote:Two major problems were poor shooting generally, and poor three-point shooting specifically, and rebounding.  We got out-rebounded by a smaller, slower team.  Ick.

Shooting you can blame on an off-day, but being out-rebounded by a smaller, slower team is inexcusable. I hope Tara pushes that in practice this week, because Ohio State and UConn will make us pay dearly. If we don't put up a decent showing, we might be thoroughly embarassed before returning from Ohio.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - 81alum - 11-05-2017

I don't want to overreact to one meaningless game, but that first half made our offense look like it was ASU or OSU defending us back in their glory days.

In trying to get a clue as to what this transition is supposed to be doing--I've heard or read "Warriorization" several times.  Some of you who are Warriors fans can probably educate me, but I take that to mean excellent ball movement and launching the three point shot at any time it is open, also starting fast breaks and scoring in transition whenever possible.  A lot of fast break and three point shooting teams have poor rebounding, no?  Could the new offense be hurting our rebounding?

Something else I don't fully understand, and a hard core  Warriors fan could enlighten me.  In our first half we were trying to get the open shot by passing the ball--and failing miserably.  In the second half we had players moving and cutting a lot more.  Were we just lazy in the first half--or was there a conscious change of strategy to go back to a movement offense after the pure passing offense flopped?  I wonder if the 1st half represented the "new" offense and the second half Tara went back to something else, or whether we were simply executing the new offense better in the 2nd half.  It would make a difference to my pessimism level.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CompSci87 - 11-05-2017

Scheduling is hard and some of it is done years in advance. Tara can't just sit down ahead of the season and say, hmm, I have a young team this year, so I'll schedule some easy games early, then ramp them up slowly. It takes two to tango on scheduling each game, and you can't schedule someone who's already committed to playing someone else on that date, etc.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CompSci87 - 11-05-2017

The Warriors' offense requires plenty of movement, not just passing. Passing without movement can't be what Tara is trying to install. So I think there was better execution in the 3rd quarter, not "let's go back to what we did last year."

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - 81alum - 11-05-2017

Thanks!

I just listened to Tara's presser:
https://soundcloud.com/gostanford/ucsd-tara-vanderveer-marta-sniezek-and-alanna-smith-11417

She commented on the "deer in the headlights look" that the youngsters had. 

She said "we are a much better three point shooting team than what you saw."  Good--but I have been hearing that line since LaRocque's three point shooting plummeted her senior year.  Shooting treys in practice just seems to be radically different than shooting them in games--even games that don't matter.

Tara said "we have a top group of 6 or 7 and then it could be any number of different people."  "The games will separate people a bit...just to see, experience-wise, who can play defense, who is going to rebound, who is going to make big plays."  "That was a great game for Alexa, that was really fun to see."

So Tara used all first names...I had been trying not to :P





Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CornFed - 11-05-2017

It is my impression that the Warriors style of basketball rests upon defensive intensity and the ball movement and opportunistic shot selection on ensuing fast breaks and transition game plays primarily.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - mbdude - 11-05-2017

I did feel bad for Estella and Mikaela - not getting in until very end

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - 81alum - 11-05-2017

Based on the presser and the minutes played, this is what I expect to see against Ohio State next week.

5. Johnson to start but Fingall and Dodson in relief--which ever of the three is most effective to get most of the minutes.  Whoever get the minutes has to guard Mavunga.  We will see if Kaylee can handle it--she has been better on defense and rebounding than on offense, and if she can control Mavunga she may get more time.
4. Smith for as long as she can go.
3. McPhee with some relief from Carrington, particularly if her ankle is not 100%.
2. Romano to start, but Wilson and Williams in relief.  Vanderveer will rotate them until she finds someone who can guard Kelsey Mitchell--if any one of them can.  That will be more important than their offense.  Romano may have the edge for this reason.
1. Sniezek to start.  I'm not sure if anyone else can play PG just yet.  Maybe Wilson in relief?

Ohio State, by the way, is playing its second exhibition today.  In their first they scored 110 points.  Kelsey Mitchell and Stephani Mavunga each scored 28.  Mavunga had 23 rebounds.  Ohio State shot 52% and 36% from three point range.  Now, little Ashland may not have been the rugged opposition of UCSD, but even so....  [Edit: just discovered that Ashland is the defending DII champ.  OSU won 110-80.]

I just logged into gametracker and see that Ohio State is up in its second exhibition over Urbana in the 3rd quarter, 113-49.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - mbdude - 11-05-2017

watched Ashland in DII championship game last year  - up tempo, running team, shoot 3's - sub a lot. Not very big - very fun to watch

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - TheFarm07 - 11-05-2017

We need to make the Ohio State game a lower scoring game I think. I don't think we have the consistent firepower to keep up with Ohio State's offense at this time. Focus on containing Mitchell and Mavunga and make their other players beat us, which is usually Tara's gameplan anyway. Then hope that McPhee's ankle injury isn't serious as it seems the offense runs through her and Smith right now, hopefully we can get production from another spot (or two) in the lineup.

Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CompSci87 - 11-05-2017

(11-05-2017, 08:45 AM)CornFed link Wrote:It is my impression that the Warriors style of basketball rests upon defensive intensity and the ball movement and opportunistic shot selection on ensuing fast breaks and transition game plays primarily.

That's an important aspect of the Warriors' style, and I think from some other things Tara has said that it's at least part of her plan this year. I think we saw a bit of it yesterday. It's not just fast breaking when you get a clear 2-on-1 or a breakaway, but also early offense when you get any advantage against a disrupted defense. If we do that it will be a real change from years when if we couldn't get an immediate layup we would back it out and run a half-court set.

I'm curious to see if the Warriorization also involves using Warriors sets in the half-court. Some of what they do should be workable for any team. Some works only because they have Steph Curry drawing two or more defenders even when only (!) threatening to get an open 3-pointer from a high screen, and they have Draymond Green and other players who can then take a pass and quickly act as playmaker to take advantage of the resulting 4-on-3 situation.

There's a great series of videos explaining elements of the Warriors offense on the Golden State of Mind web site, under the title "Explain One Play." Actually there's so much there that it would be hard to know where to start.



Re: WBB: Exhibition vs. UCSD - CompSci87 - 11-05-2017

On the point guard rotation, Tara described Sniezek and Williams as her two point guards during the postgame. During the game when Wilson came in it was as the 2-guard, at least initially. I would imagine she's the third option there when they need one, but who knows.