WBB: ESPN midseason predictions

WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - Printable Version

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WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - mbdude - 01-11-2023

Women's college basketball 2023 midseason Final Four predictions, player of the year picks (espn.com)

They make a strong case for Clark as POY

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BostonCard - 01-11-2023

Wow, two out of three pick Stanford to win the title over South Carolina. All three pick Brink as an all-American; 2/3 pick Jones as well. Most fanciful prediction in my mind:

Quote:Creme: South Carolina and Stanford won't lose again until meeting for the national championship.

I just don't see us not having a slip between now and then, especially given our schedule.

BC

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - 81alum - 01-11-2023

Yes, I can only hope they are correct--but we have a whole bunch of very challenging games. Their optimism about us is related to their complete lack of attention to the rest of the Pac 12. There wasn't a single other Pac 12 team mentioned in any of their analysis. So they must think everyone else in the Pac 12 is a cupcake. Trouble is--they aren't. And UCLA is the best of the rest. I'll be much more confident if we sweep the LA schools this weekend.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BostonCard - 01-11-2023

Charlie Creme does acknowledge that "The Cardinal, with six total games remaining against Arizona, Oregon, UCLA and Utah Utes in the regular season, unquestionably has the heavier lift to get to the final day without another loss"

But I think he underestimates just how hard that is going to be. I mean, Cal gave us a scare, and they weren't even in that top tier.

BC

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - WBB fan - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 10:15 AM)81alum Wrote: Yes, I can only hope they are correct--but we have a whole bunch of very challenging games. Their optimism about us is related to their complete lack of attention to the rest of the Pac 12. There wasn't a single other Pac 12 team mentioned in any of their analysis. So they must think everyone else in the Pac 12 is a cupcake. Trouble is--they aren't. And UCLA is the best of the rest. I'll be much more confident if we sweep the LA schools this weekend.

Totally agree, in all points

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - crackpot - 01-11-2023

After Sunday, I don't think that there's any conference team we play that won't feel like having a root canal, except, maybe, ASU. Maybe.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - Spiny_Norman - 01-11-2023

South Carolina winning out is a more reasonable prediction. SEC is not strong this year. South Carolina plays 1 out of 16 conference games vs. opponents currently in the top 25 (at home vs. LSU). Stanford plays 7 of 18 conference games (4 at home, 3 on the road) vs. opponents currently in the top 25.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - chimera - 01-11-2023

Gotta agree it would be quite the feat to run the table this season. A loss or even two losses would not surprise me, nor would they concern me given the depth of the conference.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BobK - 01-11-2023

Closer to home Wilner thinks both Stanford and UCLA make the F 4
And yes I like Wilner

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - stopandpop - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 09:17 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Wow, two out of three pick Stanford to win the title over South Carolina. All three pick Brink as an all-American; 2/3 pick Jones as well. Most fanciful prediction in my mind:

Quote:Creme: South Carolina and Stanford won't lose again until meeting for the national championship.

I just don't see us not having a slip between now and then, especially given our schedule.

BC

I'm pleased they recognize both Cam and Haley as elite players who belong on the First Team. I hope the Cal game was a wake-up call for the team and will motivate them to 'dial in' for every opponent they face; especially the LA teams. When they're consistently dialed-in, no PAC-12 team can beat us.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - 81alum - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 12:45 PM)stopandpop Wrote: When they're consistently dialed-in, no PAC-12 team can beat us.

I hope you are right.

Something that doesn't get discussed enough is the quality of coaching in the Pac 12. Probably about half of the other coaches besides Tara are truly quality coaches that--given the players they have available--know how to put on a defense that forces us to play away from our strengths.

For example, Charmin Smith may or may not be a good recruiter and she has not always had the best players, but clearly she has learned how to put on a superb defense against us.

Cori Close has always known how to take away our strengths, ever since she held Chiney to 3 points I believe in a Pac 12 tournament game. I think Amber won that game for us despite Chiney's performance--with a mid-range jumper!

JR Payne has beaten us several times, always with defense.

Adia Barnes has also beaten us and of course came within one point in the national championship game. And it is always by playing an aggressive defense in a low scoring game.

Scott Rueck, when he has the players, has beaten us in tough, low scoring games.

Kelly Graves is the exception to this rule. Oregon usually plays zone--and sometimes is is a very active and very good zone--but when they were beating us it was often in higher scoring games.

So what is the point of this litany of opposing coaches? They build on each other's work. All of them saw what Smith did to us last game, and many of them can implement the same strategy with even better players. When one has a break-through in exposing a weakness on our team, they all benefit. This is why it is imperative that Tara and the coaches come up with a plan by Friday to overcome what I will call 1-sag-paint defense. (The most athletic perimeter defender blanketing Jump and all others sagging into the paint to stop Brink and Jones.) (By the way, this might in fact be an "official" junk defense, the box-and-1, with the 1 on Jump and the others sagging so much it might as well be a 4 man zone.)

I have confidence that Tara will do just this, and then all the quality opposing coaches will be scheming up something fresh to take us out of our strengths. That is their job. And Tara's is to stay one step ahead of them. She did not last time, but I hope we won't have too many more root canals.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - Card10Fan - 01-11-2023

Seems pretty clear SC, Stanford, UConn (if healthy) all are Final 4 teams. Who’s the last team that will get there? Will UConn work their way to number 3 overall? I would prefer to not meet UConn or SC until the championship game -if we make it that far. Interesting ESPN pundits think we win it all yet we get significantly less coverage from them.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BostonCard - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 04:20 PM)81alum Wrote: So what is the point of this litany of opposing coaches? They build on each other's work. All of them saw what Smith did to us last game, and many of them can implement the same strategy with even better players. When one has a break-through in exposing a weakness on our team, they all benefit. This is why it is imperative that Tara and the coaches come up with a plan by Friday to overcome what I will call 1-sag-paint defense. (The most athletic perimeter defender blanketing Jump and all others sagging into the paint to stop Brink and Jones.) (By the way, this might in fact be an "official" junk defense, the box-and-1, with the 1 on Jump and the others sagging so much it might as well be a 4 man zone.)

I think we are reading too much into a bad offensive game by us. I do think that Cal's strategy probably does give teams the best chance to beat us, but it does rely on shooters other than Jump having a cold night even when unguarded. That happened last week, but is not guaranteed going forward.

Our three point shooting percentage is 35% overall; 29% if you exclude Jump's 57/119. On Sunday, we shot 20%, 12.5% if you exclude Jump's 2/4 shooting. Had the other women shot at their normal shooting percentage, we would have expected them to make 2-3 more threes and the close 60-56 game winds up being a more comfortable 10-13 point win.

It is easy to say that Smith "figured out" how to defend Stanford, and she probably did give her team the best chance to beat us, but it took a fair bit of bad three point shooting on our part, and we still won the game. Play that game again, and maybe the non-Jump three point shooters go 9/16 instead of 2/16 and we blow Cal out.

BC

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - jonnyss - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 07:42 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-11-2023, 04:20 PM)81alum Wrote: So what is the point of this litany of opposing coaches? They build on each other's work. All of them saw what Smith did to us last game, and many of them can implement the same strategy with even better players. When one has a break-through in exposing a weakness on our team, they all benefit. This is why it is imperative that Tara and the coaches come up with a plan by Friday to overcome what I will call 1-sag-paint defense. (The most athletic perimeter defender blanketing Jump and all others sagging into the paint to stop Brink and Jones.) (By the way, this might in fact be an "official" junk defense, the box-and-1, with the 1 on Jump and the others sagging so much it might as well be a 4 man zone.)

I think we are reading too much into a bad offensive game by us. I do think that Cal's strategy probably does give teams the best chance to beat us, but it does rely on shooters other than Jump having a cold night even when unguarded. That happened last week, but is not guaranteed going forward.

Our three point shooting percentage is 35% overall; 29% if you exclude Jump's 57/119. On Sunday, we shot 20%, 12.5% if you exclude Jump's 2/4 shooting. Had the other women shot at their normal shooting percentage, we would have expected them to make 2-3 more threes and the close 60-56 game winds up being a more comfortable 10-13 point win.

It is easy to say that Smith "figured out" how to defend Stanford, and she probably did give her team the best chance to beat us, but it took a fair bit of bad three point shooting on our part, and we still won the game. Play that game again, and maybe the non-Jump three point shooters go 9/16 instead of 2/16 and we blow Cal out.

BC

last year we had a bunch of good 3-pt shooters, and one bad night from outside against uconn cost us the ncaa's. we can have occasional bad 3-point nights in the regular season, but a single 3-point night like we just had against cal will bounce us from the ncaa's. in our championship year, we had quite the opposite - surprisingly good 3-point games from ashten and haley that saved our bacon.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BostonCard - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 07:51 PM)jonnyss Wrote: last year we had a bunch of good 3-pt shooters, and one bad night from outside against uconn cost us the ncaa's. we can have occasional bad 3-point nights in the regular season, but a single 3-point night like we just had against cal will bounce us from the ncaa's. in our championship year, we had quite the opposite - surprisingly good 3-point games from ashten and haley that saved our bacon.

Hence the adage "live by the three, die by the three", but I have yet to find a shooting statistic that is rock solid stable. I mean, we made up for a dreadful three point shooting night with an above-average free throw shooting night (though we are a decent free throw shooting team). The bottom line is that in basketball sometimes cold shooting happens. Sometimes the other team's defense has something to do with it; sometimes the shots just don't fall. The best teams pair very good scoring with very good defense so that even if they have a bad shooting night where they score 23 points below their average because they shot 15 percentage points below average (and 15 percentage points below their three point shooting average), as we did against Cal, they can still win by holding their opponent to 56 points, which is what our defense typically holds teams to. Stanford can be beat (every team can), but it will likely take a combination of us having a sub-par offensive game and our opponents scoring more than our typical opponent does.

BC

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - 81alum - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 08:03 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-11-2023, 07:51 PM)jonnyss Wrote: last year we had a bunch of good 3-pt shooters, and one bad night from outside against uconn cost us the ncaa's. we can have occasional bad 3-point nights in the regular season, but a single 3-point night like we just had against cal will bounce us from the ncaa's. in our championship year, we had quite the opposite - surprisingly good 3-point games from ashten and haley that saved our bacon.

Hence the adage "live by the three, die by the three", but I have yet to find a shooting statistic that is rock solid stable. I mean, we made up for a dreadful three point shooting night with an above-average free throw shooting night (though we are a decent free throw shooting team). The bottom line is that in basketball sometimes cold shooting happens. Sometimes the other team's defense has something to do with it; sometimes the shots just don't fall. The best teams pair very good scoring with very good defense so that even if they have a bad shooting night where they score 23 points below their average because they shot 15 percentage points below average (and 15 percentage points below their three point shooting average), as we did against Cal, they can still win by holding their opponent to 56 points, which is what our defense typically holds teams to. Stanford can be beat (every team can), but it will likely take a combination of us having a sub-par offensive game and our opponents scoring more than our typical opponent does.

BC

Well said. Tara says that on those nights when there is a lid on the basket, we have to focus on defense and rebounding, since those are things we can actually control. You can't "will" yourself to better shooting, but you can to better defense and rebounding. And as spectacular as Cal's defense was against us, ours was good enough to win. Now, if we are taking bad shots then that is a different matter--one can learn to take better shots. But missing even when taking good shots sometimes happens, and it tends to be contagious.

RE: WBB: ESPN midseason predictions - BosCard - 01-11-2023

(01-11-2023, 07:51 PM)jonnyss Wrote:
(01-11-2023, 07:42 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-11-2023, 04:20 PM)81alum Wrote: So what is the point of this litany of opposing coaches? They build on each other's work. All of them saw what Smith did to us last game, and many of them can implement the same strategy with even better players. When one has a break-through in exposing a weakness on our team, they all benefit. This is why it is imperative that Tara and the coaches come up with a plan by Friday to overcome what I will call 1-sag-paint defense. (The most athletic perimeter defender blanketing Jump and all others sagging into the paint to stop Brink and Jones.) (By the way, this might in fact be an "official" junk defense, the box-and-1, with the 1 on Jump and the others sagging so much it might as well be a 4 man zone.)

I think we are reading too much into a bad offensive game by us. I do think that Cal's strategy probably does give teams the best chance to beat us, but it does rely on shooters other than Jump having a cold night even when unguarded. That happened last week, but is not guaranteed going forward.

Our three point shooting percentage is 35% overall; 29% if you exclude Jump's 57/119. On Sunday, we shot 20%, 12.5% if you exclude Jump's 2/4 shooting. Had the other women shot at their normal shooting percentage, we would have expected them to make 2-3 more threes and the close 60-56 game winds up being a more comfortable 10-13 point win.

It is easy to say that Smith "figured out" how to defend Stanford, and she probably did give her team the best chance to beat us, but it took a fair bit of bad three point shooting on our part, and we still won the game. Play that game again, and maybe the non-Jump three point shooters go 9/16 instead of 2/16 and we blow Cal out.

BC

last year we had a bunch of good 3-pt shooters, and one bad night from outside against uconn cost us the ncaa's. we can have occasional bad 3-point nights in the regular season, but a single 3-point night like we just had against cal will bounce us from the ncaa's. in our championship year, we had quite the opposite - surprisingly good 3-point games from ashten and haley that saved our bacon.

I wouldn’t characterize Wilson and Lacie as good 3-point shooters. Yes they had good percentages but in tight games they pretty much refused to shoot the ball leaving it 3 on 5 and a lot of double teams on Brink and Jones. So it’s not at all surprising that they didn’t shoot lights out because the scouting report defense is to sag off them, double Brink / Jones and make Wilson and Lacie take shots. You don’t sag off and dare good 3 point shooters to shoot 3 point shots. No team would do that to Jump.