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Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - Printable Version

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Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - 76lsjumb - 02-27-2014

Discuss amongst yourselves...

My thought -- If we want to restore the mental edge going into the postseason, we need to absolutely CRUSH UW in every facet of the game.  Run up the biggest score we can.  Play the most aggressive defense we can.  From the outset. Not stopping until the final buzzer.  Anything less than complete domination [given the first game] will leave future opponents with some hope.

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - dpbrewster - 02-27-2014

I'll second that.  Sounds good to me!  :)

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - chimera - 02-27-2014

I agree.  UW is not all that great.  They are the sort of team we should crush.  If we don't fold, spindle, and mutilate them in the last home stand of the season with motivation of avenging the loss, I will be very worried about the post-season.

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - 81alum - 02-27-2014

I vote:  AYE!

Actually, WSU gave us trouble too, and so the game on Saturday will be important.  And if things break the wrong way, we could wind up playing Washington a third time in Seattle in the Pac-12 tournament.  But crushing them tonight will give us a brobdingnagian energy boost, and we won't take them lightly again even if we do beat them easily.  So yes, tonight could set the tone. 

We need to do it on offense AND defense.  We need a good offensive performance because we have been out of sync on offense lately and reverting to the Chiney/Amber game of last season.  We need a good defensive performance since we gave up the most points in 10 years the last time we played Washington--and that is not a good thing.  Tonight we could correct two negative issues and get the team heading in a positive direction for the tournaments.



45-32 at the half - BostonCard - 02-27-2014

All I have is the box score, but looks like we are cruising.  Chiney with 21 at the half!  But that means that the rest of the team only has 24.

BC

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - BostonCard - 02-27-2014

16-4 run to open up the second half and we are up 61-36.  You may now exhale.

BC

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - Leftcoast - 02-28-2014

Ok, I'll play the curmudgeon.  Tonight provided an emphatic and needed win but wasn't Stanford's game with UConn the most important game of the season?

Hopefully Tara's crew will meet UConn in the tournament and our second result will be more satisfying then the first.

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - 76lsjumb - 02-28-2014

(02-28-2014, 12:57 AM)Leftcoast link Wrote:Ok, I'll play the curmudgeon.  Tonight provided an emphatic and needed win but wasn't Stanford's game with UConn the most important game of the season?

Hopefully Tara's crew will meet UConn in the tournament and our second result will be more satisfying then the first.

I'll take the bait.  Given the way the season has played out, and the way I think we all would like it to end, I'm not sure the UConn game -- this year at least -- meant a whole lot, and not nearly as much as last night's game could/may have.  No one [realistically] expected us to beat UConn this year, so the loss wasn't particularly problematic.  Even if we had won, however, I've watched this team long enough to know that beating UConn in November/December doesn't always [or, otherwise put, has never] translate into adding another year onto the NCAA Championship banner.  Some years the early-season win is epic, of course, but this year I'm not sure even a win would have fit that description.

Now, flash forward to the Washington game in Seattle.  We looked totally bewildered, perhaps as much or more so on defense as on offense.  They had two guards who took us apart, not only driving, but getting [and often making] uncontested 3 after uncontested 3, taking full advantage of our defensive approach of "scouting" who we could leave open and then doing so.  So we lose and look bad doing so [right after looking a little less than dominant against a team that HAS NEVER BEATEN US  ??? ].  Still, this could be brushed off as the normal mid-season lethargy that frequently occurs before you start focussing on the final push. 

Then, we come back to Maples and look relatively okay against the AZ schools, but still show some worrisome tendencies on defense, at which point we go down to L.A. and promptly fall in an 18-point hole.  It seemed to me, at least, that teams were trying to employ some of UW's approach against us and it was, to a certain extent, working.  Again, we pull those games out, but it's beginning to look like that little "blip" in Seattle may reveal more long-term, systemic problems -- a defense that seems too prone to giving up wide-open looks, and an offense that is slowing down as the pounding that Chiney has taken repeatedly in her long-minutes appearances throughout the season begins to take its toll.

Which brings us to last night, and my sense that, if we wanted to serve notice to the rest of the teams out there wearing out their game tapes [DVDs?] from our UW loss that ... WE'RE BAAAAACK!!! ... last night's contest was THE game to send that message.  A weak performance and our post-season prospects would be decidedly sketchy.  Total domination and a rational basis for optimism would be restored.  That's my case.

Did we succeed?  From my point of view, the answer was a resounding...  errr..., uhhh..., ummm..., possibly!!  Offensively, we had a few minor glitches [people still seem to pass up extremely good looks at the basket in order to run an offense that all-too-often gets us much later in the shot clock than is necessary without producing an opportunity that is demonstrably better, and, frequently, producing one undeniably worse], but overall we looked to be imposing our will without much problem.  At 13-2, it seemed like we were on our way; unfortunately, though, instead of turning that into 26-4, we let them back in.  And that's what still worries me.  Defensively, we appear to remain vulnerable against offenses with two very good to excellent guards.  Time and again last night we would simply lose someone on the perimeter -- often as a result of someone ill-advisedly switching to help out on defense when they weren't needed and/or failed to move fast enough to provide any meaningful help anyway -- and that someone would promptly bury a 3.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are a number of teams out there who justifiably believe they would be able to exploit that vulnerability against us, and, in the final analysis, I'm not entirely sure that last night's performance will cause them to think otherwise.  I think it was perhaps an Elite 8 performance, but I'm not so sure it was Final Four caliber. I'm not sure it struck much fear into the hearts of UConn or N.D.  But, I will certainly agree that it sure beat losing!

Oh, and the refs stunk...

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - BostonCard - 02-28-2014

I think this game could only have hurt us if we played poorly; beating UW, even fairly easily doesn't say much other than to reassure us a little bit that the loss up in Seattle was a bit of a anomaly. We shouldn't read too much into a win at home against Seattle in the same way that we shouldn't read too much into a loss, at Storrs, against UConn.  Really, the only games that were truly important to define our season were the wins against Cal and ASU on the road, and Tennessee at home.  These are our nearest peers.  Would love to see us against the other two and three loss teams (Louisville, South Carolina, Baylor, Duke), to get a sense for how likely it would be that we make it to the final four, but we won't play those teams until the elite eight.

BC

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - FarmDad.01 - 02-28-2014

[size=12pt]South Carolina visits Tennessee on Sunday and Louisville hosts UConn on Monday. By late Monday, we could well be the only two-loss team left./size]

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - fishman - 02-28-2014

I'd say the team took care of business very well, if not to everyone's total satisfaction.  Not perfect, but pretty darn good.

•The defense that sagged and doubled really stopped the inside scoring and caused most of Plum's drives to result in wild prayers.
•Despite allowing some 3 point shots they only allowed 60 points!  Every defense has its vulnerabilities, but overall this one was excellent.
•Good ball movement opened up those 3-point shots and some nice passes inside to Chiney.  Offense - 83 points could easily have been 90+.
•We owned the boards - 50 to 32 - good evidence of hustle and effort (and size).
•Almost everyone - Picknell! - played when the game was still on the line.  More time with starters could have made it even worse for UW.
•it was very obvious that the team and the coaches were unusually fired up before and during the game.  Tara yelling at the refs after bad calls was especially noticeable.

I think signs for the Pac 12 tournament and beyond are pointing in the right direction.


 

Re: Resolved: Tonight's Women's BBall Game is the Most Important Game of the Season - CompSci87 - 02-28-2014

The importance of the early game against UConn was to give the freshmen, as well as the returners who have to play bigger roles this season, a close look at just how high the bar is.