So, maybe I've been spoiled. I didn't start watching our women's team in earnest until the end of the Candice Wiggins era and our run to the national title game in 2008. Since then, I've gotten used to having most games be a formality unless a legendary coach was sitting on the opponent's bench.
Now, we have to get used to a program in temporary decline. I was too optimistic that we could reap the benefits of our success during the Appel-Ogwumike era and be able to reload, instead of rebuild, like other top programs.
This loss tonight is as confounding and embarrassing as the loss last year to Arizona. Two days after beating a ranked GW team that we all worried about, we laid a big fat egg on the court. Tonight was a major setback, considering how badly Santa Clara played earlier in the season against two of our conference foes.
Tara is a great coach and she must fix these problems as we head to Florida. There's not much turnaround time to fix these glaring problems, however.
We lost to a Santa Clara team:
We committed 26 turnovers, because apparently we haven't seen a zone defense before and we were playing against the Minnesota Lynx or something. Our passing was picked off more often than a bad QB's worst game.
We lost despite having a better shooting percentage (35.8%) to (31%) and them only making 1 3-pt shot the entire game (1 of 16), because they shot the ball 19 more times than we did (due to our 26 turnovers and their 21 offensive rebounds.
The offense made strides in the GW game and was okay against Gonzaga and Davis, but was awful tonight.
Individually, Erica had another double-double and Lili had 20+ points, but Erica only took 9 shots the entire game and Lili had 6 turnovers.
Karlie had foul trouble and sat large chunks of the 2nd half. Kaylee inexplicably only had 2 rebounds the entire game.
Alanna only took 1 shot the entire game too and McPhee was ice-cold (1/8) despite a combined 12 rebounds from them.
There's something wrong with this: 7 of McPhee's 8 shot attempts were from 3-point range, largely because of Santa Clara's zone, but that isn't her game. She is not a sharpshooter and to have her take that many long-range shots is troubling. Meanwhile, Smith, despite being a freshman is an offensive threat and only shot the ball once.
Tara inserted Coffee in early on in the 2nd half and she made a basket, but was quickly pulled.
Now, we have to get used to a program in temporary decline. I was too optimistic that we could reap the benefits of our success during the Appel-Ogwumike era and be able to reload, instead of rebuild, like other top programs.
This loss tonight is as confounding and embarrassing as the loss last year to Arizona. Two days after beating a ranked GW team that we all worried about, we laid a big fat egg on the court. Tonight was a major setback, considering how badly Santa Clara played earlier in the season against two of our conference foes.
Tara is a great coach and she must fix these problems as we head to Florida. There's not much turnaround time to fix these glaring problems, however.
We lost to a Santa Clara team:
- That we beat last year by 39 points
- That US.C and UW beat by an average of 40 points last week
- That committed an average of 31 turnovers in those 2 games, but only 13 tonight
We committed 26 turnovers, because apparently we haven't seen a zone defense before and we were playing against the Minnesota Lynx or something. Our passing was picked off more often than a bad QB's worst game.
We lost despite having a better shooting percentage (35.8%) to (31%) and them only making 1 3-pt shot the entire game (1 of 16), because they shot the ball 19 more times than we did (due to our 26 turnovers and their 21 offensive rebounds.
The offense made strides in the GW game and was okay against Gonzaga and Davis, but was awful tonight.
Individually, Erica had another double-double and Lili had 20+ points, but Erica only took 9 shots the entire game and Lili had 6 turnovers.
Karlie had foul trouble and sat large chunks of the 2nd half. Kaylee inexplicably only had 2 rebounds the entire game.
Alanna only took 1 shot the entire game too and McPhee was ice-cold (1/8) despite a combined 12 rebounds from them.
There's something wrong with this: 7 of McPhee's 8 shot attempts were from 3-point range, largely because of Santa Clara's zone, but that isn't her game. She is not a sharpshooter and to have her take that many long-range shots is troubling. Meanwhile, Smith, despite being a freshman is an offensive threat and only shot the ball once.
Tara inserted Coffee in early on in the 2nd half and she made a basket, but was quickly pulled.