[2006alum]

On the one hand, our lack of offensive rebounding seems to have partly been scheme--we were sending people back on defense the moment we released the shot, so we had few players around to do the offensive rebounding.  While Vanderveer can't have been happy with so few O-boards, it wasn't entirely on our players.  We had 9 offensive rebounds to TOSU's 36 defensive rebounds, meaning that when we shot the ball, we had only a 20% chance of getting a miss back to try again.

But our lack of defensive rebounding was truly atrocious.  TOSU had 28 offensive rebounds and we had 32 defensive rebounds.  When TOSU missed a shot they had a 47% chance of getting it back to try again.  Was this also partly a result of scheme?  Were we releasing players for a potential fast break as soon as the TOSU shots were going up?  I'm not sure.

This is what I don't get. If we were rushing back on offense to prepare defensively, we should have seen a lot of half-court presses, a high number of steals, and significantly better defensive rebounding. If we weren't aggressive policing the basket on defense, then we should have been well positioned for success on the offensive end.

Without having seen the game, I wonder if what happened was something like this: on defense, our players were somewhat oriented toward getting ready for a fast break transition offense, so no one was aggressive under the basket. However, if most of our passes went to McPhee to create something high tempo, if she goes straight to the basket and misses, the defenders are more likely to have gotten there to scoop it up than our other offensive players. But we our players on the subsequent defensive play were mentally preparing for another fast break offensive play, they may never have committed to their defensive positions. This would explain both McPhee's 22 shots on goal, and our atrocious offensive rebounding rate coupled with a surprisingly poor defensive rebounding rate. This is the only way I can understand us having such bad rebounding on both ends.

Does that at all describe what happened?

The way too early take from this game for me is feeling excited about the freshmen class and a bit disappointed in the sophs.  May not be fair, but I had hoped to see a lot more from the sophs at this point.

I share this a little bit. For as highly touted as Fingall, Carrington, and Wilson were, they have all basically been non-factors thus far in their careers. This is even more true for Brewer, who hasn't really played at all. Between that and the limited play of Coffee and Romano, our combined 8 sophomore and junior players have only really produced 2 consistently valuable players, Smith and Sniezek. 25% is a pretty low rate of return.

It's early, still, especially for the sophomores, and part of this is the result of a senior class that only has one really significant contributor (McPhee), but it makes me think we may have multiple freshmen starting by the end of the season if something doesn't change. As much as we all loved McCall, Karlie, and Roberson for their teamwork and attitude, I think I, at least, may have underestimated just how critical they were to our success, especially on defense.

[2006alum]

On the one hand, our lack of offensive rebounding seems to have partly been scheme--we were sending people back on defense the moment we released the shot, so we had few players around to do the offensive rebounding.  While Vanderveer can't have been happy with so few O-boards, it wasn't entirely on our players.  We had 9 offensive rebounds to TOSU's 36 defensive rebounds, meaning that when we shot the ball, we had only a 20% chance of getting a miss back to try again.

But our lack of defensive rebounding was truly atrocious.  TOSU had 28 offensive rebounds and we had 32 defensive rebounds.  When TOSU missed a shot they had a 47% chance of getting it back to try again.  Was this also partly a result of scheme?  Were we releasing players for a potential fast break as soon as the TOSU shots were going up?  I'm not sure.

This is what I don't get. If we were rushing back on offense to prepare defensively, we should have seen a lot of half-court presses, a high number of steals, and significantly better defensive rebounding. If we weren't aggressive policing the basket on defense, then we should have been well positioned for success on the offensive end.

Without having seen the game, I wonder if what happened was something like this: on defense, our players were somewhat oriented toward getting ready for a fast break transition offense, so no one was aggressive under the basket. However, if most of our passes went to McPhee to create something high tempo, if she goes straight to the basket and misses, the defenders are more likely to have gotten there to scoop it up than our other offensive players. But we our players on the subsequent defensive play were mentally preparing for another fast break offensive play, they may never have committed to their defensive positions. This would explain both McPhee's 22 shots on goal, and our atrocious offensive rebounding rate coupled with a surprisingly poor defensive rebounding rate. This is the only way I can understand us having such bad rebounding on both ends.

Does that at all describe what happened?

The way too early take from this game for me is feeling excited about the freshmen class and a bit disappointed in the sophs.  May not be fair, but I had hoped to see a lot more from the sophs at this point.

I share this a little bit. For as highly touted as Fingall, Carrington, and Wilson were, they have all basically been non-factors thus far in their careers. This is even more true for Brewer, who hasn't really played at all. Between that and the limited play of Coffee and Romano, our combined 8 sophomore and junior players have only really produced 2 consistently valuable players, Smith and Sniezek. 25% is a pretty low rate of return.

It's early, still, especially for the sophomores, and part of this is the result of a senior class that only has one really significant contributor (McPhee), but it makes me think we may have multiple freshmen starting by the end of the season if something doesn't change. As much as we all loved McCall, Karlie, and Roberson for their teamwork and attitude, I think I, at least, may have underestimated just how critical they were to our success, especially on defense.