02-18-2018, 03:34 AM
Two stat lines encapsulate the game:
Alanna Smith, 7-24 from the field, 3-11 from three. She didn't just miss a few short range shots, she missed a lot of them. If she doesn't find her shooting touch again, we're not going to go very far, no matter how good the defense.
Marta Sniezek, 0-1 from the field, 3 assists, in 31 minutes. And one of those assists perfectly encapsulates her game - she had a clear lane to drive, and Anigwe literally retreated to UNDER the basket. Marta had a wide open 8 foot jump shot. Instead, she waited, and threw a very good but very risky bounce pass through two players to a cutting Smith or McPhee that was converted. When a player is willing to throw that low-probability pass, rather than take what should be a gimme short jump shot, that's not good. And C.al figured out she has trouble getting through and off of screens - I couldn't count the number of times she got hung up on a screen, leaving Thomas to drive into the lane, and either hit a short jump shot, or pass to the screener rolling to the basket if their defender came out to help. The plus-minus at the PG position today was unsustainable against a half-way competent team.
Even with all that, and Britt's shooting woes, it was close. Until - Sniezek drops off off Thomas late in the shot clock, and she hits that long three. Smith misses the second of two FTs, then misses the crucial layup that would've again closed the score to 2. Cowling hits another late clock 3, and after a Smith layup, Britt gets a defensive rebound and has it stolen by Cowling, leading to another three by Brown. Those three threes in a minute and a half were what decided the game, and the Cardinal had no answer.
More than that, as others have said, the Bares just had more want-to than Stanford seemed to today, at least for the vast majority of the minutes and players. There are other issues; I've mentioned before, as a team we don't appear to have very good hands - way too many rebounds stripped away, way too many shots stripped on the way up.Â
But today, the secret sauce of the defense just wasn't there, I would've liked to have seen what would've happened with slightly more than 38 hours between the two games; I think another day would've helped Stanford more than C.al. But the Pac-12 hasn't shown much interest in competitive issues with scheduling in any sport (why not flip the men's and women's games? The men, who haven't played in a week, have one game, and it's scheduled for Sunday, giving them less time to recover and plan for next weekend? Were other single-game weeks for opponents scheduled that way?)
Darn.
VG
Alanna Smith, 7-24 from the field, 3-11 from three. She didn't just miss a few short range shots, she missed a lot of them. If she doesn't find her shooting touch again, we're not going to go very far, no matter how good the defense.
Marta Sniezek, 0-1 from the field, 3 assists, in 31 minutes. And one of those assists perfectly encapsulates her game - she had a clear lane to drive, and Anigwe literally retreated to UNDER the basket. Marta had a wide open 8 foot jump shot. Instead, she waited, and threw a very good but very risky bounce pass through two players to a cutting Smith or McPhee that was converted. When a player is willing to throw that low-probability pass, rather than take what should be a gimme short jump shot, that's not good. And C.al figured out she has trouble getting through and off of screens - I couldn't count the number of times she got hung up on a screen, leaving Thomas to drive into the lane, and either hit a short jump shot, or pass to the screener rolling to the basket if their defender came out to help. The plus-minus at the PG position today was unsustainable against a half-way competent team.
Even with all that, and Britt's shooting woes, it was close. Until - Sniezek drops off off Thomas late in the shot clock, and she hits that long three. Smith misses the second of two FTs, then misses the crucial layup that would've again closed the score to 2. Cowling hits another late clock 3, and after a Smith layup, Britt gets a defensive rebound and has it stolen by Cowling, leading to another three by Brown. Those three threes in a minute and a half were what decided the game, and the Cardinal had no answer.
More than that, as others have said, the Bares just had more want-to than Stanford seemed to today, at least for the vast majority of the minutes and players. There are other issues; I've mentioned before, as a team we don't appear to have very good hands - way too many rebounds stripped away, way too many shots stripped on the way up.Â
But today, the secret sauce of the defense just wasn't there, I would've liked to have seen what would've happened with slightly more than 38 hours between the two games; I think another day would've helped Stanford more than C.al. But the Pac-12 hasn't shown much interest in competitive issues with scheduling in any sport (why not flip the men's and women's games? The men, who haven't played in a week, have one game, and it's scheduled for Sunday, giving them less time to recover and plan for next weekend? Were other single-game weeks for opponents scheduled that way?)
Darn.
VG