Thanks for the recap, 81. Hard to know how much to worry about their inside scoring given that it sounds like Tara was taking away their Plan A (treys) so they went to Plan B, which, once it started to work fairly well, necessitated us also mixing it up. As is often the case with a Tara team, we came back after the half making adjustments and with a much better executed game plan. Based on both our scoring and your description, our offense is up from last year, and our defense is down. But that makes a lot of sense, since both Sniezek and Johnson are much stronger defensive players than offensive players, and McPhee was always one of our best defensive assignments. And one classic Taraism is that you can coach defense much more than you can coach offense, so I'd rather start with the higher ceiling on the offensive end and then assume, as the season progresses, our coaches will develop our players' defensive abilities.
Speaking of McPhee, what is it with 6' Gatorade POYs from Washington and stress reactions/fractures in November? We had the exact same problem last year with McPhee, if you recall - she was out after our third game until conference play. I don't quite know the difference in nomenclature between a stress fracture and a stress reaction, but McPhee didn't play between our UConn game on 11/12 and our Tennessee game on 12/21, so she was out about 5-6 weeks. If Lexie's on a similar trajectory, that would mean she'd return around the start of conference play. But since it's a "reaction" rather than a "fracture," maybe she'll be back sooner?
BTW- I know we haven't had the steepest competition so far, but as of now, Fingall has a .700 FG rate, Williams is at .634 and .615 from 3PT, and Dodson is at .607. Those are the best shooting percentages I can remember seeing from any Stanford player since Chiney graduated. Even at their best, I don't remember Bird or Orrange ever cracking .600. If they can keep close to that pace, we will have so many more strong offensive threats than we had last year. (And speaking of offensive threats, I really hope the coaches can develop Moschkau's defense, because she's a perfect 4-4 on shooting so far, 3-3 3PT, and has such a beautiful release. It'd be wonderful if she could be able to get into some non-junk minutes.)
All in all, I'm encouraged. We were down two starters (Lexie and Sniezek) with a third in major foul trouble (Smith), and that gave our juniors an opportunity to shine. It's kind of now or never for Fingall to develop into a reliable post presence, so I'm really hopeful this was her coming out party and we will see many more games like this in the future. OTOH- Smith has got to figure out how to avoid fouls, because she was picking them up at a rate of one foul per two minutes until Tara left her in at the end.
Speaking of McPhee, what is it with 6' Gatorade POYs from Washington and stress reactions/fractures in November? We had the exact same problem last year with McPhee, if you recall - she was out after our third game until conference play. I don't quite know the difference in nomenclature between a stress fracture and a stress reaction, but McPhee didn't play between our UConn game on 11/12 and our Tennessee game on 12/21, so she was out about 5-6 weeks. If Lexie's on a similar trajectory, that would mean she'd return around the start of conference play. But since it's a "reaction" rather than a "fracture," maybe she'll be back sooner?
BTW- I know we haven't had the steepest competition so far, but as of now, Fingall has a .700 FG rate, Williams is at .634 and .615 from 3PT, and Dodson is at .607. Those are the best shooting percentages I can remember seeing from any Stanford player since Chiney graduated. Even at their best, I don't remember Bird or Orrange ever cracking .600. If they can keep close to that pace, we will have so many more strong offensive threats than we had last year. (And speaking of offensive threats, I really hope the coaches can develop Moschkau's defense, because she's a perfect 4-4 on shooting so far, 3-3 3PT, and has such a beautiful release. It'd be wonderful if she could be able to get into some non-junk minutes.)
All in all, I'm encouraged. We were down two starters (Lexie and Sniezek) with a third in major foul trouble (Smith), and that gave our juniors an opportunity to shine. It's kind of now or never for Fingall to develop into a reliable post presence, so I'm really hopeful this was her coming out party and we will see many more games like this in the future. OTOH- Smith has got to figure out how to avoid fouls, because she was picking them up at a rate of one foul per two minutes until Tara left her in at the end.