Preview:
From the frying pan to the fire, we move from the Oregon debacle down the road to Oregon State. Oregon State is 15-1, having lost only to Arizona State. They are ranked 8th in the AP and are 5th in RPI.
OSU is always a strong defensive team—they are one of the few teams who plays scouting report defense very similar to us. Their players will know our tendencies and weaknesses and will be prepared to exploit them.
On offense they are quite balanced, with experienced star guards Pivec and Slocum being joined by freshman forward Taylor Jones to all average 15-16 ppg. While those three are their “big three” in scoring, the other two starters are no slouches. Aleah Goodman starts at guard and hits 40% of her treys, and freshman sensation 6’6” Kennedy Brown has given them a powerful inside presence. Beyond the starting five, Oregon State is quite deep, with 9 players averaging double digit minutes. Three point shooting sensation Kat Tudor doesn’t start but averages 21 minutes, and seniors like Corrosdale and Maddy Washington give them a steadiness off the bench.
You can see my write-up from our victory over OSU at Maples last year, here:
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid242723
Washington unexpectedly defeated them in the tournament so we played them only once, at home. I think last year's write-up is more revealing than most as to what to expect this year--except OSU is a much better team this year. But given how important Lacie was defending Slocum I fully expect her to start again.
In short, Oregon State already had one of the best guard tandems in the country with Pivec and Slocum, and two freshman “bigs” Jones and Brown really completed their team. They are formidable, and playing at home gives their freshmen a big advantage over our freshmen. And yet, they are not as a team quite as experienced as Oregon, and our team is no doubt embarassed and smarting after Thursday's loss, so there is more than a sliver of hope.
Overview:
A gutty win, after being down 11 in the 1st, with Williams coming on strong in the 2nd half to help us eek out a win in sold-out Oregon State territory. The win is critical and timely, but our enjoyment is tempered with the sickening feeling of watching Haley Jones go down with a knee injury.
Flow of the game:
Tara continued her small lineup, with Fingall, both Hulls, Jones and Williams. The game started as badly as we could imagine--worse than at Oregon--with OSU getting out to a rapid 7-0 lead. Destiny Slocum scored 21 for OSU in the first half and was seemingly unstoppable, while we kept up with six treys in the half. At one point we were down 11, but our defense tightened some and Williams hit a layup to take the lead 34-33 with a minute left in the half. A few seconds later we gave up a trey to Slocum--who else, and went into halftime down 34-36. All in all, it was a much more offensive first half that I usually expect from a Rueck/Vanderveer coached game.
Tara made some adjustments at the half, and Slocum did not score again until deep in the fourth quarter. In fact, the third quarter was more typical of Stanford OSU games--we outscored them 10 to 6 for the quarter. It looked like our offense was shifting into gear, as Lexie scored a jumper, then Jones made a brilliant spin move for a layup to take the lead. But we went 5 minutes without a basket, until with one minute left in the quarter Jones went down with her knee injury. Once the injury timeout was over, Fingall hit Jump on a backdoor cut and Jump scored a layup--which must be as rare for her as a trey would be for Belibi! Nice to see Jump expanding her role and her versatility.
We started the fourth quarter ahead 44-42. We exchanged ties and lead for a couple of minutes until Slocum and Goodman hit baskets to give OSU a five point lead with 7:38 left, and Tara called a time out. It was an effective time out. Williams and Prectel made baskets, then Williams and Goodmen exchanged treys and the lead was tied 55-55 with 3:59 left. After a TV break, Lacie hit a trey--the most important basket of the game, and the TV crew was late coming back from commercial and missed the basket. We led 58-55 and OSU did not make another basket the rest of the game. Williams hit 2 free throws for a 5 point lead with 13 seconds left. Unfortunately, our heroine Lacie made a bad foul on Kat Tudor who was taking a wild trey that barely hit the backboard and was awarded three shots, which she sank, and our lead shrank to 2 with 9 seconds left. Bad memories of yesterday's men's loss danced in our heads. But Kiana hit another free throw and OSU missed its shots, and we won by 3 points.
Performances:
Our defense held OSU to 38% shooting, and they held us to 37% shooting, so eventually the game became dominated by defense.
Our team should be commended for giving up only 7 turnovers for the game--OSU had 14, and this made a big difference.
We also began the game in a big rebounding hole, but dug out of it in the second half leaving both O-boards and overall rebounds about even. I think the difference there was having Prechtel, Lexie, and Fingall on the floor at the same time--they all are good rebounders (10, 9, and 7 respectively.)
Three point shooting was about even--we were 8/22 and they were 7/22.
Individually, Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, along with 3 blocks. Tara won't like her missed free throws or her 3 turnovers, but she looked like a starter to me and we would not have won this game without her. She was +22 and no one else on the team was better than +3. MT cautions us about +/- stats for a single game, but this was extreme.
I said at halftime that we needed more offense out of Williams, and we got it. She scored 5 in the first half and 12 in the second, and more importantly had 5 assists to 0 turnovers. This was her best all-around performance of the year, although it was not always flashy.
Lexie had the most shots at a whopping 19 but sank 6 of them--not efficient shooting but she also had 9 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and 0 turnovers. A great stat-line.
Jones played quite well before her injury, including that amazing spin move. She finished with 8 points, 3 rebounds, an assist and two steals.
Williams and Lexie stayed in almost the entire game. Prechtel had 29 minutes which must be a season high--more than Fingall with 27. Jones and Lacie had 23 and 22, and so while others like Jump and Wilson and Jerome made brief appearances, we seem to have had a six player rotation that shrank to 5 after Jones was injured.
Conclusion:
So much to be thankful for--a tough, hard fought game that we were able to pull out--it must help with the maturation of our freshmen and keeps us tied for the conference lead. And now we head into 4 more manageable games while Oregon and OSU must play each other twice next week. But it is all thrown into doubt by the injury to Haley Jones. Without Jones, Carrington, or Dodson our ceiling gets a lot lower. We will just have to wait and see.
From the frying pan to the fire, we move from the Oregon debacle down the road to Oregon State. Oregon State is 15-1, having lost only to Arizona State. They are ranked 8th in the AP and are 5th in RPI.
OSU is always a strong defensive team—they are one of the few teams who plays scouting report defense very similar to us. Their players will know our tendencies and weaknesses and will be prepared to exploit them.
On offense they are quite balanced, with experienced star guards Pivec and Slocum being joined by freshman forward Taylor Jones to all average 15-16 ppg. While those three are their “big three” in scoring, the other two starters are no slouches. Aleah Goodman starts at guard and hits 40% of her treys, and freshman sensation 6’6” Kennedy Brown has given them a powerful inside presence. Beyond the starting five, Oregon State is quite deep, with 9 players averaging double digit minutes. Three point shooting sensation Kat Tudor doesn’t start but averages 21 minutes, and seniors like Corrosdale and Maddy Washington give them a steadiness off the bench.
You can see my write-up from our victory over OSU at Maples last year, here:
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid242723
Washington unexpectedly defeated them in the tournament so we played them only once, at home. I think last year's write-up is more revealing than most as to what to expect this year--except OSU is a much better team this year. But given how important Lacie was defending Slocum I fully expect her to start again.
In short, Oregon State already had one of the best guard tandems in the country with Pivec and Slocum, and two freshman “bigs” Jones and Brown really completed their team. They are formidable, and playing at home gives their freshmen a big advantage over our freshmen. And yet, they are not as a team quite as experienced as Oregon, and our team is no doubt embarassed and smarting after Thursday's loss, so there is more than a sliver of hope.
Overview:
A gutty win, after being down 11 in the 1st, with Williams coming on strong in the 2nd half to help us eek out a win in sold-out Oregon State territory. The win is critical and timely, but our enjoyment is tempered with the sickening feeling of watching Haley Jones go down with a knee injury.
Flow of the game:
Tara continued her small lineup, with Fingall, both Hulls, Jones and Williams. The game started as badly as we could imagine--worse than at Oregon--with OSU getting out to a rapid 7-0 lead. Destiny Slocum scored 21 for OSU in the first half and was seemingly unstoppable, while we kept up with six treys in the half. At one point we were down 11, but our defense tightened some and Williams hit a layup to take the lead 34-33 with a minute left in the half. A few seconds later we gave up a trey to Slocum--who else, and went into halftime down 34-36. All in all, it was a much more offensive first half that I usually expect from a Rueck/Vanderveer coached game.
Tara made some adjustments at the half, and Slocum did not score again until deep in the fourth quarter. In fact, the third quarter was more typical of Stanford OSU games--we outscored them 10 to 6 for the quarter. It looked like our offense was shifting into gear, as Lexie scored a jumper, then Jones made a brilliant spin move for a layup to take the lead. But we went 5 minutes without a basket, until with one minute left in the quarter Jones went down with her knee injury. Once the injury timeout was over, Fingall hit Jump on a backdoor cut and Jump scored a layup--which must be as rare for her as a trey would be for Belibi! Nice to see Jump expanding her role and her versatility.
We started the fourth quarter ahead 44-42. We exchanged ties and lead for a couple of minutes until Slocum and Goodman hit baskets to give OSU a five point lead with 7:38 left, and Tara called a time out. It was an effective time out. Williams and Prectel made baskets, then Williams and Goodmen exchanged treys and the lead was tied 55-55 with 3:59 left. After a TV break, Lacie hit a trey--the most important basket of the game, and the TV crew was late coming back from commercial and missed the basket. We led 58-55 and OSU did not make another basket the rest of the game. Williams hit 2 free throws for a 5 point lead with 13 seconds left. Unfortunately, our heroine Lacie made a bad foul on Kat Tudor who was taking a wild trey that barely hit the backboard and was awarded three shots, which she sank, and our lead shrank to 2 with 9 seconds left. Bad memories of yesterday's men's loss danced in our heads. But Kiana hit another free throw and OSU missed its shots, and we won by 3 points.
Performances:
Our defense held OSU to 38% shooting, and they held us to 37% shooting, so eventually the game became dominated by defense.
Our team should be commended for giving up only 7 turnovers for the game--OSU had 14, and this made a big difference.
We also began the game in a big rebounding hole, but dug out of it in the second half leaving both O-boards and overall rebounds about even. I think the difference there was having Prechtel, Lexie, and Fingall on the floor at the same time--they all are good rebounders (10, 9, and 7 respectively.)
Three point shooting was about even--we were 8/22 and they were 7/22.
Individually, Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, along with 3 blocks. Tara won't like her missed free throws or her 3 turnovers, but she looked like a starter to me and we would not have won this game without her. She was +22 and no one else on the team was better than +3. MT cautions us about +/- stats for a single game, but this was extreme.
I said at halftime that we needed more offense out of Williams, and we got it. She scored 5 in the first half and 12 in the second, and more importantly had 5 assists to 0 turnovers. This was her best all-around performance of the year, although it was not always flashy.
Lexie had the most shots at a whopping 19 but sank 6 of them--not efficient shooting but she also had 9 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and 0 turnovers. A great stat-line.
Jones played quite well before her injury, including that amazing spin move. She finished with 8 points, 3 rebounds, an assist and two steals.
Williams and Lexie stayed in almost the entire game. Prechtel had 29 minutes which must be a season high--more than Fingall with 27. Jones and Lacie had 23 and 22, and so while others like Jump and Wilson and Jerome made brief appearances, we seem to have had a six player rotation that shrank to 5 after Jones was injured.
Conclusion:
So much to be thankful for--a tough, hard fought game that we were able to pull out--it must help with the maturation of our freshmen and keeps us tied for the conference lead. And now we head into 4 more manageable games while Oregon and OSU must play each other twice next week. But it is all thrown into doubt by the injury to Haley Jones. Without Jones, Carrington, or Dodson our ceiling gets a lot lower. We will just have to wait and see.