[TheFarm07]

What's wrong with Fran?  I haven't seen the game, was out all day.  I'd rather have lost the game and kept the players.  Too many injuries.  A sad state when the team is doing so well.

Sorry, I thought it was in the linked article. ESPN said Fran was held out due to a sprained ankle. Interesting that the announcers didn't know that, they just said something like "Tara is holding her out because it's not her type of game..."

I still can't find anything to confirm that.  Was anyone at the game?  Was Belibi in a boot? 

If true, then the list of the injured is getting to be very frustrating: Carrington, Dodson, Jones, Belibi, Brewer.  That is 1/3 of the team.  Remember when we thought our rotation might be as many as 10-11, significantly up from Tara's usual 7?  Well, tonight 6 players got almost exactly 90% of the minutes, and one of them was injured and might not be in the rotation going forward.

On the injuries issue, hopefully Belibi's injury is short-lived, like when Lacie sat out a couple games due to her injury. On a more macro level, I know that Carrington has had knee injuries in high school and Haley's injury was obviously during a game, but as far as I can remember, Dodson and Brewer's initial injuries were not in-game. It is troubling both players haven't had played at all during the entire season, despite these conditions having started last season. I know because of privacy laws, health issues can't really be revealed (though I find this inconsistent as Fran's injury was reported by Tara, wasn't it? and we knew that Nadia had a torn ACL after the USC game, but then other injuries are kept more tightly guarded?), but it seems that at this point, we might have to be prepared that both players won't play at all during this season or  even the possibility that they might have to medically retire.

Also, with Belibi's sprained ankle, Lacie's brief injury earlier this season and wasn't Jump unavailable for a game or two?, that strength & conditioning might need a second look with all these random off-game injuries. You would expect that players would be healthy when not in a gametime situation.

On the depth issue, IMHO, the non-conference season was Tara's try-outs for who was performing the best on both ends of the floor and it looks like that Williams, the Hull sisters, Fingall, Prechtel and Jones have rocketed to the top of the list. In close game situations which we are going to encounter, she wants her most reliable players out there as much as possible (except to give them rest, foul trouble and certain matchups).

Wilson seemed like she had trouble guarding Slocum in the first half and she hasn't produced much offensively to justify keeping her in if she can't be more effective defensively, Jerome after high pre-season hopes with the great performance in the exhibition against the Chinese team hasn't reproduced that level again, she seems to be reacting slower to the high pace of play. Jump is a great 3-point shooter but everyone knows that by now and so she is closely guarded and she will need to show more of the moves that led to the backdoor layup today to keep defenses more honest against her and her defensive capabilities haven't caught up to her shooting yet and Belibi, even when she was healthy, hasn't shown a more reliable inside scoring game (that we badly need) for Tara to keep her in for longer stretches of time either as Fingall can provide the same scoring output while having the added bonus of veteran knowledge and leadership.

So that leaves the starters and Prechtel as players that Tara is leaning on more heavily as we get into the depth of the conference race. Perhaps with this somewhat easier part of our schedule coming up, we can open up leads (even without Jones) and give our starters much needed rest for when we have to play the Oregon schools, the Arizona schools and the SoCal schools in the last half of the conference schedule and give the other healthy half of our team (especially our freshmen Jump and Belibi) opportunities to work on their game.

[TheFarm07]

What's wrong with Fran?  I haven't seen the game, was out all day.  I'd rather have lost the game and kept the players.  Too many injuries.  A sad state when the team is doing so well.

Sorry, I thought it was in the linked article. ESPN said Fran was held out due to a sprained ankle. Interesting that the announcers didn't know that, they just said something like "Tara is holding her out because it's not her type of game..."

I still can't find anything to confirm that.  Was anyone at the game?  Was Belibi in a boot? 

If true, then the list of the injured is getting to be very frustrating: Carrington, Dodson, Jones, Belibi, Brewer.  That is 1/3 of the team.  Remember when we thought our rotation might be as many as 10-11, significantly up from Tara's usual 7?  Well, tonight 6 players got almost exactly 90% of the minutes, and one of them was injured and might not be in the rotation going forward.

On the injuries issue, hopefully Belibi's injury is short-lived, like when Lacie sat out a couple games due to her injury. On a more macro level, I know that Carrington has had knee injuries in high school and Haley's injury was obviously during a game, but as far as I can remember, Dodson and Brewer's initial injuries were not in-game. It is troubling both players haven't had played at all during the entire season, despite these conditions having started last season. I know because of privacy laws, health issues can't really be revealed (though I find this inconsistent as Fran's injury was reported by Tara, wasn't it? and we knew that Nadia had a torn ACL after the USC game, but then other injuries are kept more tightly guarded?), but it seems that at this point, we might have to be prepared that both players won't play at all during this season or  even the possibility that they might have to medically retire.

Also, with Belibi's sprained ankle, Lacie's brief injury earlier this season and wasn't Jump unavailable for a game or two?, that strength & conditioning might need a second look with all these random off-game injuries. You would expect that players would be healthy when not in a gametime situation.

On the depth issue, IMHO, the non-conference season was Tara's try-outs for who was performing the best on both ends of the floor and it looks like that Williams, the Hull sisters, Fingall, Prechtel and Jones have rocketed to the top of the list. In close game situations which we are going to encounter, she wants her most reliable players out there as much as possible (except to give them rest, foul trouble and certain matchups).

Wilson seemed like she had trouble guarding Slocum in the first half and she hasn't produced much offensively to justify keeping her in if she can't be more effective defensively, Jerome after high pre-season hopes with the great performance in the exhibition against the Chinese team hasn't reproduced that level again, she seems to be reacting slower to the high pace of play. Jump is a great 3-point shooter but everyone knows that by now and so she is closely guarded and she will need to show more of the moves that led to the backdoor layup today to keep defenses more honest against her and her defensive capabilities haven't caught up to her shooting yet and Belibi, even when she was healthy, hasn't shown a more reliable inside scoring game (that we badly need) for Tara to keep her in for longer stretches of time either as Fingall can provide the same scoring output while having the added bonus of veteran knowledge and leadership.

So that leaves the starters and Prechtel as players that Tara is leaning on more heavily as we get into the depth of the conference race. Perhaps with this somewhat easier part of our schedule coming up, we can open up leads (even without Jones) and give our starters much needed rest for when we have to play the Oregon schools, the Arizona schools and the SoCal schools in the last half of the conference schedule and give the other healthy half of our team (especially our freshmen Jump and Belibi) opportunities to work on their game.