[81alum]

1) We made no defensive adjustments on Hollingshed. Frankly that's unacceptable, especially for a HoF coach. We hardly ever had Lexie and Lacey (our best defenders, gritty, long and 6'2") on the floor at the same time, and NEITHER guarded her in the second half. She was owning Haley, trip after trip. You have to adjust. Make her work, deny, double, jump every ball screen. Her points came way too easily.


2) We got nothing in transition. We walked the ball up and settled for a half court game, which is exactly what Colorado wanted.

The Hollingshed question is certainly a puzzlement.  I kept waiting for us to double her, as Tara often does against key opponents, and I don't think we did.  At least she scored most all of her points when single covered, usually by Jones.

I do remember winning certain other games when we gave up career days to a single opponent player, and Tara being asked about that, in the past--or maybe other coaches during chalk talks.  I get the impression that there are certain game plans where the coaches just decide to pick a poison and calculate that a career day by so-and-so won't beat us if that enables us to shut everyone else down.  I remember beating Washington while Plum got bushels of baskets once, for example.  But I don't think that is what happened yesterday.  The scouting report may have been off.  Hollingshed had hit only 8 threes all season before yesterday, and then she hit 4 of them yesterday.  That changed the entire character of the defense against her.  Even the TV announcers observed that Jones played well off Hollingshed.  I think we dared her to shoot the three thinking she was less effective at that, but she won the dare.

As far as transition, our first 8 points, when it looked like we might run away with it, were all about transition.  We wound up with 14 fast break points and 18 points off turnovers.  Those are pretty good numbers.  But where we fell down was executing the half court.  We had only 12 assists to 29 made baskets.  And we went from hitting 14 threes against Utah to 5 against Colorado.  Was that a function of the Colorado defense?  Probably to an extent, but our shooting was cold.  I noticed that most of the three point misses were short, a sign of tiredness--was altitude an issue?

I also wonder what happened to Belibi.  Was it just that Brink was 5/5?  Was Belibi originally assigned to guard Hollingshed, and then replaced?  

Before she went to Colorado, Payne beat us once while coaching lowly Santa Clara.  That was a different kind of win in which we scored in the 30s.  But she is a terrific coach against us.  Why her teams don't do better against everyone else is a mystery to me.

[81alum]

1) We made no defensive adjustments on Hollingshed. Frankly that's unacceptable, especially for a HoF coach. We hardly ever had Lexie and Lacey (our best defenders, gritty, long and 6'2") on the floor at the same time, and NEITHER guarded her in the second half. She was owning Haley, trip after trip. You have to adjust. Make her work, deny, double, jump every ball screen. Her points came way too easily.


2) We got nothing in transition. We walked the ball up and settled for a half court game, which is exactly what Colorado wanted.

The Hollingshed question is certainly a puzzlement.  I kept waiting for us to double her, as Tara often does against key opponents, and I don't think we did.  At least she scored most all of her points when single covered, usually by Jones.

I do remember winning certain other games when we gave up career days to a single opponent player, and Tara being asked about that, in the past--or maybe other coaches during chalk talks.  I get the impression that there are certain game plans where the coaches just decide to pick a poison and calculate that a career day by so-and-so won't beat us if that enables us to shut everyone else down.  I remember beating Washington while Plum got bushels of baskets once, for example.  But I don't think that is what happened yesterday.  The scouting report may have been off.  Hollingshed had hit only 8 threes all season before yesterday, and then she hit 4 of them yesterday.  That changed the entire character of the defense against her.  Even the TV announcers observed that Jones played well off Hollingshed.  I think we dared her to shoot the three thinking she was less effective at that, but she won the dare.

As far as transition, our first 8 points, when it looked like we might run away with it, were all about transition.  We wound up with 14 fast break points and 18 points off turnovers.  Those are pretty good numbers.  But where we fell down was executing the half court.  We had only 12 assists to 29 made baskets.  And we went from hitting 14 threes against Utah to 5 against Colorado.  Was that a function of the Colorado defense?  Probably to an extent, but our shooting was cold.  I noticed that most of the three point misses were short, a sign of tiredness--was altitude an issue?

I also wonder what happened to Belibi.  Was it just that Brink was 5/5?  Was Belibi originally assigned to guard Hollingshed, and then replaced?  

Before she went to Colorado, Payne beat us once while coaching lowly Santa Clara.  That was a different kind of win in which we scored in the 30s.  But she is a terrific coach against us.  Why her teams don't do better against everyone else is a mystery to me.