Now that I have watched the presser a couple of times, here are my impressions:
1) Tara's scouting report defenses are always gambles of one sort or another. We gambled that controlling Watkins would so throw USC off that the USC offense would falter. We knew that Forbes was excellent and giving up 26 points to her was probably OK given that Watkins was held to 9. But we were punished for the gamble by Padilla, Davis, and Williams, who hit shots that they do not usually hit. Tara came back to them a couple of times. Our defense executed the way it was supposed to and stopped Juju, and then Williams, who had hit only 6 three pointers all year long, hits two of them early in the game. It was very similar to teams sagging off of Lepolo, but once in a while Lepolo hits six treys as she did first game against Cal. We played the odds and lost.
2) I agree with MV about Cam's look to Kiki when she said responded to the rebounding question "We were in a weird defense, and we tried our best." Clearly, Cam and Kiki could not rebound well from this amoeba defense. That can explain the 18 O-boards that SC got. But what explains the lack of our own O-boards? Only 6? That had nothing to do with "the weird defense." We got only 6 of our 34 misses back. USC got 18 of their 41 misses back. I think the reason we did poorly with O-boards was that Brink and Iriafen just were seldom around the basket even when on offense.
3) Tara was not willing to open up too much, even when questioned specifically, about what was wrong with our offense. And for good reason. She will be working to fix it and doesn't want to broadcast our weaknesses to future opponents. But this is a pattern now that goes back a year and a half to January 2023 when Cal, and then USC, and then lots of teams "solved" our offense by blanketing Jump and packing the paint. It was and remains a 5-on-3 strategy, and it fails to work when we get good production from players other than our "big three." Bogana had 9 for us, but we needed her and someone else--Lepolo or Demetre or another bench player--to be in double digits. They were not. I stand by my position taken before the game that the principle problem is with our offense. We looked stagnant at times and players without the ball did not move enough. We have an offense that can punish a traditional player-to-player defense, and we have shown a zone-busting offense that has beaten conventional zones. We (as yet) have struggled against the sagging-man defense that Tara herself has popularized over the years, whether it be USC's version, or Colorado's, or Arizona's.
1) Tara's scouting report defenses are always gambles of one sort or another. We gambled that controlling Watkins would so throw USC off that the USC offense would falter. We knew that Forbes was excellent and giving up 26 points to her was probably OK given that Watkins was held to 9. But we were punished for the gamble by Padilla, Davis, and Williams, who hit shots that they do not usually hit. Tara came back to them a couple of times. Our defense executed the way it was supposed to and stopped Juju, and then Williams, who had hit only 6 three pointers all year long, hits two of them early in the game. It was very similar to teams sagging off of Lepolo, but once in a while Lepolo hits six treys as she did first game against Cal. We played the odds and lost.
2) I agree with MV about Cam's look to Kiki when she said responded to the rebounding question "We were in a weird defense, and we tried our best." Clearly, Cam and Kiki could not rebound well from this amoeba defense. That can explain the 18 O-boards that SC got. But what explains the lack of our own O-boards? Only 6? That had nothing to do with "the weird defense." We got only 6 of our 34 misses back. USC got 18 of their 41 misses back. I think the reason we did poorly with O-boards was that Brink and Iriafen just were seldom around the basket even when on offense.
3) Tara was not willing to open up too much, even when questioned specifically, about what was wrong with our offense. And for good reason. She will be working to fix it and doesn't want to broadcast our weaknesses to future opponents. But this is a pattern now that goes back a year and a half to January 2023 when Cal, and then USC, and then lots of teams "solved" our offense by blanketing Jump and packing the paint. It was and remains a 5-on-3 strategy, and it fails to work when we get good production from players other than our "big three." Bogana had 9 for us, but we needed her and someone else--Lepolo or Demetre or another bench player--to be in double digits. They were not. I stand by my position taken before the game that the principle problem is with our offense. We looked stagnant at times and players without the ball did not move enough. We have an offense that can punish a traditional player-to-player defense, and we have shown a zone-busting offense that has beaten conventional zones. We (as yet) have struggled against the sagging-man defense that Tara herself has popularized over the years, whether it be USC's version, or Colorado's, or Arizona's.