[BillBradley]

Match-ups matter and USC's team is a BAD match-up for Stanford.

Arizona played USC twice in the past two weeks - a 95-93 double overtime loss in the last weekend of the regular season and a 65-62 Pac-12 tournament loss.  Is UofA a better women's basketball team than Stanford?

Stanford's 2024 team is vulnerable to elite teams with athletic guards that can both drive and shoot mid-range jumpers.  Of course, there's a lot of teams. like that in the last rounds of the NCAA tournament.  

Let's enjoy the ride however long it goes and hope we get a little match-up luck during the journey.

100% agree that matchups are a big deal. However, I have a different opinion about the type of matchup that bothers us. Most of our losses over the past 2 years where Cam has been healthy and available have been to teams that play really physical (USC, Colorado, So Carolina, UCLA, Ole Miss, etc.).  

The reason that we lose to those teams is because of their aggressive style of defense. We even struggled against Cal who totally played the same way a few days ago. The "faceguard Jump pack it in on Cam/Kiki" approach doesn't always cause us problems. Many teams try that, and it's no secret that you should D up Hannah Jump. Oregon State was faceguarding Hannah everywhere, but she was able to free up. She got 13 shots off and was 4-7 from 3.  Why? It's because Van Oelhoffen, Hunter, Parova, etc. are not physical players. Hannah could sprint from spot to spot, without getting shoved, pulled, bumped, etc. and the OSU players would get hung up on our screens. Elena, even Talana could penetrate without getting knocked off the ball.  All our guards really struggle to get open when their movement is restricted. Triangle2 said it perfectly "Teams that defend high and put pressure on top disrupt the offensive flow. Also, the pretty motion game falls apart when the refs allow the defense to disrupt without calling the fouling."

Tara talks about how stagnant we get on offense against these teams, and she's right. It's a mental problem with the players. They stop cutting because they get tired of all the pushing and shoving. They stop sprinting and instead just go through the motions. They get taken out of their game and we can't win if we don't get scoring contributions from them. They want to be allowed to play pretty ball. And as I've mentioned before, on the defensive side, they need to push back.

I hope we get matched up with Iowa, UConn, Notre Dame, etc. I'll admit that their scoring guards are a concern, but we also have a brobdingnagian advantage against those teams down low and they don't play that style of defense that bothers us. My dream regional would have those teams or any of Indiana, VA Tech or NC State. One team I definitely don't want in our bracket is LSU. Nightmare matchup.

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USC is just really good right now. They have all of the pieces to do well in the NCAA tournament assuming that Watkins is healthy. Even without Watkins, they have Forbes who is an experienced, skilled 6 foot guard and presents the same match-up problems as Watkins. They have Padilla, a sharp shooting 3 point specialist who shot 45% from 3 this season. They have rebounding beasts Marshall and Davis to get the missed shots and put them back. And you can see how they have jelled and improved over the course of the season. Frankly they look like a better team than Stanford right now. Stanford looks about the same as they did early to mid-season. USC has improved and passed them. It especially stings that they are doing this with transfers from Harvard, Columbia and Penn.

Very much agree to this observation Spiny. USC has improved a ton and could win it all.

[BillBradley]

Match-ups matter and USC's team is a BAD match-up for Stanford.

Arizona played USC twice in the past two weeks - a 95-93 double overtime loss in the last weekend of the regular season and a 65-62 Pac-12 tournament loss.  Is UofA a better women's basketball team than Stanford?

Stanford's 2024 team is vulnerable to elite teams with athletic guards that can both drive and shoot mid-range jumpers.  Of course, there's a lot of teams. like that in the last rounds of the NCAA tournament.  

Let's enjoy the ride however long it goes and hope we get a little match-up luck during the journey.

100% agree that matchups are a big deal. However, I have a different opinion about the type of matchup that bothers us. Most of our losses over the past 2 years where Cam has been healthy and available have been to teams that play really physical (USC, Colorado, So Carolina, UCLA, Ole Miss, etc.).  

The reason that we lose to those teams is because of their aggressive style of defense. We even struggled against Cal who totally played the same way a few days ago. The "faceguard Jump pack it in on Cam/Kiki" approach doesn't always cause us problems. Many teams try that, and it's no secret that you should D up Hannah Jump. Oregon State was faceguarding Hannah everywhere, but she was able to free up. She got 13 shots off and was 4-7 from 3.  Why? It's because Van Oelhoffen, Hunter, Parova, etc. are not physical players. Hannah could sprint from spot to spot, without getting shoved, pulled, bumped, etc. and the OSU players would get hung up on our screens. Elena, even Talana could penetrate without getting knocked off the ball.  All our guards really struggle to get open when their movement is restricted. Triangle2 said it perfectly "Teams that defend high and put pressure on top disrupt the offensive flow. Also, the pretty motion game falls apart when the refs allow the defense to disrupt without calling the fouling."

Tara talks about how stagnant we get on offense against these teams, and she's right. It's a mental problem with the players. They stop cutting because they get tired of all the pushing and shoving. They stop sprinting and instead just go through the motions. They get taken out of their game and we can't win if we don't get scoring contributions from them. They want to be allowed to play pretty ball. And as I've mentioned before, on the defensive side, they need to push back.

I hope we get matched up with Iowa, UConn, Notre Dame, etc. I'll admit that their scoring guards are a concern, but we also have a brobdingnagian advantage against those teams down low and they don't play that style of defense that bothers us. My dream regional would have those teams or any of Indiana, VA Tech or NC State. One team I definitely don't want in our bracket is LSU. Nightmare matchup.

---

USC is just really good right now. They have all of the pieces to do well in the NCAA tournament assuming that Watkins is healthy. Even without Watkins, they have Forbes who is an experienced, skilled 6 foot guard and presents the same match-up problems as Watkins. They have Padilla, a sharp shooting 3 point specialist who shot 45% from 3 this season. They have rebounding beasts Marshall and Davis to get the missed shots and put them back. And you can see how they have jelled and improved over the course of the season. Frankly they look like a better team than Stanford right now. Stanford looks about the same as they did early to mid-season. USC has improved and passed them. It especially stings that they are doing this with transfers from Harvard, Columbia and Penn.

Very much agree to this observation Spiny. USC has improved a ton and could win it all.