[BostonCard]

When I looked at that "play" I doubted it should even be called a "play," much less a great play. It showed two things: Clardy can make a layup and, remarkably, CSU didn't make the most fundamental switch imaginable, letting Clardy waltz to the hoop unimpeded.

LOL, some people here are so invested in the hypothesis that Kate Paye needs to be fired yesterday that they refuse to acknowledge that, yes, this was a play drawn up from the sidelines, and yes it worked and we won the game because of it.  You know that because with seven seconds to go in the game, Nunu passed the ball to Clardy, who dribbled until 5 seconds were left in the game before starting the play, meaning the bucket went in with about 2 seconds to go, which was important, because if she had missed, Agara, the screener, was all alone in front of the rim and could have easily put back a miss.  The reason she was all alone is that while CSU didn't make the switch (Agara's defender was off of her enough that Clardy's defender could go under the screen), Agara's defender did rotate to become a help defender; fortunately, Clardy turned the corner fast enough that she beat #0 to the basket. 

There is this pervasive belief here that if the coach could just magically draw up the perfect play that our offense would magically be loads better. The fact is that our offense, which I will grant could use some improvement, is not as bad as people make it, especially once you consider that we start two freshmen.  But basketball doesn't work that way; you can't just will your way to a new offense.  Players have to learn it and they have to be skilled enough to run it. We are all excited about the new freshmen, but, to give you one example, Swain's challenges finishing layups don't mean that Paye has her handcuffed and unable to exploit her athleticism.  Likewise, our problems shooting threes (shooting just 27% for the year) are not in fact because our coaching staff is not letting shooters shoot; it's that they are having trouble making the shots, even some that have been pretty wide open.

I don't know if Coach Paye is the right person for the job; she may not be.  I don't think a little bit over a year on the job is enough to make that determination.  I do think that fixating on which offensive "system" we run is probably not actually that useful.  Tara Vanderveer ran at least three different systems in her career (triangle, motion, Princeton, and probably others) and there was no one perfect one.  She won with pretty much all of them, and I think her ups and downs were more about recruiting and developing the players (versus lulls in recruitment or when players didn't pan out) than which system, though to be sure some systems are more suited for some players.

BC

[BostonCard]

When I looked at that "play" I doubted it should even be called a "play," much less a great play. It showed two things: Clardy can make a layup and, remarkably, CSU didn't make the most fundamental switch imaginable, letting Clardy waltz to the hoop unimpeded.

LOL, some people here are so invested in the hypothesis that Kate Paye needs to be fired yesterday that they refuse to acknowledge that, yes, this was a play drawn up from the sidelines, and yes it worked and we won the game because of it.  You know that because with seven seconds to go in the game, Nunu passed the ball to Clardy, who dribbled until 5 seconds were left in the game before starting the play, meaning the bucket went in with about 2 seconds to go, which was important, because if she had missed, Agara, the screener, was all alone in front of the rim and could have easily put back a miss.  The reason she was all alone is that while CSU didn't make the switch (Agara's defender was off of her enough that Clardy's defender could go under the screen), Agara's defender did rotate to become a help defender; fortunately, Clardy turned the corner fast enough that she beat #0 to the basket. 

There is this pervasive belief here that if the coach could just magically draw up the perfect play that our offense would magically be loads better. The fact is that our offense, which I will grant could use some improvement, is not as bad as people make it, especially once you consider that we start two freshmen.  But basketball doesn't work that way; you can't just will your way to a new offense.  Players have to learn it and they have to be skilled enough to run it. We are all excited about the new freshmen, but, to give you one example, Swain's challenges finishing layups don't mean that Paye has her handcuffed and unable to exploit her athleticism.  Likewise, our problems shooting threes (shooting just 27% for the year) are not in fact because our coaching staff is not letting shooters shoot; it's that they are having trouble making the shots, even some that have been pretty wide open.

I don't know if Coach Paye is the right person for the job; she may not be.  I don't think a little bit over a year on the job is enough to make that determination.  I do think that fixating on which offensive "system" we run is probably not actually that useful.  Tara Vanderveer ran at least three different systems in her career (triangle, motion, Princeton, and probably others) and there was no one perfect one.  She won with pretty much all of them, and I think her ups and downs were more about recruiting and developing the players (versus lulls in recruitment or when players didn't pan out) than which system, though to be sure some systems are more suited for some players.

BC