[treefan]

I disagree that it is solely personnel in WBB, at least if personnel=players.  I think Stanford has outperformed the raw talents of its personnel, because of its coaching.  Coaching involves finding players that can go to your school, getting them to come to your school, teaching them, training them, having a season-long strategy, and game-by-game tactics.  I think we'd agree that coaching played a big role in Stanford beating Baylor.  By the same measure, I'd have to say that coaching had a big role in the big loss as well.

I agree with your pts. I said even if our guards are not as highly rated as Uconn's coming out of h.s, they should still be able to pass and dribble more efficiently. Sure, we have talented players and Tara gets more out of her average players, but the talent and match up problems that hurt us the most were with Lewis and Stewart (both #1 players out of h.s). Add that Bria Hartley is a more experienced and talented pg than Amber.

We have been successful breaking presses using bigs as targets (Appel, Pedersen, Nneka) against weaker Pac 12 opponents, but it broke down in '08 vs TN and in '10 vs. A&M (with Pohlen running the pg as a 2 guard).  Speaking of '08 (in Tampa F4), I am sure Geno regretted not pressing us sooner given how TN did it with ease. I bet if UConn pressed more in '08 (or in '10)  they would have won, which is why I was not surprised one bit that Geno started the game pressing from the get go on Sat.

[treefan]

I disagree that it is solely personnel in WBB, at least if personnel=players.  I think Stanford has outperformed the raw talents of its personnel, because of its coaching.  Coaching involves finding players that can go to your school, getting them to come to your school, teaching them, training them, having a season-long strategy, and game-by-game tactics.  I think we'd agree that coaching played a big role in Stanford beating Baylor.  By the same measure, I'd have to say that coaching had a big role in the big loss as well.

I agree with your pts. I said even if our guards are not as highly rated as Uconn's coming out of h.s, they should still be able to pass and dribble more efficiently. Sure, we have talented players and Tara gets more out of her average players, but the talent and match up problems that hurt us the most were with Lewis and Stewart (both #1 players out of h.s). Add that Bria Hartley is a more experienced and talented pg than Amber.

We have been successful breaking presses using bigs as targets (Appel, Pedersen, Nneka) against weaker Pac 12 opponents, but it broke down in '08 vs TN and in '10 vs. A&M (with Pohlen running the pg as a 2 guard).  Speaking of '08 (in Tampa F4), I am sure Geno regretted not pressing us sooner given how TN did it with ease. I bet if UConn pressed more in '08 (or in '10)  they would have won, which is why I was not surprised one bit that Geno started the game pressing from the get go on Sat.