01-19-2013, 01:01 AM
81A-
Wrote this up in my own thread, but happy to move it here.
A few thoughts:
(1) I'm really not sure why UCLA was trying to play defense as it did. It seemed like they wanted to go ball pressure player to player (for future reference, let's abbreviate that P2P), and not double Chiney. They have a very good presser at PG Mariah Williams, who made life difficult for whomever was bringing the ball up for Stanford most of the night. But you have to defend against the backcut, or the flash to the basket, or ... well, anything in the lane. Stanford got good 1 v 1 looks inside for a lot of the evening, and Chiney took advantage: 10-15 FG, 5-6 FT, 25 pts, 13 boards, and a couple of nice assists to Sara James at the very beginning of the game from the high post or wing - where a lot of us think she should be spending more time.
The other thing you have to protect against when you're applying ball pressure is the drive off the pick, and tonight Amber Orrange feasted on it, hitting her nice pull-up 15-16 footer over and over again. Don't know if she reads our comments, but her energy level in the first 10 minutes was definitely up. Defensively, it helped that Mariah Williams, like a lot of guards we seem to be facing apart from UConn, apparently has no outside shot. Amber was creating havoc by being a roving double-team, confident that she could recover quickly enough to deter Williams. We may complain about people being hesitant to shoot, but Williams? 0-1, 0 pts in 20 minutes.
(2) Starters were Tinkle, Chiney, James, Kokenis and Orrange. Now that we know she's been fighting something, I watched Toni pretty closely. She's definitely a notch slower, but to me, it seems more like a problem with her wrist or hand - she has a thumb wrap on, and a big knee brace. That being said, she did okay tonight, although when Orrange left the floor midway through the second half with foul trouble, Stanford stagnated a bit because Toni seemed to be overdribbling.
Commentators were definitely playing up the hustle plays made by James, and there were some good ones. But more than that, she just seems like one of those players that Stanford rarely has - the annoyingly effective player who doesn't have the flashiest moves or best athleticism but finds a way to contribute. The kind of player you hate to see play against us - forearms up to block out so that Chiney could go get the rebound, trying to bang people on screens in the lane, and generally making a really effective nuisance of herself to the Bruins.
Chiney, played straight up for a lot of the night, ate up the Bruins defenders. But more than that, for a lot of the game she played defense on their best threat, forward Markel Walker, and made her look really bad. Walker finished 2-11 with 8 pts and 4 rebounds in 37 minutes, and often seemed to be throwing up desperate shots - not desperation shots, because they weren't late in the shot clock, but wild improbably throw the ball at the basket attempts that rarely threatened the net.
Amber was good for much of the game, although there were lapses. It helped that she didn't have a defensive responsibility for a lot of her time on the floor; don't know how much she was guarding Lemberger, who was a consistent threat, but Amber did end up with a lot of pokeaways, tips and outright steals, ending up with 5. Of course, that was balanced by 5 turnovers, but against Williams and the rest of the Bruins pressing the perimeter, that's less horrible than it may seem.
Which leaves Joslyn. For a lot of the game, she seemed to be the only one missing from the gameplan. In terms of someone not playing hard and aggressively, I found her the poster child tonight - she had a lot of open looks at bunnies and hit the underside of the rim, gave up a couple of easy and-1 opportunities with slap at the ball fouls that did very little to deter the shot from going up, and in general looked as she has for the last month and a half.
And then she hit 4 three-pointers in a row.
The first, about 2 minutes into the second half, was pure. Late in the shot clock from the right wing. She missed a couple of short jumpers and putbacks, hit a nice layup off an assist from Sara, but then with a little under two minutes lefts, another long one rattled in (and I mean RATTLED, as in off iron high in the air, then twice more before settling through). Feeling it, the next two times she launched with little hesitation, and nailed two more to give her 16 points and Stanford its final margin.
Bench: Ruef got some run, and had some nice defense and rebounding plays, as well as a couple of nice drive toward the basket and dishes to Chiney. Made one of her own, but mainly in to bang with Alyssia Brewer, the latest UCLA massive power forward/center. One play that I really was incensed by, even though it turned out well - middle of the second half, Brewer comes charging in after a offensive rebound and literally plants her elbow into the side of Chiney's head. Stanford came away with the board, but no foul was called.
All in all, Stanford's defense, helped by yet another team unbalanced toward the inside and short game and really with limited outside options (basically Lemberger), held the Bruins to 31% shooting and about 30 points below their Pac-12 scoring average. Continuing that defensive consistency.
Offensively, much better movement and flow helped by the Bruins chasing outside as hard as they did. I would expect Michael Cooper's SC team to really pack it in and try to disrupt the flow as Kal did, by not leaving any room inside.
One thing more, in terms of offensive hesitancy on the part of Tinkle and Ruef. A few times tonight, I saw an example of the issue I brought up earlier - their hesitancy to attack the basket after setting the pick. UCLA was switching on the perimeter a lot, and several times, when Amber or Toni came off a pick by Joslyn or Michaela, the guard stayed with the pick player. I saw them standing on the perimeter, with the ball at the top of the key, and the only player between them and the basket was a 5'6", maybe, guard in Williams. Only later in the game, in the second half, did I see Michaela make a cut to the basket. Would love to see both of them, when they get that switch, simply isolate and drive their defender down the lane to set up in the low block. Especially against a team that was as reluctant to come out of P2P as UCLA seemed to be.
All in all, a nice bounceback win. Hope they keep it rolling against the Toejams on Sunday.
VG
Wrote this up in my own thread, but happy to move it here.
A few thoughts:
(1) I'm really not sure why UCLA was trying to play defense as it did. It seemed like they wanted to go ball pressure player to player (for future reference, let's abbreviate that P2P), and not double Chiney. They have a very good presser at PG Mariah Williams, who made life difficult for whomever was bringing the ball up for Stanford most of the night. But you have to defend against the backcut, or the flash to the basket, or ... well, anything in the lane. Stanford got good 1 v 1 looks inside for a lot of the evening, and Chiney took advantage: 10-15 FG, 5-6 FT, 25 pts, 13 boards, and a couple of nice assists to Sara James at the very beginning of the game from the high post or wing - where a lot of us think she should be spending more time.
The other thing you have to protect against when you're applying ball pressure is the drive off the pick, and tonight Amber Orrange feasted on it, hitting her nice pull-up 15-16 footer over and over again. Don't know if she reads our comments, but her energy level in the first 10 minutes was definitely up. Defensively, it helped that Mariah Williams, like a lot of guards we seem to be facing apart from UConn, apparently has no outside shot. Amber was creating havoc by being a roving double-team, confident that she could recover quickly enough to deter Williams. We may complain about people being hesitant to shoot, but Williams? 0-1, 0 pts in 20 minutes.
(2) Starters were Tinkle, Chiney, James, Kokenis and Orrange. Now that we know she's been fighting something, I watched Toni pretty closely. She's definitely a notch slower, but to me, it seems more like a problem with her wrist or hand - she has a thumb wrap on, and a big knee brace. That being said, she did okay tonight, although when Orrange left the floor midway through the second half with foul trouble, Stanford stagnated a bit because Toni seemed to be overdribbling.
Commentators were definitely playing up the hustle plays made by James, and there were some good ones. But more than that, she just seems like one of those players that Stanford rarely has - the annoyingly effective player who doesn't have the flashiest moves or best athleticism but finds a way to contribute. The kind of player you hate to see play against us - forearms up to block out so that Chiney could go get the rebound, trying to bang people on screens in the lane, and generally making a really effective nuisance of herself to the Bruins.
Chiney, played straight up for a lot of the night, ate up the Bruins defenders. But more than that, for a lot of the game she played defense on their best threat, forward Markel Walker, and made her look really bad. Walker finished 2-11 with 8 pts and 4 rebounds in 37 minutes, and often seemed to be throwing up desperate shots - not desperation shots, because they weren't late in the shot clock, but wild improbably throw the ball at the basket attempts that rarely threatened the net.
Amber was good for much of the game, although there were lapses. It helped that she didn't have a defensive responsibility for a lot of her time on the floor; don't know how much she was guarding Lemberger, who was a consistent threat, but Amber did end up with a lot of pokeaways, tips and outright steals, ending up with 5. Of course, that was balanced by 5 turnovers, but against Williams and the rest of the Bruins pressing the perimeter, that's less horrible than it may seem.
Which leaves Joslyn. For a lot of the game, she seemed to be the only one missing from the gameplan. In terms of someone not playing hard and aggressively, I found her the poster child tonight - she had a lot of open looks at bunnies and hit the underside of the rim, gave up a couple of easy and-1 opportunities with slap at the ball fouls that did very little to deter the shot from going up, and in general looked as she has for the last month and a half.
And then she hit 4 three-pointers in a row.
The first, about 2 minutes into the second half, was pure. Late in the shot clock from the right wing. She missed a couple of short jumpers and putbacks, hit a nice layup off an assist from Sara, but then with a little under two minutes lefts, another long one rattled in (and I mean RATTLED, as in off iron high in the air, then twice more before settling through). Feeling it, the next two times she launched with little hesitation, and nailed two more to give her 16 points and Stanford its final margin.
Bench: Ruef got some run, and had some nice defense and rebounding plays, as well as a couple of nice drive toward the basket and dishes to Chiney. Made one of her own, but mainly in to bang with Alyssia Brewer, the latest UCLA massive power forward/center. One play that I really was incensed by, even though it turned out well - middle of the second half, Brewer comes charging in after a offensive rebound and literally plants her elbow into the side of Chiney's head. Stanford came away with the board, but no foul was called.
All in all, Stanford's defense, helped by yet another team unbalanced toward the inside and short game and really with limited outside options (basically Lemberger), held the Bruins to 31% shooting and about 30 points below their Pac-12 scoring average. Continuing that defensive consistency.
Offensively, much better movement and flow helped by the Bruins chasing outside as hard as they did. I would expect Michael Cooper's SC team to really pack it in and try to disrupt the flow as Kal did, by not leaving any room inside.
One thing more, in terms of offensive hesitancy on the part of Tinkle and Ruef. A few times tonight, I saw an example of the issue I brought up earlier - their hesitancy to attack the basket after setting the pick. UCLA was switching on the perimeter a lot, and several times, when Amber or Toni came off a pick by Joslyn or Michaela, the guard stayed with the pick player. I saw them standing on the perimeter, with the ball at the top of the key, and the only player between them and the basket was a 5'6", maybe, guard in Williams. Only later in the game, in the second half, did I see Michaela make a cut to the basket. Would love to see both of them, when they get that switch, simply isolate and drive their defender down the lane to set up in the low block. Especially against a team that was as reluctant to come out of P2P as UCLA seemed to be.
All in all, a nice bounceback win. Hope they keep it rolling against the Toejams on Sunday.
VG