[81alum]

In case anyone is wondering why Chiney was bottled up in the first half but became her usual self in the second, North Carolina basically says it at their press conference:  the officiating changed.

XYLINA McDANIEL: Officiating to me was just inconsistent. Sometimes they let us battle in there and sometimes they'd call a foul. So you really didn't know when and where you could be physical. I mean, yeah, in my eyes it was just inconsistent.... I mean, the second half we couldn't play as hard as we wanted to in the post because I mean we did have -- I had two fouls in the first half. I believe Stephanie ended up having two fouls in the first half.  I mean, we're not going to be able to battle as hard as we wanted to, and that's what we do. We battle hard in the post to stop the post players so I mean, that helped them out a lot

Coach Calder:  I thought the game could have been more physical than it was actually played. We wanted to bang her more down inside. We banged her in the first half and they allowed us to do that, and we wanted to bang her more in the second half. "

Q. Just to clarify, you said you wanted to bang her or you thought you banged her in the first half or in the second half. You're talking about Ogwumike, right?

COACH CALDER: Yeah, we thought we could have banged her more.

http://www.gostanford.com/pdf9/2670818.pdf

What unsavory language, and what an unsavory strategy.  Any pity I felt for UNC just evaporated.  On the other hand, I do think they got the "inconsistency"
factor right.

All that said, they mentioned one other reason Chiney was able to do so much better in the second half--Mikaela's threes made it impossible to double team Chiney, since they had to send a post out to guard Mikaela.

COACH CALDER: Well, we play the percentages. You're going to have to look at it. I think Ruef made two threes all year. Is that right? Do you know? She made two all year and she made three tonight. We played the percentages. We backed off her in the first half and we were able to put somebody in front and behind Ogwumike, and that gave us a lot of confidence. Then she made a couple of threes, and that obviously changed the game when she was able to make those threes. So I thought that was big. Then that left single coverage down inside on Ogwumike, and we weren't able to handle her like we had wanted to in the second half."

[81alum]

In case anyone is wondering why Chiney was bottled up in the first half but became her usual self in the second, North Carolina basically says it at their press conference:  the officiating changed.

XYLINA McDANIEL: Officiating to me was just inconsistent. Sometimes they let us battle in there and sometimes they'd call a foul. So you really didn't know when and where you could be physical. I mean, yeah, in my eyes it was just inconsistent.... I mean, the second half we couldn't play as hard as we wanted to in the post because I mean we did have -- I had two fouls in the first half. I believe Stephanie ended up having two fouls in the first half.  I mean, we're not going to be able to battle as hard as we wanted to, and that's what we do. We battle hard in the post to stop the post players so I mean, that helped them out a lot

Coach Calder:  I thought the game could have been more physical than it was actually played. We wanted to bang her more down inside. We banged her in the first half and they allowed us to do that, and we wanted to bang her more in the second half. "

Q. Just to clarify, you said you wanted to bang her or you thought you banged her in the first half or in the second half. You're talking about Ogwumike, right?

COACH CALDER: Yeah, we thought we could have banged her more.

http://www.gostanford.com/pdf9/2670818.pdf

What unsavory language, and what an unsavory strategy.  Any pity I felt for UNC just evaporated.  On the other hand, I do think they got the "inconsistency"
factor right.

All that said, they mentioned one other reason Chiney was able to do so much better in the second half--Mikaela's threes made it impossible to double team Chiney, since they had to send a post out to guard Mikaela.

COACH CALDER: Well, we play the percentages. You're going to have to look at it. I think Ruef made two threes all year. Is that right? Do you know? She made two all year and she made three tonight. We played the percentages. We backed off her in the first half and we were able to put somebody in front and behind Ogwumike, and that gave us a lot of confidence. Then she made a couple of threes, and that obviously changed the game when she was able to make those threes. So I thought that was big. Then that left single coverage down inside on Ogwumike, and we weren't able to handle her like we had wanted to in the second half."