Preview:
Northern Colorado is a young team coached by Jenny Huth who is in her 2nd year after serving as an assistant coach at UCLA. She will know all about Stanford. Last year in her first year they went 21-11 and came in 2nd in the Big Sky conference. This year they are 0-2, having lost to USF at home 83-90, and to Colorado State 58-75. Their best player is a 5'7" junior guard Chapman who scores 19ppg, and so far has gone 8/19 from three point range. She shoots better from 3 than from inside. But like Stanford, a lot of freshmen are getting minutes. This will be their first game away from Colorado, they are inexperienced and have been losing at home. This has the potential to be another Eastern Washington, except that their coach probably knows a few tricks to help to keep them competitive. They did play USF close.
Overview:
Our defense blanketed Northern Colorado's top perimeter player, holding her to 1/12 shooting, and we got into the passing lanes with our length and quickness and forced 19 turnovers. Meanwhile it was Lacie Hull's turn to have a career night with 19 points, and we kept increasing the lead to the end.
Before the Game:
Tempie talked to the fans at the chalktalk and there were several important tidbits of news. She said she did not know what might be done with the 4th scholarship available after we announced 3 recruits for next year--whether we would have a late addition or carry it over. Notably she did not volunteer any information about a redshirt for Anna Wilson, although that specific question was not put to her. She had no timetable for Dodson's return, and mentioned that Jump was out tonight with a minor practice injury. Someone else mentioned she had a broken nose but I did not see that. Tempie noted that it was terrifically fun to coach this year, and let us know that Jones would be starting--no one is doing badly--the coaches are just trying out lots of different combinations.
Game Analysis:
It has been a few years since we fans regularly witnessed blowouts like this. It is a mark of our talent level and our depth that we can expand 20 point leads to 30 to 40 to 50, while playing 12.
But even in a blowout certain things are becoming clear. Lexie and Lacie are judged by Tara to be our best perimeter defenders. They were the two who were most often assigned to guard Chapman--the three point shooting star of Northern Colorado--and they held her to 1/11.
Tara let our defense get very much more aggressive that we are used to seeing it--getting into passing lanes and creating turnovers and steals. She realizes that against certain opponents we have the quickness and speed to make it work. In the past we played much more conservative defense. Perhaps this is just a function of who we were playing tonight--but it was startling to see in a Stanford team.
We ran the Princeton to perfection and scored most of our points on cuts to the basket. Three point shooting was not that big a factor--we made only 4 treys, and had a whopping 58 points in the paint. We ran them ragged.
Our weakest link--both offensively and defensively--is post play. This is probably to be expected with Smith graduated, Dodson injured, and Fingall not at 100%. While N Colorado did not score prolifically, they got a number of interior post points that a more experienced defense would not have permitted. On offense, it seems to me that Jones and Belibi have good moves and instincts under the basket but neither Prechtel nor Fingall nor Jerome seemed to have the killer instinct to twist and turn and put the ball in the basket reliably from in close. Jerome and Prechtel both have back to the basket moves, but in the traffic and confusion it was Belibi who seems reliable from inside. As the season wears on, I think we will have to rely on Belibi and Jones to score inside--and so they had better become competent inside defenders. Could one of them guard Hebard? Dodson, when she gets healthy, might have an important defensive role on this team.
Performances:
This was probably Lacie's best day in a Cardinal uniform. Not only did she play lock-down defense on the other team's best player, she led scoring with 22 on 8/11 shooting, not to mention a loaded up stat line in other ways too.
Haley Jones started and began to look a lot more like the nation's top recruit than she has in the earlier games. She had 11 points in 20 minutes, but also had 3 assists--a couple of which were spectacular. She had a couple of spectacular turnovers trying to get even more assists--but she was a lot of fun to watch play.
Carrington looked like a woman among girls for the mere 10 minutes that Tara played her. She nabbed 11 points on 5/6 shooting.
Lots of others had good games, including Lexie Hull, Belibi, and even Estella Moschkau. Brown and Wilson ran point competently, so did Williams who was 2/5. No one played more than 22 minutes so lots of players got lots of opportunity.
Conclusion:
Gonzaga may not be the same Gonzaga that beat us a year ago, but they will be a more athletic and talented team than Northern Colorado and so we should have a better test on Sunday. So far I have seen nothing that makes me think we are any closer to narrowing down a starting rotation. Just when Lacie was beginning to fade from memory she has a career game, and now Haley Jones is beginning to come on. I can see a rotation of 9-10 at this point. Maybe that is as narrow as it will go.
Northern Colorado is a young team coached by Jenny Huth who is in her 2nd year after serving as an assistant coach at UCLA. She will know all about Stanford. Last year in her first year they went 21-11 and came in 2nd in the Big Sky conference. This year they are 0-2, having lost to USF at home 83-90, and to Colorado State 58-75. Their best player is a 5'7" junior guard Chapman who scores 19ppg, and so far has gone 8/19 from three point range. She shoots better from 3 than from inside. But like Stanford, a lot of freshmen are getting minutes. This will be their first game away from Colorado, they are inexperienced and have been losing at home. This has the potential to be another Eastern Washington, except that their coach probably knows a few tricks to help to keep them competitive. They did play USF close.
Overview:
Our defense blanketed Northern Colorado's top perimeter player, holding her to 1/12 shooting, and we got into the passing lanes with our length and quickness and forced 19 turnovers. Meanwhile it was Lacie Hull's turn to have a career night with 19 points, and we kept increasing the lead to the end.
Before the Game:
Tempie talked to the fans at the chalktalk and there were several important tidbits of news. She said she did not know what might be done with the 4th scholarship available after we announced 3 recruits for next year--whether we would have a late addition or carry it over. Notably she did not volunteer any information about a redshirt for Anna Wilson, although that specific question was not put to her. She had no timetable for Dodson's return, and mentioned that Jump was out tonight with a minor practice injury. Someone else mentioned she had a broken nose but I did not see that. Tempie noted that it was terrifically fun to coach this year, and let us know that Jones would be starting--no one is doing badly--the coaches are just trying out lots of different combinations.
Game Analysis:
It has been a few years since we fans regularly witnessed blowouts like this. It is a mark of our talent level and our depth that we can expand 20 point leads to 30 to 40 to 50, while playing 12.
But even in a blowout certain things are becoming clear. Lexie and Lacie are judged by Tara to be our best perimeter defenders. They were the two who were most often assigned to guard Chapman--the three point shooting star of Northern Colorado--and they held her to 1/11.
Tara let our defense get very much more aggressive that we are used to seeing it--getting into passing lanes and creating turnovers and steals. She realizes that against certain opponents we have the quickness and speed to make it work. In the past we played much more conservative defense. Perhaps this is just a function of who we were playing tonight--but it was startling to see in a Stanford team.
We ran the Princeton to perfection and scored most of our points on cuts to the basket. Three point shooting was not that big a factor--we made only 4 treys, and had a whopping 58 points in the paint. We ran them ragged.
Our weakest link--both offensively and defensively--is post play. This is probably to be expected with Smith graduated, Dodson injured, and Fingall not at 100%. While N Colorado did not score prolifically, they got a number of interior post points that a more experienced defense would not have permitted. On offense, it seems to me that Jones and Belibi have good moves and instincts under the basket but neither Prechtel nor Fingall nor Jerome seemed to have the killer instinct to twist and turn and put the ball in the basket reliably from in close. Jerome and Prechtel both have back to the basket moves, but in the traffic and confusion it was Belibi who seems reliable from inside. As the season wears on, I think we will have to rely on Belibi and Jones to score inside--and so they had better become competent inside defenders. Could one of them guard Hebard? Dodson, when she gets healthy, might have an important defensive role on this team.
Performances:
This was probably Lacie's best day in a Cardinal uniform. Not only did she play lock-down defense on the other team's best player, she led scoring with 22 on 8/11 shooting, not to mention a loaded up stat line in other ways too.
Haley Jones started and began to look a lot more like the nation's top recruit than she has in the earlier games. She had 11 points in 20 minutes, but also had 3 assists--a couple of which were spectacular. She had a couple of spectacular turnovers trying to get even more assists--but she was a lot of fun to watch play.
Carrington looked like a woman among girls for the mere 10 minutes that Tara played her. She nabbed 11 points on 5/6 shooting.
Lots of others had good games, including Lexie Hull, Belibi, and even Estella Moschkau. Brown and Wilson ran point competently, so did Williams who was 2/5. No one played more than 22 minutes so lots of players got lots of opportunity.
Conclusion:
Gonzaga may not be the same Gonzaga that beat us a year ago, but they will be a more athletic and talented team than Northern Colorado and so we should have a better test on Sunday. So far I have seen nothing that makes me think we are any closer to narrowing down a starting rotation. Just when Lacie was beginning to fade from memory she has a career game, and now Haley Jones is beginning to come on. I can see a rotation of 9-10 at this point. Maybe that is as narrow as it will go.
