Preview:
It has been two weeks since we beat Mississippi State, and we will soon find out whether Carrington and/or Dodson have gotten healthy during the interval-- when we take on Ohio State.
Ohio State is a young, talented, but inconsistent team. They recently beat Louisville and played UConn tough, but also lost to the like of Ohio and South Dakota, This leaves them at 38th in the computer rankings--but they got 6 votes in the AP rankings, so folks are beginning to notice their reservoir of talent. OSU is led by a 6'4" sophomore from Hungary (#14) who averages 12 points and 8 rebounds, and a phenomenal 6'1" freshman guard Kierstan Bell (#24), who is averaging 11 ppg. Watch out for those player with numbers ending in 4! All their players shoot threes with four shooting better than 30% and even their bigs shooting in the mid 20s. One point guard has a 4:1 assist:turnover ratio. In short, they can be a deadly team as Louisville found out. I wonder if it will be Lacie who get the defensive assignment on Kierstan Bell?
Overview:
I'd award most of the credit for this win to an impressive defensive scout and excellent defensive execution. OSU frequently plays "5 out" on the perimeter, looking for players to break to the basket, but time and again we had players intercept the passes that were meant to facilitate the cuts. OSU had 23 points in the first half, Lexie had 7 steals, and the OSU freshman phenom was 0/8 for 0 points.
Before the game:
We learned the unfortunate news that Carrington and Dodson are out indefinitely, and that Lacie is now in a boot. Carrington had the operation last summer and apparently it is acting up. Dodson is healing very slowly and dealing with pain. None the coaches ever offer anything solid on timetables--they claim that they themselves do not know--Stanford coaches have nothing to do with medical decisions. With Brewer injured all year (so far) that leaves us with 11 healthy players.
Flow of the game:
While our defense did well all game, our offense seemed a little labored until we discovered the high-low passes to Fingall or Belibi under the basket. That started to click late in the first quarter and the two of them converted repeatedly. In the 2nd half McGuff made a couple of adjustments that worked for a while. He took away the High-Low pass until we sent in Jump who started to knock down treys. And he began to full court press which resulted in some turnovers. Haley had 7 and Kiana 5. But while that permitted OSU to score 19, so did we and thus the cushion remained the same. By the fourth quarter everything began to slow down and we coasted to the win.
Performances:
Lexie got called over for the post-game interview. She had 13 points and 7 steals--I think most all in the first half.
Jones led with 15 points, 6 assists, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a block--more than compensating for her turnovers. She also led the team in minutes at 34 minutes. A lot of her points were from wonderful mid range jumpers when everyone else seemed unable to get open. She is becoming the person who you want to have the ball when the clock is running down and nothing else has worked on the possession. She also cut through defenders to the rim a couple of times.
Williams played 31 minutes, contributed 13 points and 6 rebounds. But she managed just 2 assists to go with 5 turnovers, and Tara took her out from time to time to rest her. We were told before the game that she was not injured in Victoria. A few of those turnovers were aggressive efforts to feed the ball inside that did not work.
Fingall got 28 minutes--she has been expanding her time fairly steadily and getting back to normal. She made four baskets down low, but I think all in the first half before OSU began to sag on her. She had 4 steals and a block--but only 3 rebounds.
Jerome started and played 15 minutes, going 0/2, getting just 1 rebound and 1 assist.
Belibi with 20 minutes and 13 points, making her the 4th player in double figures. I think she is our most reliable scorer down low, although she went just 6/10--sometimes missing a few times on the same possession after getting repeated rebounds. She led the team with 8 rebounds despite playing just half the game.
Jump and Wilson got double digit minutes and made important contributions. Jump went 3/7 from three point range, Wilson missed 3 times but had 5 assists to 1 turnover.
Conclusion:
This was a dangerous game, but we seemed well prepared to take them on and were not as rusty as I feared. We managed just fine with 4 injured players sitting down, but we can't afford for more injuries to mount up. I continue to be deeply impressed with the contributions that the freshmen are making, and also with Fingall's recovery. The coming game against Tennessee will be of an entirely different character--we will need all our bigs to play tall in that game.
It has been two weeks since we beat Mississippi State, and we will soon find out whether Carrington and/or Dodson have gotten healthy during the interval-- when we take on Ohio State.
Ohio State is a young, talented, but inconsistent team. They recently beat Louisville and played UConn tough, but also lost to the like of Ohio and South Dakota, This leaves them at 38th in the computer rankings--but they got 6 votes in the AP rankings, so folks are beginning to notice their reservoir of talent. OSU is led by a 6'4" sophomore from Hungary (#14) who averages 12 points and 8 rebounds, and a phenomenal 6'1" freshman guard Kierstan Bell (#24), who is averaging 11 ppg. Watch out for those player with numbers ending in 4! All their players shoot threes with four shooting better than 30% and even their bigs shooting in the mid 20s. One point guard has a 4:1 assist:turnover ratio. In short, they can be a deadly team as Louisville found out. I wonder if it will be Lacie who get the defensive assignment on Kierstan Bell?
Overview:
I'd award most of the credit for this win to an impressive defensive scout and excellent defensive execution. OSU frequently plays "5 out" on the perimeter, looking for players to break to the basket, but time and again we had players intercept the passes that were meant to facilitate the cuts. OSU had 23 points in the first half, Lexie had 7 steals, and the OSU freshman phenom was 0/8 for 0 points.
Before the game:
We learned the unfortunate news that Carrington and Dodson are out indefinitely, and that Lacie is now in a boot. Carrington had the operation last summer and apparently it is acting up. Dodson is healing very slowly and dealing with pain. None the coaches ever offer anything solid on timetables--they claim that they themselves do not know--Stanford coaches have nothing to do with medical decisions. With Brewer injured all year (so far) that leaves us with 11 healthy players.
Flow of the game:
While our defense did well all game, our offense seemed a little labored until we discovered the high-low passes to Fingall or Belibi under the basket. That started to click late in the first quarter and the two of them converted repeatedly. In the 2nd half McGuff made a couple of adjustments that worked for a while. He took away the High-Low pass until we sent in Jump who started to knock down treys. And he began to full court press which resulted in some turnovers. Haley had 7 and Kiana 5. But while that permitted OSU to score 19, so did we and thus the cushion remained the same. By the fourth quarter everything began to slow down and we coasted to the win.
Performances:
Lexie got called over for the post-game interview. She had 13 points and 7 steals--I think most all in the first half.
Jones led with 15 points, 6 assists, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a block--more than compensating for her turnovers. She also led the team in minutes at 34 minutes. A lot of her points were from wonderful mid range jumpers when everyone else seemed unable to get open. She is becoming the person who you want to have the ball when the clock is running down and nothing else has worked on the possession. She also cut through defenders to the rim a couple of times.
Williams played 31 minutes, contributed 13 points and 6 rebounds. But she managed just 2 assists to go with 5 turnovers, and Tara took her out from time to time to rest her. We were told before the game that she was not injured in Victoria. A few of those turnovers were aggressive efforts to feed the ball inside that did not work.
Fingall got 28 minutes--she has been expanding her time fairly steadily and getting back to normal. She made four baskets down low, but I think all in the first half before OSU began to sag on her. She had 4 steals and a block--but only 3 rebounds.
Jerome started and played 15 minutes, going 0/2, getting just 1 rebound and 1 assist.
Belibi with 20 minutes and 13 points, making her the 4th player in double figures. I think she is our most reliable scorer down low, although she went just 6/10--sometimes missing a few times on the same possession after getting repeated rebounds. She led the team with 8 rebounds despite playing just half the game.
Jump and Wilson got double digit minutes and made important contributions. Jump went 3/7 from three point range, Wilson missed 3 times but had 5 assists to 1 turnover.
Conclusion:
This was a dangerous game, but we seemed well prepared to take them on and were not as rusty as I feared. We managed just fine with 4 injured players sitting down, but we can't afford for more injuries to mount up. I continue to be deeply impressed with the contributions that the freshmen are making, and also with Fingall's recovery. The coming game against Tennessee will be of an entirely different character--we will need all our bigs to play tall in that game.
