Preview:
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid267544
Oregon is more like a WNBA team than a college team, as their victory over team USA showed, and at least three of them will be playing in the WNBA next year. And yet, somehow, they have lost twice this year--to teams we can certainly compete with--so they are not invulnerable. What will it take to win? I doubt it will happen, but here is my best guess about how we could pull it off:
1. Dodson plays excellent defense on Hebard, controlling her and diminishing her effectiveness without the need to double. CHECK!
2. We figure out a way to defeat their zone by getting Jump and/or the Hulls repeatedly open in the corners and they shoot treys lights-out. NOPE.
3. Lacie, Lexie, Wilson, Williams are able to tag team to defend the perimeter effectively. Maybe we unveil some new defense that Oregon won't expect. I doubt we would zone them with all that three point shooting...but who knows? Tara knows. NOPE
4. Lexie's offensive magic returns to her. CHECK!
5. Someone we least expect has a break-out offensive game. Lacie, Prechtel, Wilson. It has to be like McPhee's second half outpouring against them a couple of years back, or Carrington's performance in the tournament win against them last year--a unique and unstoppable performance that equalizes with the Oregon offense. We already know Williams will give us everything she has, but she could contribute a 30 point game and we could still lose by 50. We need multiple players to be in double digits and someone not named Williams to break 20. NOPE
Overview:
Once again it was the Oregon defense rather than the Oregon offense that flummoxed us, but even so, we outscored them by 10 in the 4th quarter to make this the closest game Oregon has played in a month. Another way of looking at it: of the five things I said we would need to do to win, we did 2 :( Oh, Ionescu set her career record 2k 1k 1k against us tonight.
Flow of the Game:
From the start it was easy to tell that the same Oregon defense that bothered us so much in Eugene was back to bother us again. Their zone slowed us down enough that we seldom had the time we wanted to run several set plays. In the first half we tried to defeat it by repeated attempting back door cuts, lops, and darting passes to the interior--and nearly all of them resulted in turnovers. That left shooting from the perimeter and that was usually covered too, and our shooting in general was very poor. We shot 18% in the first quarter, and while we made a couple of treys, we were 1/11 from inside. Despite all of that , we led after 6 minutes 8-7, but then went the rest of the quarter and 3 minutes into the 2nd quarter before we scored another point. Meanwhile, Oregon kept scoring and by that point led 20-8.
Oregon went on an 11-4 run to lead 31-12 and we were coming dangerously close to collapsing. But Williams, Dodson, and Lexie answered with a 10-1 run of our own and I have never felt so relieved to be "only" down 10 at the half. We improved our shooting in the 2nd quarter to 46%, which was a brobdingnagian improvement over the pathetic 1st quarter. However, Oregon improved its 2nd quarter shooting to a ridiculous 63%.
We lost the 3rd quarter 24-16, which, as it turns out, was the exact margin by which we lost the overall game. At this point I was beginning to figure out the chess match. Tara was successfully using a succession of bigs to control Hebard. We have in the past had games where we virtually shut her down, and tonight was close. She wound up making only one basket in the game. That is phenomenal. Ionescu was also somewhat controlled. She wound up with 21 but was well below that for most of the game, and she missed 10 shots. But by the third quarter it was clear that we had no one who could guard Satou Sabally. As we closed into the paint to double Oregon players, they passed out to a wide open Sabally who was 4/7 from three point range. The more I watch her the more I was in awe. I think she is a much better talent than Hebard or even Ionescu and see why she is going pro. Tall, strong, quick, long, accurate, tough, I am happy we will never see her again in Maples.
Down by a similar margin in Eugene, we folded up and suffered a 30 point defeat. But tonight we did fight back splendidly in the fourth quarter. Lexie emphatically broke out of her slump and scored 11 in that quarter alone, and had help from Dodson, Williams, and Fingall to put out a 28 point effort, closing from 18 points down to 8 point down. If we could have pulled off one more quarter like that we would have won. We didn't. We lost.
Performances:
We do deserve some credit for dramatically improving how we played Oregon. We outrebounded them, including more O-boards. Maybe that was because Oregon never seemed to miss. Assists were even and turnovers virtually even--we had 10 in the first half trying to force the ball inside unsuccessfully, but only 3 in the second half, so that was helpful improvement. Unfortunately some of those turnover led to Oregon having 11 fast break points to our 0. I was very impressed with how quickly Oregon got back on defense to prevent us from getting anything in transition--again that is easier off of made baskets, of course. They had 34 points in the paint to our 24.
Also credit our defense for almost shutting out Hebard and keeping Boley under reasonable limits. Only Ionescu and Sabbally were in double digits, and Ionescu's 21 is just the cost of doing business with them. Sabally was the killer.
The most encouraging news of the night was that Lexie had a spectacular night after being in a slump. It is really good to see her getting back to her old self. She equaled Sabally with 27 points, including a spectacular 6/12 from three point land. She also led the team in assists with 5, had 5 rebounds 2 steals and a block.
Oregon's defense keyed on Williams--as much as a zone can key on anyone, and she was held down to 14 points on 6/16 shooting.
No one else scored in double digits. Fingall collected 12 rebounds and scored 7, Lacie spend almost the whole game hounding Ionescu but scored only 2 points, and Dodson scored just 6.
Most unusual to me was that the five starters all got brobdingnagian amounts of minutes--all well over 30 except Dodson with 29. Prechtel seemed effective offensively to me, but she got only 8 minutes and the rest of the bench got less. Tara chose to leave the same 5 on the court for almost the whole game, with cameos at odd times. I guess she wanted to put the most experienced players forward today, leaving the freshmen mostly out of it.
Conclusion:
I am astonished at some of the negative comments made below in this thread. I'm disappointed with this loss, but if someone had come to be before the season started and told me when we had Oregon at home, we would be down 2 starters and Oregon would have lost nobody significant, I would have thought this game would have been a complete wipe-out. Instead, I see some good coming from this. Lexie is back in form, and we were far more competitive against everyone not named Sabally.
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid267544
Oregon is more like a WNBA team than a college team, as their victory over team USA showed, and at least three of them will be playing in the WNBA next year. And yet, somehow, they have lost twice this year--to teams we can certainly compete with--so they are not invulnerable. What will it take to win? I doubt it will happen, but here is my best guess about how we could pull it off:
1. Dodson plays excellent defense on Hebard, controlling her and diminishing her effectiveness without the need to double. CHECK!
2. We figure out a way to defeat their zone by getting Jump and/or the Hulls repeatedly open in the corners and they shoot treys lights-out. NOPE.
3. Lacie, Lexie, Wilson, Williams are able to tag team to defend the perimeter effectively. Maybe we unveil some new defense that Oregon won't expect. I doubt we would zone them with all that three point shooting...but who knows? Tara knows. NOPE
4. Lexie's offensive magic returns to her. CHECK!
5. Someone we least expect has a break-out offensive game. Lacie, Prechtel, Wilson. It has to be like McPhee's second half outpouring against them a couple of years back, or Carrington's performance in the tournament win against them last year--a unique and unstoppable performance that equalizes with the Oregon offense. We already know Williams will give us everything she has, but she could contribute a 30 point game and we could still lose by 50. We need multiple players to be in double digits and someone not named Williams to break 20. NOPE
Overview:
Once again it was the Oregon defense rather than the Oregon offense that flummoxed us, but even so, we outscored them by 10 in the 4th quarter to make this the closest game Oregon has played in a month. Another way of looking at it: of the five things I said we would need to do to win, we did 2 :( Oh, Ionescu set her career record 2k 1k 1k against us tonight.
Flow of the Game:
From the start it was easy to tell that the same Oregon defense that bothered us so much in Eugene was back to bother us again. Their zone slowed us down enough that we seldom had the time we wanted to run several set plays. In the first half we tried to defeat it by repeated attempting back door cuts, lops, and darting passes to the interior--and nearly all of them resulted in turnovers. That left shooting from the perimeter and that was usually covered too, and our shooting in general was very poor. We shot 18% in the first quarter, and while we made a couple of treys, we were 1/11 from inside. Despite all of that , we led after 6 minutes 8-7, but then went the rest of the quarter and 3 minutes into the 2nd quarter before we scored another point. Meanwhile, Oregon kept scoring and by that point led 20-8.
Oregon went on an 11-4 run to lead 31-12 and we were coming dangerously close to collapsing. But Williams, Dodson, and Lexie answered with a 10-1 run of our own and I have never felt so relieved to be "only" down 10 at the half. We improved our shooting in the 2nd quarter to 46%, which was a brobdingnagian improvement over the pathetic 1st quarter. However, Oregon improved its 2nd quarter shooting to a ridiculous 63%.
We lost the 3rd quarter 24-16, which, as it turns out, was the exact margin by which we lost the overall game. At this point I was beginning to figure out the chess match. Tara was successfully using a succession of bigs to control Hebard. We have in the past had games where we virtually shut her down, and tonight was close. She wound up making only one basket in the game. That is phenomenal. Ionescu was also somewhat controlled. She wound up with 21 but was well below that for most of the game, and she missed 10 shots. But by the third quarter it was clear that we had no one who could guard Satou Sabally. As we closed into the paint to double Oregon players, they passed out to a wide open Sabally who was 4/7 from three point range. The more I watch her the more I was in awe. I think she is a much better talent than Hebard or even Ionescu and see why she is going pro. Tall, strong, quick, long, accurate, tough, I am happy we will never see her again in Maples.
Down by a similar margin in Eugene, we folded up and suffered a 30 point defeat. But tonight we did fight back splendidly in the fourth quarter. Lexie emphatically broke out of her slump and scored 11 in that quarter alone, and had help from Dodson, Williams, and Fingall to put out a 28 point effort, closing from 18 points down to 8 point down. If we could have pulled off one more quarter like that we would have won. We didn't. We lost.
Performances:
We do deserve some credit for dramatically improving how we played Oregon. We outrebounded them, including more O-boards. Maybe that was because Oregon never seemed to miss. Assists were even and turnovers virtually even--we had 10 in the first half trying to force the ball inside unsuccessfully, but only 3 in the second half, so that was helpful improvement. Unfortunately some of those turnover led to Oregon having 11 fast break points to our 0. I was very impressed with how quickly Oregon got back on defense to prevent us from getting anything in transition--again that is easier off of made baskets, of course. They had 34 points in the paint to our 24.
Also credit our defense for almost shutting out Hebard and keeping Boley under reasonable limits. Only Ionescu and Sabbally were in double digits, and Ionescu's 21 is just the cost of doing business with them. Sabally was the killer.
The most encouraging news of the night was that Lexie had a spectacular night after being in a slump. It is really good to see her getting back to her old self. She equaled Sabally with 27 points, including a spectacular 6/12 from three point land. She also led the team in assists with 5, had 5 rebounds 2 steals and a block.
Oregon's defense keyed on Williams--as much as a zone can key on anyone, and she was held down to 14 points on 6/16 shooting.
No one else scored in double digits. Fingall collected 12 rebounds and scored 7, Lacie spend almost the whole game hounding Ionescu but scored only 2 points, and Dodson scored just 6.
Most unusual to me was that the five starters all got brobdingnagian amounts of minutes--all well over 30 except Dodson with 29. Prechtel seemed effective offensively to me, but she got only 8 minutes and the rest of the bench got less. Tara chose to leave the same 5 on the court for almost the whole game, with cameos at odd times. I guess she wanted to put the most experienced players forward today, leaving the freshmen mostly out of it.
Conclusion:
I am astonished at some of the negative comments made below in this thread. I'm disappointed with this loss, but if someone had come to be before the season started and told me when we had Oregon at home, we would be down 2 starters and Oregon would have lost nobody significant, I would have thought this game would have been a complete wipe-out. Instead, I see some good coming from this. Lexie is back in form, and we were far more competitive against everyone not named Sabally.
