11-03-2012, 05:42 PM
Stanford finished its exhibition games today, agaisnt Vanguard. Vanguard is a good Division I NAIA team.
We started Amber Orrange, Jasmine Camp, Bonnie Samuelson, Joslyn Tinkle, and Chiney Ogwumike. The great surprise was that Toni Kokenis did not start and did not play in either of the two exhibition games. Clearly something is wrong.Â
First, the positives. Bonnie and Taylor Greenfield looked great. Tara always says that the greatest improvement is between freshman and sophomore years, and it seems to be true in their cases. Bonnies 3 point shooting seems quite good, as in the better games from last year, at 5/12. Better yet, she crashed the boards a couple of times and came up with 5 rebounds. Her defense looked good too.Â
Taylor also shot 4/10 from three and generally looked good. She managed only one rebound and had three turnovers, but compared with a year ago she seemed much more capable of scoring points to go with her defense. And she just looks and moves more like an athlete than do some of her teammates. I think she has even more upside.
Sara James shot quite well, including 4/7 from three. She may be becoming a good offensive guard. Amber Orrange played well, made a few pull up jumpers from the top of the key, and dished out 7 assists to 2 turnovers, showing last year's superb play was no fluke. Tess Picknell has 3 blocks and 3 points and was a defensive presence. She has a very odd looking free throw style. She brought the crowd to its feet when she put a ball in the hoop with an and-one after a series of several missed putbacks by her teammates.
Now the not-so-good. The team had difficulties getting the ball inside, except on offensive rebounds off of long shots. Vanguard packed in a zone and we seldom were able to pass the ball successfully inside. Chiney was limited in touches and when she did get the ball she was mobbed. She only attempted 6 field goals in 21 minutes of play. She certainly showed no signs of having expanded her game compared with last year.
Joslyn did not look like she had improved her form over last year. She looked good defensively against the smaller team and had 2 blocks. But offensively she did not do so well. She was 3/13 and 0/5 from three. Im not sure if it was her role, but she did not seem to be able to feed the ball from the high/low to Chiney, although she did have two assists. The fact that she took 5 three point shots is indicative that she was not playing near the basket much--whether by design or not I don't know.Â
Ruef looked more than rusty. She had a very nice play towards the end of the game, but other than that she took few shots, mostly missed, missed two free throws, and seemed ineffective in her 16 minutes. We are going to need herlets hope she gets back in the swing of things.
Jasmine Camp got 15 minutes and looked speedy and good on defense. I enjoy watching her defend. But she had no points and no assists. Given that Amber will mostly be playing point guard, I presume that the other guard is going to have to score some, and Sara did better on that count.
All in all we looked a bit disorganized as you might expect this early. On defense we were bailed out by 12 blocks and a 55/30 rebounding advantage. Vanguard penetrated quite often, though, and if it were better and bigger we would have paid a serious price.Â
On offense we had nothing consistently going inside. Almost all our offense seemed to be the 3 point shooting from Bonnie, Taylor, and Sara, and pull up jumpers by Amber. There did not seem to be any effort to turn Chiney into a Nneka replacement on offense, or to get the ball to Joslyn near the hoop.
I came away happy that Sara and Bonnie and Taylor all seem to be improving, but generally anxious that our team has not even begun to find a way to replace Nnekas inside presence. I did not get any kind of a feel for what kind of strategy Tara will be installing this year, other than featuring the 3 a lot more than she did when she had Nneka.
We started Amber Orrange, Jasmine Camp, Bonnie Samuelson, Joslyn Tinkle, and Chiney Ogwumike. The great surprise was that Toni Kokenis did not start and did not play in either of the two exhibition games. Clearly something is wrong.Â
First, the positives. Bonnie and Taylor Greenfield looked great. Tara always says that the greatest improvement is between freshman and sophomore years, and it seems to be true in their cases. Bonnies 3 point shooting seems quite good, as in the better games from last year, at 5/12. Better yet, she crashed the boards a couple of times and came up with 5 rebounds. Her defense looked good too.Â
Taylor also shot 4/10 from three and generally looked good. She managed only one rebound and had three turnovers, but compared with a year ago she seemed much more capable of scoring points to go with her defense. And she just looks and moves more like an athlete than do some of her teammates. I think she has even more upside.
Sara James shot quite well, including 4/7 from three. She may be becoming a good offensive guard. Amber Orrange played well, made a few pull up jumpers from the top of the key, and dished out 7 assists to 2 turnovers, showing last year's superb play was no fluke. Tess Picknell has 3 blocks and 3 points and was a defensive presence. She has a very odd looking free throw style. She brought the crowd to its feet when she put a ball in the hoop with an and-one after a series of several missed putbacks by her teammates.
Now the not-so-good. The team had difficulties getting the ball inside, except on offensive rebounds off of long shots. Vanguard packed in a zone and we seldom were able to pass the ball successfully inside. Chiney was limited in touches and when she did get the ball she was mobbed. She only attempted 6 field goals in 21 minutes of play. She certainly showed no signs of having expanded her game compared with last year.
Joslyn did not look like she had improved her form over last year. She looked good defensively against the smaller team and had 2 blocks. But offensively she did not do so well. She was 3/13 and 0/5 from three. Im not sure if it was her role, but she did not seem to be able to feed the ball from the high/low to Chiney, although she did have two assists. The fact that she took 5 three point shots is indicative that she was not playing near the basket much--whether by design or not I don't know.Â
Ruef looked more than rusty. She had a very nice play towards the end of the game, but other than that she took few shots, mostly missed, missed two free throws, and seemed ineffective in her 16 minutes. We are going to need herlets hope she gets back in the swing of things.
Jasmine Camp got 15 minutes and looked speedy and good on defense. I enjoy watching her defend. But she had no points and no assists. Given that Amber will mostly be playing point guard, I presume that the other guard is going to have to score some, and Sara did better on that count.
All in all we looked a bit disorganized as you might expect this early. On defense we were bailed out by 12 blocks and a 55/30 rebounding advantage. Vanguard penetrated quite often, though, and if it were better and bigger we would have paid a serious price.Â
On offense we had nothing consistently going inside. Almost all our offense seemed to be the 3 point shooting from Bonnie, Taylor, and Sara, and pull up jumpers by Amber. There did not seem to be any effort to turn Chiney into a Nneka replacement on offense, or to get the ball to Joslyn near the hoop.
I came away happy that Sara and Bonnie and Taylor all seem to be improving, but generally anxious that our team has not even begun to find a way to replace Nnekas inside presence. I did not get any kind of a feel for what kind of strategy Tara will be installing this year, other than featuring the 3 a lot more than she did when she had Nneka.
