Preview:
Something is not right at the school that Kate turned down, home of the ACL smashers. Ja'Tavia Tapley transferred to ASU where she is helping prodigiously, and Minyon Moore transferred to the Ducks, where she helped them crush us. Their former school is now 12-10, and only 4-7 in league play, and somewhere in the 80-90 range of RPI, and has a grand total of 10 players on their roster with a couple of them hurt. All of that could make us complacent--if it is possible to be complacent after UCLA beat us on our home floor. And that would be a mistake. USC is coming off a win at Cal, it beat UCLA in an overtime game earlier this year, and it took ASU to triple overtime before losing by one point. It seems to be improving at the right time and is very dangerous just now.
USC is led by a 6'0" freshman forward Alyssa Pili and she is making a difference. She is averaging 15 pts and 9 rebounds a game, shooting 49%.
Their second leading scorer is also a freshman, Enyia Rogers, a 5'7" guard, who is averaging 13 pts.
The third leading scorer would be a grad transfer from North Carolina, 5'11" guard Stephanie Watts, but she still is out with an injury, so the third slot goes to Aliyah Jeune, another grad transfer from Morehead State. This 6'1" guard is scoring about 10ppg.
The two remaining starters are the only familiar names--Kayla Overbeck and Desiree Caldwell.
In their win at Cal just 8 players played, and one for only 5 minutes. USC is not at all deep. It is also such a new team compared with last year I really don't know what to expect from them. Trahk seems to promote maul-ball, as Fingall can sadly attest. Before she was injured last year, a witness reported hearing her coming to the sidelines and saying "someone is going to get hurt out there." Let's hope this doesn't turn into another round of gladiatorial combat.
Overview:
We came out guns blazing and sank 6 treys in the first quarter, played crisp passing offense, played competent defense, and buried SC 25-6. We more or less coasted for the next three quarters, and while our play did not completely deteriorate, there was no sense of urgency and lots of players got minutes. It was the right kind of game for senior day, giving Tara a chance to sub out each of the available seniors for curtain calls at the end.
Flow of the Game:
The first quarter may have been the most perfect quarter of basketball we have played in a long time. Everything seemed to work. All our shots seemed to go in, we did not turn the ball over, rebounding was magnificent, and defense was frustrating SC. The second quarter was solid too as we built a 42-12 lead by midway through the 2nd. From that point on SC outscored us in every quarter, but it did seem the game was a foregone conclusion and the last 5/8 of the game was a game where no one bothered to look at the scoreboard any more.
Performances:
Lets begin with the performance of the fans. We had 5221--our best turnout yet and double the turnout of some games this season. Hurrah!
As a team, we won I think because of our first half three point shooting, which was torrid while we built the lead. By the end of the game it was back down to 32% after going 0/7 in the third and 1/5 in the fourth. We held SC to 28% shooting overall while we shot 42%.
One concern of mine is that in the first half we had 11 assists of our 16 made baskets. In the second half we had 2 assists on only 8 made baskets. The SC defense changed and tried to cut off our passing, and largely succeeded.
We out rebounded SC by 10, but SC had 15 O-boards, so there is a lot of room for improvement.
Out turnovers were 14, theirs 12, so roughly even.
Individually, points and minutes were both broadly distributed. 10 players got double digit minutes and no one was over 30. 10 players scored, and 6 scored 8 points or more.
Lexie was back on track after a slow Friday with a team leading 14 points and a full stat line.
Fingall and Prechtel each had 11 points as they traded off at the 5, and Williams, Jerome, and Williams each had 8 points.
It was interesting that Tara started Jerome this game, and she did quite well in the first quarter and justified the confidence.
Jump got 2/6 treys to go down after a bit of a recent drought.
This was a feel-good beat down of SC that allowed everyone to get in the game.
Overview:
We needed a game like this, and the senior day felt right too. The remaining six regular season games will all be quite difficult, and it is much better to launch this expedition after a win like today's than after a loss like Friday's.
Something is not right at the school that Kate turned down, home of the ACL smashers. Ja'Tavia Tapley transferred to ASU where she is helping prodigiously, and Minyon Moore transferred to the Ducks, where she helped them crush us. Their former school is now 12-10, and only 4-7 in league play, and somewhere in the 80-90 range of RPI, and has a grand total of 10 players on their roster with a couple of them hurt. All of that could make us complacent--if it is possible to be complacent after UCLA beat us on our home floor. And that would be a mistake. USC is coming off a win at Cal, it beat UCLA in an overtime game earlier this year, and it took ASU to triple overtime before losing by one point. It seems to be improving at the right time and is very dangerous just now.
USC is led by a 6'0" freshman forward Alyssa Pili and she is making a difference. She is averaging 15 pts and 9 rebounds a game, shooting 49%.
Their second leading scorer is also a freshman, Enyia Rogers, a 5'7" guard, who is averaging 13 pts.
The third leading scorer would be a grad transfer from North Carolina, 5'11" guard Stephanie Watts, but she still is out with an injury, so the third slot goes to Aliyah Jeune, another grad transfer from Morehead State. This 6'1" guard is scoring about 10ppg.
The two remaining starters are the only familiar names--Kayla Overbeck and Desiree Caldwell.
In their win at Cal just 8 players played, and one for only 5 minutes. USC is not at all deep. It is also such a new team compared with last year I really don't know what to expect from them. Trahk seems to promote maul-ball, as Fingall can sadly attest. Before she was injured last year, a witness reported hearing her coming to the sidelines and saying "someone is going to get hurt out there." Let's hope this doesn't turn into another round of gladiatorial combat.
Overview:
We came out guns blazing and sank 6 treys in the first quarter, played crisp passing offense, played competent defense, and buried SC 25-6. We more or less coasted for the next three quarters, and while our play did not completely deteriorate, there was no sense of urgency and lots of players got minutes. It was the right kind of game for senior day, giving Tara a chance to sub out each of the available seniors for curtain calls at the end.
Flow of the Game:
The first quarter may have been the most perfect quarter of basketball we have played in a long time. Everything seemed to work. All our shots seemed to go in, we did not turn the ball over, rebounding was magnificent, and defense was frustrating SC. The second quarter was solid too as we built a 42-12 lead by midway through the 2nd. From that point on SC outscored us in every quarter, but it did seem the game was a foregone conclusion and the last 5/8 of the game was a game where no one bothered to look at the scoreboard any more.
Performances:
Lets begin with the performance of the fans. We had 5221--our best turnout yet and double the turnout of some games this season. Hurrah!
As a team, we won I think because of our first half three point shooting, which was torrid while we built the lead. By the end of the game it was back down to 32% after going 0/7 in the third and 1/5 in the fourth. We held SC to 28% shooting overall while we shot 42%.
One concern of mine is that in the first half we had 11 assists of our 16 made baskets. In the second half we had 2 assists on only 8 made baskets. The SC defense changed and tried to cut off our passing, and largely succeeded.
We out rebounded SC by 10, but SC had 15 O-boards, so there is a lot of room for improvement.
Out turnovers were 14, theirs 12, so roughly even.
Individually, points and minutes were both broadly distributed. 10 players got double digit minutes and no one was over 30. 10 players scored, and 6 scored 8 points or more.
Lexie was back on track after a slow Friday with a team leading 14 points and a full stat line.
Fingall and Prechtel each had 11 points as they traded off at the 5, and Williams, Jerome, and Williams each had 8 points.
It was interesting that Tara started Jerome this game, and she did quite well in the first quarter and justified the confidence.
Jump got 2/6 treys to go down after a bit of a recent drought.
This was a feel-good beat down of SC that allowed everyone to get in the game.
Overview:
We needed a game like this, and the senior day felt right too. The remaining six regular season games will all be quite difficult, and it is much better to launch this expedition after a win like today's than after a loss like Friday's.
