[chimera]

Whether in zone or man to man, Missouri State seemed to concentrate on clogging the lane. The reason those threes were dropping so well was that most of them were wide-open looks. If you discount threes taken by the end of the bench and post players with delusions of grandeur, we hit 54 percent from out there.

It's a good thing the threes were on, because our post players mostly got pushed around a lot. Missouri State, though smaller, outrebounded us by a horrifying 40-26, and the various Kailees and Kaylees contributed only five points total. (McCall, as 81alum noted, looked a lot better on offense.) I'm not sure what the points in the paint totals were, but I'll bet they favored Missouri State heavily.

Can't agree with 81alum on Dayton, though. The flyers were an excellent team last year, but they lost a lot to graduation. This year they look more like a very young team -- eight freshman and sophomores on the roster -- with irregular flashes of talent. They played excellent defense today against Maine -- the Black Ursines rarely got a good look at the basket and broke 30 only with a scoring flurry the final two minutes en route to a 58-37 victory. Player to watch: Guard Amber Deane, No. 5, whose surprise slashes to the basket always seemed to catch Maine by surprise.

Random notes:

** Kailee Johnson was walked to the locker room between the third and fourth quarters. After a while, she returned to the bench, but I don't think I saw her in the game again. There was no obvious incident on the court in which she might have been hurt.

** I don't understand the economics of some of these November tournaments at all. There were less than 200 fans in the arena (small but nice, with a capacity of around 8,000) for the Dayton-Maine game, probably right around 200 for Stanford-Missouri State, and perhaps less than 100 by the end of the session. With no ticket sales and no TV, how does this thing make any money?

On the other hand, perhaps this was atypical. Several arena workers told me the men's tournament early in the week drew very well. And a Connecticut fan sitting near me said that last year, when UConn played in the women's tourament, there were several thousand people in the stands.

Such a tiny crowd, with no cheerleaders or bands, led to some odd moments. Some of the Maine players did organized cheers. And Tara's shouted instructions to her team could occasionally be heard in the stands on the opposite side of the court, where I was sitting.

Probably no more than a dozen people were cheering for Stanford. But from somewhere the arena obtained a recording of the LSJUMB version of All Right Now and played it several times, including at the end of the game as the players walked off the court. When it was played during pre-game warmups, I saw Kate Paye quietly clapping along.

I just watched the video after the fact.  It is still up if anyone wants to view it, link on Stanford FBc site among other places.  Where did you get that reboudning number?  Official stats say we won the board battle, though not by much, and we certainly did for much of the game, when things were still a bit in doubt.  Rebounding was not great.  Needs to be better, but was not horrible, and many of theirs were the team variety, way more than ours.  My eyeballs were not that unhappy watching the boards so I'll count it as maybe minor progress?  We need to secure the ball better for sure. 

Kailee did play in the middle of the 4th quarter so she seems to be ok.  Considering that we were subbing like mad, presumably due to the three games in three days tournament format, it was not too bad of a game.  I don't love how reliant we were on threes but then again we do have at least three fairly reliable shooters in Lili, Bri (now that her offense has gotten going) and Karlie, so we should use them.  I'm not super worried that Missouri State caught up a bit at the very end when we had deep subs in either.  Save the legs. 

[chimera]

Whether in zone or man to man, Missouri State seemed to concentrate on clogging the lane. The reason those threes were dropping so well was that most of them were wide-open looks. If you discount threes taken by the end of the bench and post players with delusions of grandeur, we hit 54 percent from out there.

It's a good thing the threes were on, because our post players mostly got pushed around a lot. Missouri State, though smaller, outrebounded us by a horrifying 40-26, and the various Kailees and Kaylees contributed only five points total. (McCall, as 81alum noted, looked a lot better on offense.) I'm not sure what the points in the paint totals were, but I'll bet they favored Missouri State heavily.

Can't agree with 81alum on Dayton, though. The flyers were an excellent team last year, but they lost a lot to graduation. This year they look more like a very young team -- eight freshman and sophomores on the roster -- with irregular flashes of talent. They played excellent defense today against Maine -- the Black Ursines rarely got a good look at the basket and broke 30 only with a scoring flurry the final two minutes en route to a 58-37 victory. Player to watch: Guard Amber Deane, No. 5, whose surprise slashes to the basket always seemed to catch Maine by surprise.

Random notes:

** Kailee Johnson was walked to the locker room between the third and fourth quarters. After a while, she returned to the bench, but I don't think I saw her in the game again. There was no obvious incident on the court in which she might have been hurt.

** I don't understand the economics of some of these November tournaments at all. There were less than 200 fans in the arena (small but nice, with a capacity of around 8,000) for the Dayton-Maine game, probably right around 200 for Stanford-Missouri State, and perhaps less than 100 by the end of the session. With no ticket sales and no TV, how does this thing make any money?

On the other hand, perhaps this was atypical. Several arena workers told me the men's tournament early in the week drew very well. And a Connecticut fan sitting near me said that last year, when UConn played in the women's tourament, there were several thousand people in the stands.

Such a tiny crowd, with no cheerleaders or bands, led to some odd moments. Some of the Maine players did organized cheers. And Tara's shouted instructions to her team could occasionally be heard in the stands on the opposite side of the court, where I was sitting.

Probably no more than a dozen people were cheering for Stanford. But from somewhere the arena obtained a recording of the LSJUMB version of All Right Now and played it several times, including at the end of the game as the players walked off the court. When it was played during pre-game warmups, I saw Kate Paye quietly clapping along.

I just watched the video after the fact.  It is still up if anyone wants to view it, link on Stanford FBc site among other places.  Where did you get that reboudning number?  Official stats say we won the board battle, though not by much, and we certainly did for much of the game, when things were still a bit in doubt.  Rebounding was not great.  Needs to be better, but was not horrible, and many of theirs were the team variety, way more than ours.  My eyeballs were not that unhappy watching the boards so I'll count it as maybe minor progress?  We need to secure the ball better for sure. 

Kailee did play in the middle of the 4th quarter so she seems to be ok.  Considering that we were subbing like mad, presumably due to the three games in three days tournament format, it was not too bad of a game.  I don't love how reliant we were on threes but then again we do have at least three fairly reliable shooters in Lili, Bri (now that her offense has gotten going) and Karlie, so we should use them.  I'm not super worried that Missouri State caught up a bit at the very end when we had deep subs in either.  Save the legs.