As always, thanks for the recap, 81. Sounds like a very balanced effort, although given Alanna's recent progress and impact in limited minutes, it'd be nice to see her get some more time on court. We're in the bizarre (and somewhat luxurious) position of having 8 or 9 players any one of whom can have a big night for us. That's great against decent teams because everyone is a threat so players off the bench may pose as much of a threat as the starting lineup. Now that Marta has upped her offensive production, Alanna is on a tear, Britt has cooled, Bri and Karlie are getting their three-point shots back, and Wilson is still adjusting, there's basically no way to predict on any given night who, other than Bird, would pose the biggest threat on the court. I imagine that's a fun puzzle for Tara and the coaching options now vs. the get-it-to-Chiney years must have multiplied by a factor of 10.
The downside, of course, is we lack a predictable player who performs big every single game. Bird is the closest, but even she has regular off nights where things just don't quite come together in a game-changing way. That seems to hurt us against the very best teams - lacking a Wiese-level clutch player is basically THE reason we lost in DOT to Oregon State. And when players appear to have breakout streaks, like Britt early this season or Alanna right now, they seem to come back down to earth. I keep waiting for one of our players to have the transformational moment but it seems like so far we just have to cycle through everyone and see who's having an on night. It's a fortunate problem to have so many potentially game-changing players, but it's also frustrating because we never seem to be able to a establish a reliable set of players or shot selections that we know will work day-in, day-out.
And best wishes to the WSU players - that's incredibly bad luck and really unfortunate given their very good start to conference play.
The downside, of course, is we lack a predictable player who performs big every single game. Bird is the closest, but even she has regular off nights where things just don't quite come together in a game-changing way. That seems to hurt us against the very best teams - lacking a Wiese-level clutch player is basically THE reason we lost in DOT to Oregon State. And when players appear to have breakout streaks, like Britt early this season or Alanna right now, they seem to come back down to earth. I keep waiting for one of our players to have the transformational moment but it seems like so far we just have to cycle through everyone and see who's having an on night. It's a fortunate problem to have so many potentially game-changing players, but it's also frustrating because we never seem to be able to a establish a reliable set of players or shot selections that we know will work day-in, day-out.
And best wishes to the WSU players - that's incredibly bad luck and really unfortunate given their very good start to conference play.