[81alum]

I watched the press conference which had a few interesting nuggets.  Tara was clearly pleased about many things, but she noted turnovers and poor shooting as areas for improvement.  She particularly praised Alanna's free throws--deservedly, as well as Maya's defense on Morgan.  As for all those turnovers, she noted that they were in part due to Davis knowing our offense so well, but she also said that our players need to do a better job of reading the defense. 

That last point struck me as critical.  For the Princeton to function well against really good teams (think Baylor coming up) we can't rely on our physical superiority, we need to force the defense to commit and then make quick reads to attack accordingly.  The ability to make those reads faster than the defense can react will determine our success against anyone playing man defense against us. 

For example, we seemed to have several turnovers when someone was running the baseline toward the basket and then passed cross court into an interception.  And a couple of charging fouls when someone running the baseline toward the basket didn't pass and collided with a defender.  I don't know the offense well enough to know what should have been done--but my guess is there was supposed to be a pass to an open perimeter player or to someone cutting from a different angle.  That read has to be made instantly--you can't stop and think about where to pass it. And I imagine we will get better and better at making those kinds of reads.

[81alum]

I watched the press conference which had a few interesting nuggets.  Tara was clearly pleased about many things, but she noted turnovers and poor shooting as areas for improvement.  She particularly praised Alanna's free throws--deservedly, as well as Maya's defense on Morgan.  As for all those turnovers, she noted that they were in part due to Davis knowing our offense so well, but she also said that our players need to do a better job of reading the defense. 

That last point struck me as critical.  For the Princeton to function well against really good teams (think Baylor coming up) we can't rely on our physical superiority, we need to force the defense to commit and then make quick reads to attack accordingly.  The ability to make those reads faster than the defense can react will determine our success against anyone playing man defense against us. 

For example, we seemed to have several turnovers when someone was running the baseline toward the basket and then passed cross court into an interception.  And a couple of charging fouls when someone running the baseline toward the basket didn't pass and collided with a defender.  I don't know the offense well enough to know what should have been done--but my guess is there was supposed to be a pass to an open perimeter player or to someone cutting from a different angle.  That read has to be made instantly--you can't stop and think about where to pass it. And I imagine we will get better and better at making those kinds of reads.