OK, looking at Syracuse who we are about to play.
Syracuse has three guards and a forward who start and all play in the mid 30 mpg. I wonder if our depth could wear them down a bit.
Kiara Lewis (23) is the point guard and leading scorer. She does not shoot a lot of treys but gets a lot of free throws--she distributes and uses her quickness to drive to the basket. Keeping her in front of us will be difficult. She has a great assist/turnover ratio. She is clearly the most dangerous player and we have not been doing a great job defending those small, hyper quick guards this season.
Engstler and Cooper are guards who do shoot threes well. While Lewis and Cooper are not tall, Engstler is 6'1". These two guards sank a lot of treys against Houston yesterday. Keeping in their faces on the perimeter is important.
Forward Strautmane is 6'2" from Latvia, is averaging about 10 ppg. Their fifth player is a bit hard to decipher since the roster stats are messed up. I think it is Finklea-Guity, who is a 6'4" center, but against Oregon most of the minutes were given to Djaldi-Tabdi, a 6'2" forward from France. Their forwards look competent but are not their strongest link. That might give our young bigs a chance to operate against them.
As a team, one out of every three shots is a three pointer and they have been making 32% of them. 16 out of 26 made field goals are assisted. They put a big emphasis on steals and average 6 of those a game. They turn it over 14 times a game, and they block 4 shots a game.
All in all, a well balanced team who will be a challenge to handle. They look especially strong with their guards. They will play zone and make us shoot threes, and while we might succeed in getting inside the zone some of the time, we had better make some threes of our own.
It looks to me as if guarding their guards will be our biggest defensive challenge--particularly Lewis.
Syracuse has three guards and a forward who start and all play in the mid 30 mpg. I wonder if our depth could wear them down a bit.
Kiara Lewis (23) is the point guard and leading scorer. She does not shoot a lot of treys but gets a lot of free throws--she distributes and uses her quickness to drive to the basket. Keeping her in front of us will be difficult. She has a great assist/turnover ratio. She is clearly the most dangerous player and we have not been doing a great job defending those small, hyper quick guards this season.
Engstler and Cooper are guards who do shoot threes well. While Lewis and Cooper are not tall, Engstler is 6'1". These two guards sank a lot of treys against Houston yesterday. Keeping in their faces on the perimeter is important.
Forward Strautmane is 6'2" from Latvia, is averaging about 10 ppg. Their fifth player is a bit hard to decipher since the roster stats are messed up. I think it is Finklea-Guity, who is a 6'4" center, but against Oregon most of the minutes were given to Djaldi-Tabdi, a 6'2" forward from France. Their forwards look competent but are not their strongest link. That might give our young bigs a chance to operate against them.
As a team, one out of every three shots is a three pointer and they have been making 32% of them. 16 out of 26 made field goals are assisted. They put a big emphasis on steals and average 6 of those a game. They turn it over 14 times a game, and they block 4 shots a game.
All in all, a well balanced team who will be a challenge to handle. They look especially strong with their guards. They will play zone and make us shoot threes, and while we might succeed in getting inside the zone some of the time, we had better make some threes of our own.
It looks to me as if guarding their guards will be our biggest defensive challenge--particularly Lewis.