12-19-2019, 09:19 AM
Unlike Farm, I'm fairly sanguine-to-ecstatic about our play last night. Yes, they definitely dominated the boards. But to be honest, they really *should* have - at every position but when Prechtel was matching up with Key, we were giving up inches and arm length. Every team with top recruits will have some kind of matchup problem against another team with top recruits, and in this game, we gave up length and height.
Given that, I do think our effort on the boards was pretty solid, and I think we did an excellent job clogging the paint and providing help-side defense to prevent marches to the basket. Indeed, the two or three times Davis or Horston were open and basically just paraded to the hoop, I thought to myself, "Why isn't Harper having them do that more?" Then I'd watch their next few trips on offense and realize how well we were closing down the lanes and preventing any kind of easy layups in the paint. And remember: we were without our first (Smith), second (Carrington) and fifth (Dodson) leading rebounders from last season, so it's an understandable work-in-progress with Carrington and Dodson both out.
More than anything, I was happy to see Williams back playing like the stud she's been for so much of the past two seasons. When her shots fall, her swagger returns, and when her swagger returns, everyone else plays better too.
Finally, I know some people are skeptical of Harper, but I thought she did a solid job coaching, especially on the defensive end. Tenn. came into the game ranked top ten in basically every team defense category - opponent points, opponent shooting %, opponent 3pt %, etc. - and we laid 78 points on them with most of our starters warming the bench for the last five minutes.
Plus: biggest margin for Stanford over Tennessee all time, and lowest points scored by Tennessee in the whole storied history of the series dating back to 1988. Really hard to complain on a night like that!
Given that, I do think our effort on the boards was pretty solid, and I think we did an excellent job clogging the paint and providing help-side defense to prevent marches to the basket. Indeed, the two or three times Davis or Horston were open and basically just paraded to the hoop, I thought to myself, "Why isn't Harper having them do that more?" Then I'd watch their next few trips on offense and realize how well we were closing down the lanes and preventing any kind of easy layups in the paint. And remember: we were without our first (Smith), second (Carrington) and fifth (Dodson) leading rebounders from last season, so it's an understandable work-in-progress with Carrington and Dodson both out.
More than anything, I was happy to see Williams back playing like the stud she's been for so much of the past two seasons. When her shots fall, her swagger returns, and when her swagger returns, everyone else plays better too.
Finally, I know some people are skeptical of Harper, but I thought she did a solid job coaching, especially on the defensive end. Tenn. came into the game ranked top ten in basically every team defense category - opponent points, opponent shooting %, opponent 3pt %, etc. - and we laid 78 points on them with most of our starters warming the bench for the last five minutes.
Plus: biggest margin for Stanford over Tennessee all time, and lowest points scored by Tennessee in the whole storied history of the series dating back to 1988. Really hard to complain on a night like that!