Preview:
Washington is 10-3, with two of the losses being nail-biters down to the last shot. Probably its best win was over Iowa in the Puerto Rico Classic, and last night their star Amber Melgoza scored 31 to help them beat Cal 67-64—it had been more than a decade since Washington won at Cal. Massey has them at 57—so a notch above WSU and not that far below Ohio State.
Everything with Washington starts and ends with Amber Melgoza, the senior 5’10” guard who was unleashed when Plum graduated. She is a slashing guard who craftily takes it to the basket, and like Plum she winds up getting free throws. The three point shot is not normally her forte--she is a 29% three point shooter-- but at Cal she was 4/6. Washington has other good three point shooters, such as Missy Peterson, a 5’11” junior guard who is shooting 39% from range and who leads the team in assists.
Beyond Melgoza and Peterson, Washington uses 9 other players in double digit minutes—they seem to be like us in the depth of their rotation. For example, their second leading scorer is Haley Van Dyke, a 6’1” sophomore forward who doesn’t start, and they have 8 players who are averaging 5 points a game or more. Washington seems to be more capable of scoring from multiple positions than did WSU.
Overview:
Kiana Williams decisively broke out of her slump in the second half, and Hannah Jump bombed the weird Washington zone, and we broke open a game that was tied at the half to win comfortably.
Flow of the Game:
We started well, riding some forced turnovers to take a 9-0 lead--and almost more importantly Williams took and made a trey at the very beginning of the game--and rode the confidence the rest of the way. But our own turnovers gave Washington a 9-2 run, and the rest of the first half continued along those lines. Halfway through the 2nd quarter Washington took a two point lead, and we wound up battling to a 32-32 tie at the half. What went wrong in the first half? We had 11 turnovers, we did not guard their 6'4" center Darcy Rees when she was on the perimeter and she sank 3 treys, and our own offense missed a number of layups.
The second half was a different story. We kept up reasonable pressure on Melgoza, we game out to the perimeter to defend Rees there, and Hannah Jump and Kiana Williams began to score. Lexie and Lacey (who was back) also hit some treys, and Kiana found ways to assist and also to cut to the basket. The tie was broken and five minutes in we were up six, by the end of the quarter we were up 10, and midway through the 4th we were up 23, 5 subs came in, and we coasted to the win. At one point as our lead built, I looked at the scoreboard and saw we were hitting 67% of our threes. That did not continue, but by then the game was decided.
Performances:
Williams gets the game ball tonight. She had 20 points on 8/12 shooting, 2/4 from three, and also broke out of her assist slump with a whopping 9. She did get her old "mojo" back, and seemed almost to be skipping to the basket, breaking the press, slashing to the basket.
Jump scored 17 and made 5/8 from long range. She also showed that she could go around a perimeter defender for an open mid-range jumper--a move that I don't remember Karlie making until late in her career.
Jones had 11 points but they were not as efficient as usual for her--she shot 5/13 and missed some that were in close. She was more effective on defense, with 3 blocks.
Lexie was once again our rebounding machine, with 11 rebounds to go with her 9 points.
Fingall was quite good, and brought the crowd to its feet a couple of time with her excellent defense. She scored on 6 points but also contribute 8 rebounds and a block.
Lacey came into the game for a mere 6 minutes, the first time back since her ankle sprain, and promptly hit 2 treys. Anna Wilson played for 9 minutes and was noteworthy on the defensive end.
Conclusion:
We need to play as well as we did in the second half for a full game--or we won't get past the other elite teams in our conference. A tie game at the half was concerning and showed that our offense is not yet a well oiled machine. We have two games against Cal to get it figured out before coming up against the Oregon schools. Can we? I won't discount Tara, but Oregon is steamrollering good teams right now, and we are not.
Washington is 10-3, with two of the losses being nail-biters down to the last shot. Probably its best win was over Iowa in the Puerto Rico Classic, and last night their star Amber Melgoza scored 31 to help them beat Cal 67-64—it had been more than a decade since Washington won at Cal. Massey has them at 57—so a notch above WSU and not that far below Ohio State.
Everything with Washington starts and ends with Amber Melgoza, the senior 5’10” guard who was unleashed when Plum graduated. She is a slashing guard who craftily takes it to the basket, and like Plum she winds up getting free throws. The three point shot is not normally her forte--she is a 29% three point shooter-- but at Cal she was 4/6. Washington has other good three point shooters, such as Missy Peterson, a 5’11” junior guard who is shooting 39% from range and who leads the team in assists.
Beyond Melgoza and Peterson, Washington uses 9 other players in double digit minutes—they seem to be like us in the depth of their rotation. For example, their second leading scorer is Haley Van Dyke, a 6’1” sophomore forward who doesn’t start, and they have 8 players who are averaging 5 points a game or more. Washington seems to be more capable of scoring from multiple positions than did WSU.
Overview:
Kiana Williams decisively broke out of her slump in the second half, and Hannah Jump bombed the weird Washington zone, and we broke open a game that was tied at the half to win comfortably.
Flow of the Game:
We started well, riding some forced turnovers to take a 9-0 lead--and almost more importantly Williams took and made a trey at the very beginning of the game--and rode the confidence the rest of the way. But our own turnovers gave Washington a 9-2 run, and the rest of the first half continued along those lines. Halfway through the 2nd quarter Washington took a two point lead, and we wound up battling to a 32-32 tie at the half. What went wrong in the first half? We had 11 turnovers, we did not guard their 6'4" center Darcy Rees when she was on the perimeter and she sank 3 treys, and our own offense missed a number of layups.
The second half was a different story. We kept up reasonable pressure on Melgoza, we game out to the perimeter to defend Rees there, and Hannah Jump and Kiana Williams began to score. Lexie and Lacey (who was back) also hit some treys, and Kiana found ways to assist and also to cut to the basket. The tie was broken and five minutes in we were up six, by the end of the quarter we were up 10, and midway through the 4th we were up 23, 5 subs came in, and we coasted to the win. At one point as our lead built, I looked at the scoreboard and saw we were hitting 67% of our threes. That did not continue, but by then the game was decided.
Performances:
Williams gets the game ball tonight. She had 20 points on 8/12 shooting, 2/4 from three, and also broke out of her assist slump with a whopping 9. She did get her old "mojo" back, and seemed almost to be skipping to the basket, breaking the press, slashing to the basket.
Jump scored 17 and made 5/8 from long range. She also showed that she could go around a perimeter defender for an open mid-range jumper--a move that I don't remember Karlie making until late in her career.
Jones had 11 points but they were not as efficient as usual for her--she shot 5/13 and missed some that were in close. She was more effective on defense, with 3 blocks.
Lexie was once again our rebounding machine, with 11 rebounds to go with her 9 points.
Fingall was quite good, and brought the crowd to its feet a couple of time with her excellent defense. She scored on 6 points but also contribute 8 rebounds and a block.
Lacey came into the game for a mere 6 minutes, the first time back since her ankle sprain, and promptly hit 2 treys. Anna Wilson played for 9 minutes and was noteworthy on the defensive end.
Conclusion:
We need to play as well as we did in the second half for a full game--or we won't get past the other elite teams in our conference. A tie game at the half was concerning and showed that our offense is not yet a well oiled machine. We have two games against Cal to get it figured out before coming up against the Oregon schools. Can we? I won't discount Tara, but Oregon is steamrollering good teams right now, and we are not.