[treetop11]

Preview:



Performances:

Let's begin by pointing out that our defense was ineffective.  Onyenwere scored 29 points on an efficient 10/16 shooting, and UCLA shot 46%.  At the chalk talk we were told that they were not a great shooting team but made up for it with outstanding rebounding. 

In the second half we greatly improved our rebounding, so that we finished roughly equal for the game in both O-board and D-boards.  Imagine how we would have fared had we had that effort in the first half too.

We had 14 turnovers to their 8--this made a significant difference.  But in general, what cost us the game was that we took difficult shots and they got more clean looks.  Their defense was better than our defense.

As individuals, Williams played her heart out for 38 minutes, and had 25 points, and 4/7 three point shots.  But she started 3/3 from three point land, and basically all her offensive energy seems to have been expended in the first three quarters.  It is also worth noting that she had 8 assists to 3 turnovers, which was truly outstanding.  She also took a spill, and she did not seem to be her old self after the spill

Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.  Lacie was the better Hull tonight with 12 points; Lexie had 6 and seemed stymied tonight, shooting 2/8.  Jenna Brown had one of her better nights, scoring 9 points in 9 minutes.  Fingall did not score and played only 18 minutes.

Conclusion:

I think this game gives us an accurate picture of where we are.  Without Carrington, Dodson, and Jones we are really good enough to compete with other elite teams.  I expect this won't be the last loss at Maples this year, sadly.  To have won this game we would have needed more offense out of Lexie and better defense out of everyone.  Let's hope we can defeat SC on Sunday, and do it without sustaining other injuries.

Excellent report and analysis as always by you, except one error - we out rebounded them according to the box score which mildly surprised me.

Fact is as I posted on the CSR site, both MBB and WBB are self-inflicting wounds - and losses - by stupid passes leading to turnovers (and often run outs for the other team) and at the FT line. The stupid passes drive me nuts. Although I hate to see, it's one thing to throw wild passes that bounce off our players' hands or out of bounds, but the number of forced passes that basically are to the opposing defender(s) is maddening; no space for a pass but somehow our players think they can squeeze it in. Second, we are literally getting beat at the FT line. MBB is 11th and MBB is 9th in the conference. And when you look at the box scores of the games, the differential in FTs made is the difference between us winning and losing. Although I may be wrong a game or two, except for the men vs Kansas and the women vs Oregon, both MBB and WBB would be otherwise undefeated. So not just that our percentage is poor, but other teams are getting to the line more often. Can't do that and win games, especially close ones - and we used to be terrific in the past.

Your point about the defense was salient, but it also applies to most of our games post injuries, notably Jones and to lesser extent Alyssa. The women simply are not that good at defense and don't compare to our men. We can't/don't double or trap much at all and as a whole don't pressure much or close out quickly on 3 pt shooters along with the fact that help defense is virtually non-existent. If an opponent beats one of our defenders, we seldom have someone cutting the opponent off - something the men do and do well. And when our defender does a good job defending, no one seems to pick up open opposing player near the basket who gets an easy pass and scores - that happened at least three times tonight that I recall. 

I realize that we are short three terrific players who are starters, but the supposed caliber of the rest of the players should translate to better performance in these areas. The only thing that I can think of is that because we had so much depth at the start and lots of players played, we never developed a cohesiveness unit that matches the depth-challenged MBB team.

When Jones went down, I posted that we are probably a sweet 16 team with an outside chance of elite 8 if we got lucky/favorable draws. I wouldn't write off this season, but I would look to get Jones, Carrington, and Dodson back next year and then win the NC next with a strong shot to repeat the year after.

[treetop11]

Preview:



Performances:

Let's begin by pointing out that our defense was ineffective.  Onyenwere scored 29 points on an efficient 10/16 shooting, and UCLA shot 46%.  At the chalk talk we were told that they were not a great shooting team but made up for it with outstanding rebounding. 

In the second half we greatly improved our rebounding, so that we finished roughly equal for the game in both O-board and D-boards.  Imagine how we would have fared had we had that effort in the first half too.

We had 14 turnovers to their 8--this made a significant difference.  But in general, what cost us the game was that we took difficult shots and they got more clean looks.  Their defense was better than our defense.

As individuals, Williams played her heart out for 38 minutes, and had 25 points, and 4/7 three point shots.  But she started 3/3 from three point land, and basically all her offensive energy seems to have been expended in the first three quarters.  It is also worth noting that she had 8 assists to 3 turnovers, which was truly outstanding.  She also took a spill, and she did not seem to be her old self after the spill

Prechtel had a double double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.  Lacie was the better Hull tonight with 12 points; Lexie had 6 and seemed stymied tonight, shooting 2/8.  Jenna Brown had one of her better nights, scoring 9 points in 9 minutes.  Fingall did not score and played only 18 minutes.

Conclusion:

I think this game gives us an accurate picture of where we are.  Without Carrington, Dodson, and Jones we are really good enough to compete with other elite teams.  I expect this won't be the last loss at Maples this year, sadly.  To have won this game we would have needed more offense out of Lexie and better defense out of everyone.  Let's hope we can defeat SC on Sunday, and do it without sustaining other injuries.

Excellent report and analysis as always by you, except one error - we out rebounded them according to the box score which mildly surprised me.

Fact is as I posted on the CSR site, both MBB and WBB are self-inflicting wounds - and losses - by stupid passes leading to turnovers (and often run outs for the other team) and at the FT line. The stupid passes drive me nuts. Although I hate to see, it's one thing to throw wild passes that bounce off our players' hands or out of bounds, but the number of forced passes that basically are to the opposing defender(s) is maddening; no space for a pass but somehow our players think they can squeeze it in. Second, we are literally getting beat at the FT line. MBB is 11th and MBB is 9th in the conference. And when you look at the box scores of the games, the differential in FTs made is the difference between us winning and losing. Although I may be wrong a game or two, except for the men vs Kansas and the women vs Oregon, both MBB and WBB would be otherwise undefeated. So not just that our percentage is poor, but other teams are getting to the line more often. Can't do that and win games, especially close ones - and we used to be terrific in the past.

Your point about the defense was salient, but it also applies to most of our games post injuries, notably Jones and to lesser extent Alyssa. The women simply are not that good at defense and don't compare to our men. We can't/don't double or trap much at all and as a whole don't pressure much or close out quickly on 3 pt shooters along with the fact that help defense is virtually non-existent. If an opponent beats one of our defenders, we seldom have someone cutting the opponent off - something the men do and do well. And when our defender does a good job defending, no one seems to pick up open opposing player near the basket who gets an easy pass and scores - that happened at least three times tonight that I recall. 

I realize that we are short three terrific players who are starters, but the supposed caliber of the rest of the players should translate to better performance in these areas. The only thing that I can think of is that because we had so much depth at the start and lots of players played, we never developed a cohesiveness unit that matches the depth-challenged MBB team.

When Jones went down, I posted that we are probably a sweet 16 team with an outside chance of elite 8 if we got lucky/favorable draws. I wouldn't write off this season, but I would look to get Jones, Carrington, and Dodson back next year and then win the NC next with a strong shot to repeat the year after.