Preview:
Our four remaining games are all difficult, but, believe it or not, this one might be the least difficult, given that it is at home and that Oregon State is a bit depleted too. That said, we barely eeked out a win in Corvallis when we last played them, and despite all its problems, Oregon State just took UCLA to overtime. So long as they have Slocum and Pivec, they are a formidable team. They will be absolutely desperate to keep their hopes alive for hosting the first two rounds, and smarting since their loss at home against us. Psychologically, I imagine they will come out more eager than we will after our miraculous escape at Colorado.
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid267831
Jones injured her knee in our last game against them, and soon thereafter Oregon State lost Kennedy Brown to a season ending injury. Their other freshman post Taylor Jones has played well, but they lack the depth and the tandem that they used against us in January. Oregon State has had a harder time adjusting to their big injury than we have. They are 3/5 since that game--although they played Oregon twice, UCLA, and the Arizona schools--so just about the toughest five games in the conference.
Despite their slide, Oregon State will be especially dangerous on Friday night. We never really did figure out how to stop Slocum last time, and against UCLA Slocum and Pivec penetrated for layups and mid range jumpers almost unimpeded by UCLA's terrific defense. We beat them in Corvallis with sharp three point shooting and very limited turnovers--two things that tend to be erratic. With the return of Dodson and our incredible depth at post, I wonder if we could really get to work down low. Is it time to dust off the triangle for a game?
Overview:
It was Williams and a committee of 8 single digit scorers against Slocum, Pivec, and Jones, and Williams did just enough to pull off a win.
Flow of the game:
The game opened with Maya Dodson starting, and Jenna Brown added to the ranks of Carrington and Jones in street clothes. The first quarter was a fight, a back and forth affair, with Maya looking very good to start with a couple of layups and a cast of friends chipping in to give us a 21-19 lead. The outline of the game was becoming clear, though, with Oregon State's Taylor Jones showing an unstoppable baby hook shot that she could reliably use to score over Prectel and anyone else. The only way to defend her was to keep her from getting the ball close, and Tara used Dodson, Fingall, and Jerome with much shorter cameos from freshmen Prectel and Belibi to attempt to contain her. Meanwhile, Slocum was showing her mid range jumper to be unstoppable again. Both sides shot the ball over 50%, and the first quarter proved to be the most offensive quarter of the game.
In the second quarter the defenses began to settle in, each side giving up 15 points only. Tara did some interesting things to try to defend Slocum--Dodson was on her on the perimeter a number of times, using her length, since Slocum seemed to be able to shoot over Wilson and Williams and even the Hulls at time. Having an athletic "big" on her did seem to force her to give up the ball, but unfortunately she often passed it to an open OSU ally. By the end of the first half it was clear that Williams was our offensive star, and while many on the team had made small contributions, no one else was remotely keeping up with Kiana, and we took a 36-34 lead into halftime.
The third quarter was our best. Williams really began to heat up, and we held Slocum to only two baskets largely by putting big players on her and bringing doubles to trap her. We managed to take a 12 point lead at one point, although by the fourth quarter it was down to 9.
The fourth quarter started out well, as baskets by Dodson and Williams pushed our lead out to 14 by the 7 minute mark. But the rest of the quarter was not our finest performance, and we are lucky we hung on to win. Slocum made two treys to cut our lead to 8, then some free throws and a basket by Pivec cut the lead to 4 by the 3:33 mark. Tara was trading points for time, but we were giving away too many points and not scoring enough as the clock wound down. Williams saved the day as per usual with two mid range jumpers to stave off the Oregon comeback, and although Tudor cut the lead to 3 with a trey at the 30 second mark, and although we made (only) our 4th turnover at the 20 second mark to give OSU a chance to tie the game, they didn't We won.
Performances:
Oregon State sagged in the paint and did a superb job of preventing us from getting inside shots. Taylor Jones blocked a whopping 5 shots, and we only hit 5 out of our 15 layup attempts. We had a miserable 16 points in the paint. They were forcing us to shoot jumpers and Lexie, Jump, and Williams took most of their shots from just inside and around the free throw line.
We had only 4 turnovers for the game--superb like last time--OSU doesn't get a lot of steals, clearly. But in a lot of other stats we were mostly even. Both sides shot the ball in the high 30s, both sides rebounded the same number of offensive rebounds, neither team piled up a lot of assists. Oregon State blocked a lot more shots thanks to Taylor Jones, but they also turned it over 11 times.
Williams was the heroine for second game in a row. She played all 40 minutes, scored 24 points on almost 50% shooting. Nobody else on the team made it to 30 minutes even, and no one else scored in double digits. This was a lopsided performance.
Among the committee I would single out Anna Wilson. Although she got banged up again tonight, she also scored 6 points on perfect shooting and played her usual hounding defense on Slocum. 7 more players scored too, with no one reaching more than Lexie's 6 points.
Lexie is still in a slump--how much of it is because defense are keying on her I don't know. But a 2/9 performance looked a little like her last game.
Conclusion:
One of our more essential wins is now behind us. Now we will see if Tara comes up with a strategy that will allow us to competitive with Oregon. A win on Monday would do so much good for our season. But I will take the win our team just earned!
Our four remaining games are all difficult, but, believe it or not, this one might be the least difficult, given that it is at home and that Oregon State is a bit depleted too. That said, we barely eeked out a win in Corvallis when we last played them, and despite all its problems, Oregon State just took UCLA to overtime. So long as they have Slocum and Pivec, they are a formidable team. They will be absolutely desperate to keep their hopes alive for hosting the first two rounds, and smarting since their loss at home against us. Psychologically, I imagine they will come out more eager than we will after our miraculous escape at Colorado.
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid267831
Jones injured her knee in our last game against them, and soon thereafter Oregon State lost Kennedy Brown to a season ending injury. Their other freshman post Taylor Jones has played well, but they lack the depth and the tandem that they used against us in January. Oregon State has had a harder time adjusting to their big injury than we have. They are 3/5 since that game--although they played Oregon twice, UCLA, and the Arizona schools--so just about the toughest five games in the conference.
Despite their slide, Oregon State will be especially dangerous on Friday night. We never really did figure out how to stop Slocum last time, and against UCLA Slocum and Pivec penetrated for layups and mid range jumpers almost unimpeded by UCLA's terrific defense. We beat them in Corvallis with sharp three point shooting and very limited turnovers--two things that tend to be erratic. With the return of Dodson and our incredible depth at post, I wonder if we could really get to work down low. Is it time to dust off the triangle for a game?
Overview:
It was Williams and a committee of 8 single digit scorers against Slocum, Pivec, and Jones, and Williams did just enough to pull off a win.
Flow of the game:
The game opened with Maya Dodson starting, and Jenna Brown added to the ranks of Carrington and Jones in street clothes. The first quarter was a fight, a back and forth affair, with Maya looking very good to start with a couple of layups and a cast of friends chipping in to give us a 21-19 lead. The outline of the game was becoming clear, though, with Oregon State's Taylor Jones showing an unstoppable baby hook shot that she could reliably use to score over Prectel and anyone else. The only way to defend her was to keep her from getting the ball close, and Tara used Dodson, Fingall, and Jerome with much shorter cameos from freshmen Prectel and Belibi to attempt to contain her. Meanwhile, Slocum was showing her mid range jumper to be unstoppable again. Both sides shot the ball over 50%, and the first quarter proved to be the most offensive quarter of the game.
In the second quarter the defenses began to settle in, each side giving up 15 points only. Tara did some interesting things to try to defend Slocum--Dodson was on her on the perimeter a number of times, using her length, since Slocum seemed to be able to shoot over Wilson and Williams and even the Hulls at time. Having an athletic "big" on her did seem to force her to give up the ball, but unfortunately she often passed it to an open OSU ally. By the end of the first half it was clear that Williams was our offensive star, and while many on the team had made small contributions, no one else was remotely keeping up with Kiana, and we took a 36-34 lead into halftime.
The third quarter was our best. Williams really began to heat up, and we held Slocum to only two baskets largely by putting big players on her and bringing doubles to trap her. We managed to take a 12 point lead at one point, although by the fourth quarter it was down to 9.
The fourth quarter started out well, as baskets by Dodson and Williams pushed our lead out to 14 by the 7 minute mark. But the rest of the quarter was not our finest performance, and we are lucky we hung on to win. Slocum made two treys to cut our lead to 8, then some free throws and a basket by Pivec cut the lead to 4 by the 3:33 mark. Tara was trading points for time, but we were giving away too many points and not scoring enough as the clock wound down. Williams saved the day as per usual with two mid range jumpers to stave off the Oregon comeback, and although Tudor cut the lead to 3 with a trey at the 30 second mark, and although we made (only) our 4th turnover at the 20 second mark to give OSU a chance to tie the game, they didn't We won.
Performances:
Oregon State sagged in the paint and did a superb job of preventing us from getting inside shots. Taylor Jones blocked a whopping 5 shots, and we only hit 5 out of our 15 layup attempts. We had a miserable 16 points in the paint. They were forcing us to shoot jumpers and Lexie, Jump, and Williams took most of their shots from just inside and around the free throw line.
We had only 4 turnovers for the game--superb like last time--OSU doesn't get a lot of steals, clearly. But in a lot of other stats we were mostly even. Both sides shot the ball in the high 30s, both sides rebounded the same number of offensive rebounds, neither team piled up a lot of assists. Oregon State blocked a lot more shots thanks to Taylor Jones, but they also turned it over 11 times.
Williams was the heroine for second game in a row. She played all 40 minutes, scored 24 points on almost 50% shooting. Nobody else on the team made it to 30 minutes even, and no one else scored in double digits. This was a lopsided performance.
Among the committee I would single out Anna Wilson. Although she got banged up again tonight, she also scored 6 points on perfect shooting and played her usual hounding defense on Slocum. 7 more players scored too, with no one reaching more than Lexie's 6 points.
Lexie is still in a slump--how much of it is because defense are keying on her I don't know. But a 2/9 performance looked a little like her last game.
Conclusion:
One of our more essential wins is now behind us. Now we will see if Tara comes up with a strategy that will allow us to competitive with Oregon. A win on Monday would do so much good for our season. But I will take the win our team just earned!