A few observations upon sleep and reflection:
1. I have no idea what the technical was, but when play started up again I saw Rueck cross over the line and the court border. I even tried to yell "Do it again Rueck!" but only a pathetic frog voice came out. I think Rueck calls more plays from the bench than any other coach we have seen, and he is often directly communicating with his team during the action. He has a tendency to wander a bit too far. On the other hand, I too have seen him deliberately get technicals.
2. Treetop, I don't see the statistical disparity that you do in the boxscore. They did have 6 more defensive rebounds, but that is because we took 64 shots to their 55--a pretty big edge to us. Both sides had exactly 18 O-boards. You are right that we left four points on the table by shooting 8/12 free throws, and OSU shot 12/12. That hurt, but our percentage was not far off our average and I think OSU simply had an unusually perfect night shooting free throws. Certainly edge to OSU there. OSU also did have an edge in assists and in blocks, but we had the edge in steals and a big one in turnovers. Both sides were tied in fouls. Both sides shot within about a percent of each other. When I look over the statline I kind of see a wash or a slight edge for us.
3. I think more of a problem was that we deserved a lot more free throws than OSU got. The refs were letting a lot of moving screens go on defense until they reversed themselves late in the 3rd, and as Chimera has pointed out they were allowing OSU drivers to manufacture fouls for themselves by angling into our moving defenders. As far as the moving screens are concerned, I wish our own screeners had adjusted and carried their own screens "off the line of scrimmage" to see if we could have benefited from the non calls too. As for the manufactured fouls--while I don't like them, this has become a part of basketball. Kelsey Plum scored a third of her points on free throws she created by using this technique. I imagine there are drills in practice on how to do this, driving and shooting while running into a cushion or somesuch. This is something that Carrington did very well. We need to become better at generating those for our own players as one of the now accepted skills in basketball.
4. Did anyone else notice how much use we made of the two person screen at the top of the arc to spring Williams? It did not look terribly effective to me but Williams did have a very good night. We've seen this double screen before, but I don't think I've ever seen it used so much in a single game. How effective was it? On the one hand, Williams did very well. But on the other, I never remember seeing any OSU players getting hung up on it. Was the constant use of this double screen really part of William's success? (This screen did NOT move, by the way, or maybe it could have been more effective?)
5. Dodson remains a mystery to me. When she started the game she seemed to take OSU by surprise, and made two layups in the first minute of the game. She went 1/6 with only a single rebound the rest of the way. It looked to me as if she could not make shots from the blocks off of glass, but could only make shots from in front of the basket and without using glass. Am I being too critical? It sure seemed that OSU rapidly figured out the scouting report on her and neutralized her offensively. I should add, however, that I thought her defense was superb throughout the game--it was especially fun to see her guarding little Slocum. Dodson seems much more fluid and less awkward around the basket than earlier in her career, but I still wonder about her versatility with scoring, but am not confident I understand her strengths and weaknesses properly.
6. What happened to Prechtel? She seemed to disappear as the game went along. Jones did shoot over her a couple of times--my theory is that Tara pulled her because she was not doing something on defense that she wanted to see. What was that? I don't see how anyone was going to defend Jones one on one that far down in the paint. So what was it that Jerome and even Belibi were able to do on defense that Prechtel could not? Because Prechtel sure seems better offensively to me around the basket than anyone else we have got just now. On the other hand, Prechtel was just 1/5 herself last night in her 10 minutes, so maybe it wasn't her defense?
1. I have no idea what the technical was, but when play started up again I saw Rueck cross over the line and the court border. I even tried to yell "Do it again Rueck!" but only a pathetic frog voice came out. I think Rueck calls more plays from the bench than any other coach we have seen, and he is often directly communicating with his team during the action. He has a tendency to wander a bit too far. On the other hand, I too have seen him deliberately get technicals.
2. Treetop, I don't see the statistical disparity that you do in the boxscore. They did have 6 more defensive rebounds, but that is because we took 64 shots to their 55--a pretty big edge to us. Both sides had exactly 18 O-boards. You are right that we left four points on the table by shooting 8/12 free throws, and OSU shot 12/12. That hurt, but our percentage was not far off our average and I think OSU simply had an unusually perfect night shooting free throws. Certainly edge to OSU there. OSU also did have an edge in assists and in blocks, but we had the edge in steals and a big one in turnovers. Both sides were tied in fouls. Both sides shot within about a percent of each other. When I look over the statline I kind of see a wash or a slight edge for us.
3. I think more of a problem was that we deserved a lot more free throws than OSU got. The refs were letting a lot of moving screens go on defense until they reversed themselves late in the 3rd, and as Chimera has pointed out they were allowing OSU drivers to manufacture fouls for themselves by angling into our moving defenders. As far as the moving screens are concerned, I wish our own screeners had adjusted and carried their own screens "off the line of scrimmage" to see if we could have benefited from the non calls too. As for the manufactured fouls--while I don't like them, this has become a part of basketball. Kelsey Plum scored a third of her points on free throws she created by using this technique. I imagine there are drills in practice on how to do this, driving and shooting while running into a cushion or somesuch. This is something that Carrington did very well. We need to become better at generating those for our own players as one of the now accepted skills in basketball.
4. Did anyone else notice how much use we made of the two person screen at the top of the arc to spring Williams? It did not look terribly effective to me but Williams did have a very good night. We've seen this double screen before, but I don't think I've ever seen it used so much in a single game. How effective was it? On the one hand, Williams did very well. But on the other, I never remember seeing any OSU players getting hung up on it. Was the constant use of this double screen really part of William's success? (This screen did NOT move, by the way, or maybe it could have been more effective?)
5. Dodson remains a mystery to me. When she started the game she seemed to take OSU by surprise, and made two layups in the first minute of the game. She went 1/6 with only a single rebound the rest of the way. It looked to me as if she could not make shots from the blocks off of glass, but could only make shots from in front of the basket and without using glass. Am I being too critical? It sure seemed that OSU rapidly figured out the scouting report on her and neutralized her offensively. I should add, however, that I thought her defense was superb throughout the game--it was especially fun to see her guarding little Slocum. Dodson seems much more fluid and less awkward around the basket than earlier in her career, but I still wonder about her versatility with scoring, but am not confident I understand her strengths and weaknesses properly.
6. What happened to Prechtel? She seemed to disappear as the game went along. Jones did shoot over her a couple of times--my theory is that Tara pulled her because she was not doing something on defense that she wanted to see. What was that? I don't see how anyone was going to defend Jones one on one that far down in the paint. So what was it that Jerome and even Belibi were able to do on defense that Prechtel could not? Because Prechtel sure seems better offensively to me around the basket than anyone else we have got just now. On the other hand, Prechtel was just 1/5 herself last night in her 10 minutes, so maybe it wasn't her defense?