[chimera]

We are currently less than the sum of our parts.

This is a very un-Tara like team.  In all the years I have watched her teams, I don't think there has been a single year in which the team did not improve over the season.  Even in bad years, we usually went further than expected at the end, and bad early season losses disappeared by the end of the year.

This year we are still struggling to get an offense that works.  We are on our 3rd offense in less than a year, and it shows.

I agree.  This has been a very strange season to me.  Even seasons where we lost 10 games, things felt more stable than this season does as far as the rotation, what sort of contributions various players could make, and how to get the most out of the team. The things the coaches have tried this season mostly made sense to me (like they would care about that!) early on, but every potential line-up has shown issues that are serious enough to hold the team back.  Can't be good to change things up so much in the schemes and the rotation.  The question now is can changes that might help be made in time to gel?  

Of all the guards that have gotten playing time - Jump, Emma-Nnopu, Nivar, Lepolo, Bosgana, and Harriel (who is also not playing after having a good enough game to draw praise and go to the post-game presser) - none strike me as true defensive stoppers to the point that they should play because of how good their defense is.  All of them have played good defense at times.  So who should play and how much?  What do we value in guard play given what Jones and Brink can do and how many good posts we have?   The key to this season has always been what can we get from the perimeter.  Given that we seem to have bad defensive games like today even playing a line-up that is more defensive oriented on the perimeter with Emma-Nnopu, we should look instead to players who can be offensive threats on multiple levels - shooting, passing, driving, etc. and work on their defense.  That says play Bosgana to me, and Nivar, at the 2 a whole lot more.

[chimera]

We are currently less than the sum of our parts.

This is a very un-Tara like team.  In all the years I have watched her teams, I don't think there has been a single year in which the team did not improve over the season.  Even in bad years, we usually went further than expected at the end, and bad early season losses disappeared by the end of the year.

This year we are still struggling to get an offense that works.  We are on our 3rd offense in less than a year, and it shows.

I agree.  This has been a very strange season to me.  Even seasons where we lost 10 games, things felt more stable than this season does as far as the rotation, what sort of contributions various players could make, and how to get the most out of the team. The things the coaches have tried this season mostly made sense to me (like they would care about that!) early on, but every potential line-up has shown issues that are serious enough to hold the team back.  Can't be good to change things up so much in the schemes and the rotation.  The question now is can changes that might help be made in time to gel?  

Of all the guards that have gotten playing time - Jump, Emma-Nnopu, Nivar, Lepolo, Bosgana, and Harriel (who is also not playing after having a good enough game to draw praise and go to the post-game presser) - none strike me as true defensive stoppers to the point that they should play because of how good their defense is.  All of them have played good defense at times.  So who should play and how much?  What do we value in guard play given what Jones and Brink can do and how many good posts we have?   The key to this season has always been what can we get from the perimeter.  Given that we seem to have bad defensive games like today even playing a line-up that is more defensive oriented on the perimeter with Emma-Nnopu, we should look instead to players who can be offensive threats on multiple levels - shooting, passing, driving, etc. and work on their defense.  That says play Bosgana to me, and Nivar, at the 2 a whole lot more.