[81alum]

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.

Would you play them and bench Jump?  Jump to me was more effective in past years coming off the bench.  I've been thinking a lot about how Jump changes the game, and wondering if she should at least split her time more with Bosgana.  Jump's shot has not been "on," really, for a while now.  She misses treys most of the time when she has to move laterally, and so screens don't really do it for her.  The best pure catch-and-shoot player we have ever had, but she scores reliably only in transition or when there is a big defensive breakdown.  She has shown the ability to cut on the baseline and to hit some 8 foot floaters--perhaps we need to see a lot more of that when her treys are not falling.

And now we have the added problem of our best three point shooter (lately) being Demetre, a "big."  Playing her for her offense at the 3 just exacerbates the guard problem.   It is hard enough against a speedy team to put 2 bigs out there, but 3?  I am reminded just a little of the issues we had with Bonnie Samuelson, who we kinda turned into a "stretch four" by her senior year to get her out of the wing position.  But again, we don't need more 4s and 5s.

In a very strange way, Jones distorts things.  She has enormous talent and so we don't want to sit her of course, but her strength is from the mid range in--where we already have an abundance of talent.  If we played 2 genuine posts and Demetre and Jones, we would have only one guard, really.  So we can't.  Jones is a most unconventional player which leads to some very unconventional lineups.

Enormous talent, but it doesn't all fit together perfectly.

[81alum]

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.

Would you play them and bench Jump?  Jump to me was more effective in past years coming off the bench.  I've been thinking a lot about how Jump changes the game, and wondering if she should at least split her time more with Bosgana.  Jump's shot has not been "on," really, for a while now.  She misses treys most of the time when she has to move laterally, and so screens don't really do it for her.  The best pure catch-and-shoot player we have ever had, but she scores reliably only in transition or when there is a big defensive breakdown.  She has shown the ability to cut on the baseline and to hit some 8 foot floaters--perhaps we need to see a lot more of that when her treys are not falling.

And now we have the added problem of our best three point shooter (lately) being Demetre, a "big."  Playing her for her offense at the 3 just exacerbates the guard problem.   It is hard enough against a speedy team to put 2 bigs out there, but 3?  I am reminded just a little of the issues we had with Bonnie Samuelson, who we kinda turned into a "stretch four" by her senior year to get her out of the wing position.  But again, we don't need more 4s and 5s.

In a very strange way, Jones distorts things.  She has enormous talent and so we don't want to sit her of course, but her strength is from the mid range in--where we already have an abundance of talent.  If we played 2 genuine posts and Demetre and Jones, we would have only one guard, really.  So we can't.  Jones is a most unconventional player which leads to some very unconventional lineups.

Enormous talent, but it doesn't all fit together perfectly.