[treetop11]

Tara gives no other options any chance. It took Lepolo turning her ankle for Tara to let go her security blanket and only for 2 games (2 games which you won handily without Lepolo and Agnes on the bench for the most part against Top 10 competition). 

Bosgana would have definitely helped in this game, and in both earlier losses because she can create off the dribble. So can Nivar.

This game was still just 2 pt deficit when Tara decided Lepolo needed to come back in the game even though she was horrible on both offense and defense.

The problem with Lepolo and Agnes is that you start the game in a scoring drought. This is apparent to most bball folks except this staff

You destroy your own argument with your last statement. We did well in the first Q agst UW and had a 9 pt lead and almsot got to our 20 pt per Q level that I always look for. It was the second Q that killed us where we gave up 30  pts (a pace of 120 for the game) as our D went south.

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We weren’t looking too good when we lost back to back games against Colorado and UCLA two years ago. Unless you are a truly dominant team (and we aren’t), to win a title it takes a combination of talent and luck. I think we could win our last six, but it would take better play than today to do so, and, against the very top teams (eg South Carolina), we probably need them to not play their best as well.

BC

We lost those because Fran was in the starting lineup and we couldn’t defensive rebound at UCLA or defensive rebound or hold on to the ball at Colorado.

We can get back on track if, like 2021, we change the starting lineup. Brink for Belibi was an easy decision. I have no faith she will replace Agnes and Lepolo with the right players, or replace them at all. 

Tara keeps recycling bad decisions. We already saw how ineffective on offense Agnes and Lepolo in November. We saw how bad Haley was at the 1 in the very first exhibition game. Why are we still seeing this stuff in February?

So what's your answer?

Go back to my first post this year and every subsequent posts. What I’ve said since November, sit Lepolo, start any two of Nivar, Bosgana and Ashten though Ashten seems to have checked out to me (and I don’t blame her getting 2 minutes of playing time here and there). And stop the absolute insanity of Haley running the 1 completely. It’s stupid.

You start a lineup that can beat S. Carolina or UConn. You can’t beat S.Carolina without Ashten. You can’t beat S.Carolina without a 3-post lineup stopping Boston and help on rebounding so I’d make sure Ashten was engaged and playing 20-30 minutes/game. It sounds preposterous to go from 2 minutes per game to 20 minutes but she clearly needs the game reps.

You sit Agnes to the right of Lolo Green and if we need someone who is hyper focused defensively on just their assignment (in other words, we need a face guard), then Agnes can come in for a few defensive possessions. I’d sit Lepolo to the right of Bosgana who if she is not starting, should be first off the bench. Both Bosgana and Nivar are solid ballhandlers and more importantly, can pass in the post.

Re: the rebounding problem. As I said, Lepolo and Agnes do not help make up for the rebounding lost when Tara sat Kiki. Lepolo will freeze and stare at rebounds in her area. Agnes (and Hannah)  will either take off before a rebound is secured or Agnes will just stand and stare on the perimeter because she was hyper focused on her defensive assignment but never blocks out.

You're not making sense. You say sit Lepolo and play Nivar, Bosgana or Prechtel and later you say it's insane to have Haley at the point. So based on that, who do you have at the point? Jump, Brink, Bosgana, Prechtel? C'mon. That leaves only Nivar and frankly I don't think the coaches or most of us here feel comfortable turning over the PG position fulltime to Nivar. She's not a natural point and didn't do so in HS. It's been good to see Tara give her more minutes there to rest Lepolo and give us a backup like we needed when Lepolo got hurt. 

So give us your lineup and rotation like chimera did. What chimera offered makes a great deal of sense to me and I think it addresses what are likely your concerns e.g. getting more/better ballhandlers on the court. And like you I would like to see more Ashten at least when it is advantageeoud to go big or just to mix things up.

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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.

You're right about no great defensive stoppers to justify playing without providing much on O. And it is O that hass been our problem. If we had been scoring more, we don't lose either to SC or UW and not as clsoe in our recent wins. Our D without elite perimeter D players is still exccellent because our perimeter players ar good enough AND we have a Brink (or others) as backstops if our perimeter players get beat. So yes, focus on kicking up the O. I noted watching the Utah - UO game that it was a wide open almost frantic game. Utah gave up a lot of points and because of the game flow and Duck O, Utah's D was not that good - but they responded with an even better O that continually put up points every time tha the ducks made a run.

[treetop11]

Tara gives no other options any chance. It took Lepolo turning her ankle for Tara to let go her security blanket and only for 2 games (2 games which you won handily without Lepolo and Agnes on the bench for the most part against Top 10 competition). 

Bosgana would have definitely helped in this game, and in both earlier losses because she can create off the dribble. So can Nivar.

This game was still just 2 pt deficit when Tara decided Lepolo needed to come back in the game even though she was horrible on both offense and defense.

The problem with Lepolo and Agnes is that you start the game in a scoring drought. This is apparent to most bball folks except this staff

You destroy your own argument with your last statement. We did well in the first Q agst UW and had a 9 pt lead and almsot got to our 20 pt per Q level that I always look for. It was the second Q that killed us where we gave up 30  pts (a pace of 120 for the game) as our D went south.

---

We weren’t looking too good when we lost back to back games against Colorado and UCLA two years ago. Unless you are a truly dominant team (and we aren’t), to win a title it takes a combination of talent and luck. I think we could win our last six, but it would take better play than today to do so, and, against the very top teams (eg South Carolina), we probably need them to not play their best as well.

BC

We lost those because Fran was in the starting lineup and we couldn’t defensive rebound at UCLA or defensive rebound or hold on to the ball at Colorado.

We can get back on track if, like 2021, we change the starting lineup. Brink for Belibi was an easy decision. I have no faith she will replace Agnes and Lepolo with the right players, or replace them at all. 

Tara keeps recycling bad decisions. We already saw how ineffective on offense Agnes and Lepolo in November. We saw how bad Haley was at the 1 in the very first exhibition game. Why are we still seeing this stuff in February?

So what's your answer?

Go back to my first post this year and every subsequent posts. What I’ve said since November, sit Lepolo, start any two of Nivar, Bosgana and Ashten though Ashten seems to have checked out to me (and I don’t blame her getting 2 minutes of playing time here and there). And stop the absolute insanity of Haley running the 1 completely. It’s stupid.

You start a lineup that can beat S. Carolina or UConn. You can’t beat S.Carolina without Ashten. You can’t beat S.Carolina without a 3-post lineup stopping Boston and help on rebounding so I’d make sure Ashten was engaged and playing 20-30 minutes/game. It sounds preposterous to go from 2 minutes per game to 20 minutes but she clearly needs the game reps.

You sit Agnes to the right of Lolo Green and if we need someone who is hyper focused defensively on just their assignment (in other words, we need a face guard), then Agnes can come in for a few defensive possessions. I’d sit Lepolo to the right of Bosgana who if she is not starting, should be first off the bench. Both Bosgana and Nivar are solid ballhandlers and more importantly, can pass in the post.

Re: the rebounding problem. As I said, Lepolo and Agnes do not help make up for the rebounding lost when Tara sat Kiki. Lepolo will freeze and stare at rebounds in her area. Agnes (and Hannah)  will either take off before a rebound is secured or Agnes will just stand and stare on the perimeter because she was hyper focused on her defensive assignment but never blocks out.

You're not making sense. You say sit Lepolo and play Nivar, Bosgana or Prechtel and later you say it's insane to have Haley at the point. So based on that, who do you have at the point? Jump, Brink, Bosgana, Prechtel? C'mon. That leaves only Nivar and frankly I don't think the coaches or most of us here feel comfortable turning over the PG position fulltime to Nivar. She's not a natural point and didn't do so in HS. It's been good to see Tara give her more minutes there to rest Lepolo and give us a backup like we needed when Lepolo got hurt. 

So give us your lineup and rotation like chimera did. What chimera offered makes a great deal of sense to me and I think it addresses what are likely your concerns e.g. getting more/better ballhandlers on the court. And like you I would like to see more Ashten at least when it is advantageeoud to go big or just to mix things up.

---

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.

You're right about no great defensive stoppers to justify playing without providing much on O. And it is O that hass been our problem. If we had been scoring more, we don't lose either to SC or UW and not as clsoe in our recent wins. Our D without elite perimeter D players is still exccellent because our perimeter players ar good enough AND we have a Brink (or others) as backstops if our perimeter players get beat. So yes, focus on kicking up the O. I noted watching the Utah - UO game that it was a wide open almost frantic game. Utah gave up a lot of points and because of the game flow and Duck O, Utah's D was not that good - but they responded with an even better O that continually put up points every time tha the ducks made a run.