[cardfan1996]

Here is the question of the day (no prizes will be won):

If USC only had 14 field goals, how many of those fg were directly attributable to the poor defense of one Haley Jones?

I am not even counting her turnovers and inability to box out. Just on her poor defense alone (which includes “sCouTing rEport” defense not entirely her fault), I’d guess Haley is directly responsible for roughly half of those USC field goals. Someone chastised me awhile back for calling her perimeter defense “ridiculous” but she regularly is responsible for a good percentage of the other team’s points and field goals.


But here is the defensive play (intentionally or not) that preserved Stanford’s #1 seed for another week at least.

4th quarter, 59 seconds left. Haley is staring down Kayla who she surely had no intention of guarding closely even though Kayla hit three 3s up to this point in the game, all on Haley. Nivar asked her to switch on Sissoko, someone Haley begrudgingly (probably) knew she had to get out and guard. Maybe, like me, Nivar was having flashbacks of that S. Carolina game where it was statistically low probability that S.Carolina could beat Stanford with Stanford up by at least 2 possessions with only 40 seconds left. And Haley guarding no one in particular (and doubling no one in particular) gives up 3 consecutive open 3 pters (S.Carolina connects on one or two and is able to tie the game and send it into overtime) not to mention the numerous offensive rebounds by S.Carolina partially because Haley was nowhere near any offensive player to box them out.


Also I want to talk about these half time quotes: 

Gottlieb: “. . .and mainly we have to stop Stanford in transition. We feel like we can guard them in the half court but no one can really guard them when they are loose in transition.”

Tara: “Not excited about.” [in response to a question on shot selection] “We need to move the ball and good shots.”


Stanford has not fixed its half court offense to adjust to the scout of “face guard Hannah on the perimeter but guard no one else and drop everyone in the lane.” Not only will Haley penetrate on Lepolo’s side of the floor with Lepolo’s defender staring right at her in her driving lane but Cam will set picks so Haley’s only option is to penetrate on Lepolo’s side where her defender will be waiting because Lepolo is an unguarded player. Do you know how easy life would be for Haley if you put Hannah Jump on one side of the alignment and told everyone else to get to the other side and stay out of the way and have Haley exclusively drive on Hannah’s side and have Brink exclusively set screens to drive on Hannah’s side of the floor. The coaches refuse to even make this small adjustment and as a result, Haley’s offensive numbers are not great this year.

I’ve also seen Kiki and Cam in the USC game out beyond the 3pt line like anyone is guarding them there. Most “non-shooters” typically set screens for shooters. But they are just hanging out and are disregarded by the defense entirely so we are playing 4 on 5.

Then there is the biggest mystery of it all this game. Littleton is a mark on defense. Teams regularly ISO her and go after her. There was a reason she almost never played at S. Carolina and you can clearly see it wasn’t because of her offense as she is quite a good shooter. So imagine my surprise when I noticed who she guarded in our starting lineup and we maybe took advantage of that matchup twice.

And finally, Lepolo and Agnes and what I mean by both not passing the eye test for me and lack a basic understanding of the game and why I prefer Nivar and Bosgana. And why I am continually perplexed why Tara prefers to play them together with Hannah. So now you have 3 players on the perimeter (Hannah, Lepolo, Agnes) who have trouble moving without the ball and cannot create for themselves or others.

3rd quarter, 1:19

Agnes drives on an out of control closeout. Great. terrific. By high school basketball, you learn the dump off pass if a defender switches on you and off your teammate, a normal and natural and regular play is to bounce pass it to Fran for a layup. Nope. Agnes goes directly at a shotblocker not with a floater, not into their body to draw a foul, but a regular shot exposing the ball.

 4th quarter, 1:18

Lepolo inexplicably moves her defender into Haley’s driving path and settles 4 feet from Hannah so now Hannah’s defender (Adika) can guard 2 players. What did that off-ball movement by her accomplish except make Haley fumble the ball because Lepolo’s defender was digging in her driving lane and compress spacing on the floor and neutralize any benefit of spacing Hannah was providing on the left side.

Oh there is so much more to say in this game and others about the seemingly illogical strategy in the halfcourt offense that makes Stanford easy to guard and has not improved. I haven’t even talked about the lack of movement generally by anyone (even though motion offense is premised on well, motion)

[cardfan1996]

Here is the question of the day (no prizes will be won):

If USC only had 14 field goals, how many of those fg were directly attributable to the poor defense of one Haley Jones?

I am not even counting her turnovers and inability to box out. Just on her poor defense alone (which includes “sCouTing rEport” defense not entirely her fault), I’d guess Haley is directly responsible for roughly half of those USC field goals. Someone chastised me awhile back for calling her perimeter defense “ridiculous” but she regularly is responsible for a good percentage of the other team’s points and field goals.


But here is the defensive play (intentionally or not) that preserved Stanford’s #1 seed for another week at least.

4th quarter, 59 seconds left. Haley is staring down Kayla who she surely had no intention of guarding closely even though Kayla hit three 3s up to this point in the game, all on Haley. Nivar asked her to switch on Sissoko, someone Haley begrudgingly (probably) knew she had to get out and guard. Maybe, like me, Nivar was having flashbacks of that S. Carolina game where it was statistically low probability that S.Carolina could beat Stanford with Stanford up by at least 2 possessions with only 40 seconds left. And Haley guarding no one in particular (and doubling no one in particular) gives up 3 consecutive open 3 pters (S.Carolina connects on one or two and is able to tie the game and send it into overtime) not to mention the numerous offensive rebounds by S.Carolina partially because Haley was nowhere near any offensive player to box them out.


Also I want to talk about these half time quotes: 

Gottlieb: “. . .and mainly we have to stop Stanford in transition. We feel like we can guard them in the half court but no one can really guard them when they are loose in transition.”

Tara: “Not excited about.” [in response to a question on shot selection] “We need to move the ball and good shots.”


Stanford has not fixed its half court offense to adjust to the scout of “face guard Hannah on the perimeter but guard no one else and drop everyone in the lane.” Not only will Haley penetrate on Lepolo’s side of the floor with Lepolo’s defender staring right at her in her driving lane but Cam will set picks so Haley’s only option is to penetrate on Lepolo’s side where her defender will be waiting because Lepolo is an unguarded player. Do you know how easy life would be for Haley if you put Hannah Jump on one side of the alignment and told everyone else to get to the other side and stay out of the way and have Haley exclusively drive on Hannah’s side and have Brink exclusively set screens to drive on Hannah’s side of the floor. The coaches refuse to even make this small adjustment and as a result, Haley’s offensive numbers are not great this year.

I’ve also seen Kiki and Cam in the USC game out beyond the 3pt line like anyone is guarding them there. Most “non-shooters” typically set screens for shooters. But they are just hanging out and are disregarded by the defense entirely so we are playing 4 on 5.

Then there is the biggest mystery of it all this game. Littleton is a mark on defense. Teams regularly ISO her and go after her. There was a reason she almost never played at S. Carolina and you can clearly see it wasn’t because of her offense as she is quite a good shooter. So imagine my surprise when I noticed who she guarded in our starting lineup and we maybe took advantage of that matchup twice.

And finally, Lepolo and Agnes and what I mean by both not passing the eye test for me and lack a basic understanding of the game and why I prefer Nivar and Bosgana. And why I am continually perplexed why Tara prefers to play them together with Hannah. So now you have 3 players on the perimeter (Hannah, Lepolo, Agnes) who have trouble moving without the ball and cannot create for themselves or others.

3rd quarter, 1:19

Agnes drives on an out of control closeout. Great. terrific. By high school basketball, you learn the dump off pass if a defender switches on you and off your teammate, a normal and natural and regular play is to bounce pass it to Fran for a layup. Nope. Agnes goes directly at a shotblocker not with a floater, not into their body to draw a foul, but a regular shot exposing the ball.

 4th quarter, 1:18

Lepolo inexplicably moves her defender into Haley’s driving path and settles 4 feet from Hannah so now Hannah’s defender (Adika) can guard 2 players. What did that off-ball movement by her accomplish except make Haley fumble the ball because Lepolo’s defender was digging in her driving lane and compress spacing on the floor and neutralize any benefit of spacing Hannah was providing on the left side.

Oh there is so much more to say in this game and others about the seemingly illogical strategy in the halfcourt offense that makes Stanford easy to guard and has not improved. I haven’t even talked about the lack of movement generally by anyone (even though motion offense is premised on well, motion)