[GK3]

I'll leave this on a positive note. Hats off to Brink. What a warrior! She had to be weakened after being sick, and puts up 20, 13, and 7. And an amazing 10 of 10 from the line. She hasn't missed a FT since Feb.12, and has made at least 46 in a row (had 5 of 6 prior, don't know when she had her miss) and she has made 70 of her last 72 FT attempts since Jan.27 and 85% for the season. Take away her first 5 games of the season and she would have been 89%. Her spirit and fight were incredible. Without her, we get blown out by 25. She needs to rub off onthe rest of the team.

I agree with you about Brink.  To add to this observation I will say what everyone has been afraid to say for fear of "making excuses": the officiating allowed way, way too much contact under the basket.  Brink was shooting through a forest of hacking arms and pushing bodies.  In the first half, especially, there should have been many more fouls called on her defenders.  Her performance, given the hackathon and given her depleted state, was admirable.

Yes, Hats off to Brink.  She played a tremendous game, particularly under the circumstances.  Haley played tough but took far too many very high level of difficulty shots.  From my perspective there was far too much standing around on the part of our other players, little motion, no real effort to set good screens for Jump.  We made defending ourselves far too easy.  All this resulted in desperate passes that had little chance of success and more turnovers.  21 turnovers and only 8 assists illustrate our lack of movement and inability to get anyone open.
Yes, the refs allowed a lot of contact on Brink, but it has always seemed to me that if you are the star, the other team is always going to get away with more when defending you.  I thought they were a lot quicker than we were and their players often got a step on our defenders which led to reach in fouls and more mistakes.  Did we try a zone?
I do not think we were well prepared for this game, why I don't know.  We have had problems with quicker teams and by now should have some idea how to try and deal with it.  
What do we do next year?  Rely on Brink again, but we have to get Jump open and and get her the ball.  We also have to find some other scoring someplace and hopefully a system that allows us to better use our bigs and still defend against quicker teams.  Maybe it can't be done.

[GK3]

I'll leave this on a positive note. Hats off to Brink. What a warrior! She had to be weakened after being sick, and puts up 20, 13, and 7. And an amazing 10 of 10 from the line. She hasn't missed a FT since Feb.12, and has made at least 46 in a row (had 5 of 6 prior, don't know when she had her miss) and she has made 70 of her last 72 FT attempts since Jan.27 and 85% for the season. Take away her first 5 games of the season and she would have been 89%. Her spirit and fight were incredible. Without her, we get blown out by 25. She needs to rub off onthe rest of the team.

I agree with you about Brink.  To add to this observation I will say what everyone has been afraid to say for fear of "making excuses": the officiating allowed way, way too much contact under the basket.  Brink was shooting through a forest of hacking arms and pushing bodies.  In the first half, especially, there should have been many more fouls called on her defenders.  Her performance, given the hackathon and given her depleted state, was admirable.

Yes, Hats off to Brink.  She played a tremendous game, particularly under the circumstances.  Haley played tough but took far too many very high level of difficulty shots.  From my perspective there was far too much standing around on the part of our other players, little motion, no real effort to set good screens for Jump.  We made defending ourselves far too easy.  All this resulted in desperate passes that had little chance of success and more turnovers.  21 turnovers and only 8 assists illustrate our lack of movement and inability to get anyone open.
Yes, the refs allowed a lot of contact on Brink, but it has always seemed to me that if you are the star, the other team is always going to get away with more when defending you.  I thought they were a lot quicker than we were and their players often got a step on our defenders which led to reach in fouls and more mistakes.  Did we try a zone?
I do not think we were well prepared for this game, why I don't know.  We have had problems with quicker teams and by now should have some idea how to try and deal with it.  
What do we do next year?  Rely on Brink again, but we have to get Jump open and and get her the ball.  We also have to find some other scoring someplace and hopefully a system that allows us to better use our bigs and still defend against quicker teams.  Maybe it can't be done.