11-10-2024, 04:28 PM
Well that was wonderful. Good to see nearly 4000 people out for an early season game, and it was fun to see Tara's name on the court. During the game she walked over to the TV broadcasters, slowly, as she recovers from her hip surgery, and the whole time pockets of fans along her route erupted in spontaneous applause. I sit a few feet behind the broadcasters so I got a good look at her. She certainly seems happy and there is obviously a lot less tension in her face and posture. I think she is happy being a fan.
At the chalk talk Bird mentioned that we had been preparing defensively for Gonzaga all fall--though the players did not know it. I believe our defense was custom designed to disrupt Gonzaga's offense, and clearly it overwhelmed them in the first quarter. Here are a few points about it:
1) Often when the ball came inside to Ejim we rotated a player over to help Agara, sandwiching Ejim.
2) Agara was in fact the main defender on Ejim, and went out of the game and came into the game whenever Ejim did likewise. Usually she fronted Ejim to deny her the ball.
3) Ejim had to guard Agara, too, and picked up a couple of early fouls trying to do so. This limited her.
4) As a result of this, Ejim was held to 12 points on 4/10 shooting. That is a step down from the 27 she hung on us last year.
5) In general our defense is closer and more aggressive than last year. This led to more deflections and for the second game in a row we had 10 steals. A whole different character of defense. On the other hand, those close defenses are vulnerable to drives, and Allie Turner blew by Harriel a couple of times for layups.
Now, let's talk a bit more about offense. Many have already remarked about how spread out our scoring was, and this is true and it is a thing of beauty. But that is not the only thing that is spread out. Also spread out were our assists. Ten (10!) players had at least one assist. This is a mark of a really great continuity offense in which the ball and players are both in motion and all the players are looking for their teammates and finding the one who becomes open.
I have no idea if this level of play is sustainable or whether other coaches will find schemes to stop it, but at this point in the season the Princeton has never looked better. I have heard many times that the Princeton is best suited to teams with 5 fundamentally skilled players on the court and no particularly dominant star. It could be that we just happened into the right personnel to elevate this particular offensive scheme. Last year Tara brought back elements of the triangle to try to feed Cam and Kiki more, but that is clearly gone now.
Finally, we had only 5 turnovers for the entire game. Granted, Gonzaga is not a ball-hawking type of defense, but in recent years we wracked up many more turnovers (12 a game) just from self-inflicted wounds. Of those 5 turnovers 3 were on Nunu, and those were mainly strips around the basket. In other words, our ball handling has dramatically improved.
Fundamentally sound ball handling, disruptive defense, spread-out scoring. That makes for a win.
At the chalk talk Bird mentioned that we had been preparing defensively for Gonzaga all fall--though the players did not know it. I believe our defense was custom designed to disrupt Gonzaga's offense, and clearly it overwhelmed them in the first quarter. Here are a few points about it:
1) Often when the ball came inside to Ejim we rotated a player over to help Agara, sandwiching Ejim.
2) Agara was in fact the main defender on Ejim, and went out of the game and came into the game whenever Ejim did likewise. Usually she fronted Ejim to deny her the ball.
3) Ejim had to guard Agara, too, and picked up a couple of early fouls trying to do so. This limited her.
4) As a result of this, Ejim was held to 12 points on 4/10 shooting. That is a step down from the 27 she hung on us last year.
5) In general our defense is closer and more aggressive than last year. This led to more deflections and for the second game in a row we had 10 steals. A whole different character of defense. On the other hand, those close defenses are vulnerable to drives, and Allie Turner blew by Harriel a couple of times for layups.
Now, let's talk a bit more about offense. Many have already remarked about how spread out our scoring was, and this is true and it is a thing of beauty. But that is not the only thing that is spread out. Also spread out were our assists. Ten (10!) players had at least one assist. This is a mark of a really great continuity offense in which the ball and players are both in motion and all the players are looking for their teammates and finding the one who becomes open.
I have no idea if this level of play is sustainable or whether other coaches will find schemes to stop it, but at this point in the season the Princeton has never looked better. I have heard many times that the Princeton is best suited to teams with 5 fundamentally skilled players on the court and no particularly dominant star. It could be that we just happened into the right personnel to elevate this particular offensive scheme. Last year Tara brought back elements of the triangle to try to feed Cam and Kiki more, but that is clearly gone now.
Finally, we had only 5 turnovers for the entire game. Granted, Gonzaga is not a ball-hawking type of defense, but in recent years we wracked up many more turnovers (12 a game) just from self-inflicted wounds. Of those 5 turnovers 3 were on Nunu, and those were mainly strips around the basket. In other words, our ball handling has dramatically improved.
Fundamentally sound ball handling, disruptive defense, spread-out scoring. That makes for a win.