An ugly game which will advertise one effective way to defend against our continuity offense. Of course it would be UC Davis that discovered a way to mess us up--it was UC Davis that taught us our offense, and they know better than any coaching staff in the nation what you can do to disrupt it. Furthermore, the officiating style tonight allowed for more contact and handsy, grabby behavior than we have seen in the earlier games, and it seemed that our young team had problems adjusting to it. Our 16 turnovers far far outpaced our turnover rate in any previous game. And going 5/20 from three point range was a natural consequence of the herky jerky disruption of our offense. All that smooth motion that we saw against Gonzaga slowed down. There were way too many times when a player had the ball and seemingly could not figure out who to pass it to. Those long pauses while the ball handler waited for someone to get open became commonplace, but much of the time there just wasn't enough off ball movement.
Not only do we need to clean up those turnovers, we now must expect every team we play to try out their version of the Davis defense, since it is on film for all to see. So until we solve this defense, we will see it over and over and over. If Davis can do it with their personnel, there is no reason Indiana, Morgan State, Cal Poly and the whole future schedule can't play it.
I am curious to know just what this defense was. I know (and mentioned in the preview) that Davis has employed a "junk" defense, but I am not sure if this was it. At the chalk talk we were told that Davis uses a "swarming" defense--that every time the ball goes inside they collapse on the paint so that posts cannot afford to take more than one dribble, if that. But this does not explain the way they disrupted our three point shooting.
There are some positives. Obviously Agara's offense was the key to victory, which is why she played 37 minutes. Ogden only played 20 minutes and so she was the most efficient offensively. Harriel led the +/- by a wide margin, which must reflect her defense, since her offense and her turnovers were nothing to brag about.
And there are some negatives. Tess Heal had a rough game, going 0/4, 2 turns, no assists, and the worst +/-. But Clardy was also 0/4, although her two three point attempts both went halfway down and came back out.
We also had a paltry 9 assists, which makes sense given how disrupted our offense was. Basically, our offense was Agara and Ogden driving to the basket and hoping they would not be called for an offensive foul. It worked well enough, but just barely. Giving Davis a lead with less than a minute left in the 3rd quarter should have been a massive wake-up call, and apparently it was just that, since we outscored them 20-9 in the 4th.
Not only do we need to clean up those turnovers, we now must expect every team we play to try out their version of the Davis defense, since it is on film for all to see. So until we solve this defense, we will see it over and over and over. If Davis can do it with their personnel, there is no reason Indiana, Morgan State, Cal Poly and the whole future schedule can't play it.
I am curious to know just what this defense was. I know (and mentioned in the preview) that Davis has employed a "junk" defense, but I am not sure if this was it. At the chalk talk we were told that Davis uses a "swarming" defense--that every time the ball goes inside they collapse on the paint so that posts cannot afford to take more than one dribble, if that. But this does not explain the way they disrupted our three point shooting.
There are some positives. Obviously Agara's offense was the key to victory, which is why she played 37 minutes. Ogden only played 20 minutes and so she was the most efficient offensively. Harriel led the +/- by a wide margin, which must reflect her defense, since her offense and her turnovers were nothing to brag about.
And there are some negatives. Tess Heal had a rough game, going 0/4, 2 turns, no assists, and the worst +/-. But Clardy was also 0/4, although her two three point attempts both went halfway down and came back out.
We also had a paltry 9 assists, which makes sense given how disrupted our offense was. Basically, our offense was Agara and Ogden driving to the basket and hoping they would not be called for an offensive foul. It worked well enough, but just barely. Giving Davis a lead with less than a minute left in the 3rd quarter should have been a massive wake-up call, and apparently it was just that, since we outscored them 20-9 in the 4th.