12-04-2025, 07:50 AM
A game of pluses and minuses last night (I was only able to watch the 2nd half):
I agree with one of the previous posts that Tennessee looked like a pretty dreadful basketball team in this one, but they won the game on strength, physicality and athleticism. They might have had one of the worst shooting games by a "quality" team I've seen. Did they make a single shot between the rim and the 3-point line? Air balls on wide open corner-3s, bricks from the FT line. It was ugly. And I'm not even dragging them, I think their coaches know they are a poor shooting team, they had a game plan, and they executed it and deserved to win the game, imo. It's a game plan that usually works well against Stanford, no matter what our personnel is.
No team should be able to win after turning it over 30+ times in 40 minutes, and yet we had a shot to tie/win in the final 10 seconds. That's kind of mind-boggling. The saving grace there was that a lot of those turnovers ended up being balls out of bounds, and so Tennessee's points off turnovers weren't totally crazy, despite the raw total of turnovers. I thought in the 2nd half we were mostly "breaking" the press fine, i.e. getting it over half-court with the defender at our back, but then Hailee or Chloe would get near the 3-point line or the top of the key and be going downhill so fast that they couldn't make a decent play, so we had some charges and balls bouncing out of bounds off of our feet. The press kept us out of rhythm, but I'm not sure getting into our half-court offense and running sets would have been a boon to our team anyway. When we held onto the ball, we generally found good shots early in the clock. Hailee, Nunu, Lara and Chloe all looked capable of scoring against them in the 2nd half.
The Stanford D was good, though aided by their terrible shooting. Nunu and Lara mostly held up against their front line and we produced some steals in the half-court by collapsing on them when they had a foot in the paint.
The coaches may be reading this Board, because they found the best 5-person lineup and ran with it for most of the 2nd half: Chloe, Hailee, Courtney, Lara & Nunu. I think we should continue to note - with all the talk about Alex on this Board - that KP & the coaches are relying on Lara and Hailee as every-down backs on this team, and that's not something we saw much from Tara with any freshmen in the last 10 years (besides Haley Jones). They mostly abandoned Lepolo, despite all the turnovers, because it was obvious that she wasn't quick enough to beat their guards up the floor with the ball. Even though Chloe and Hailee were losing the ball a lot, they were at least capable of getting the ball past the Vols' players, and/or seeing over the D if they had to pick up their dribble. That 5-person lineup looked good to me - capable of playing with a team this physical, and skilled enough to beat them. We just need Hailee & Lara to slow down the game a bit and the pieces will start to come together more.
I would have loved to see Amborn get a few minutes and just position in her in the corner in front of our bench. Lara and Nunu were generally standing there when Chloe or Hailee were carrying the ball into the front-court, and while they are capable of making a corner-3, Amborn could be a real weapon there. And I think they could have gotten away with hiding Amborn on the defensive side because Tennessee really couldn't hit a shot.
I thought the team showed a lot of fight in the face of adversity and it was encouraging how Hailee and Lara played in this one. Ogden is really showing herself to be an improved players this year, too. They're not a top-16 caliber team and they're not going to be this year, imo, so I think we have to be patient with the ups and downs of this bunch.
I agree with one of the previous posts that Tennessee looked like a pretty dreadful basketball team in this one, but they won the game on strength, physicality and athleticism. They might have had one of the worst shooting games by a "quality" team I've seen. Did they make a single shot between the rim and the 3-point line? Air balls on wide open corner-3s, bricks from the FT line. It was ugly. And I'm not even dragging them, I think their coaches know they are a poor shooting team, they had a game plan, and they executed it and deserved to win the game, imo. It's a game plan that usually works well against Stanford, no matter what our personnel is.
No team should be able to win after turning it over 30+ times in 40 minutes, and yet we had a shot to tie/win in the final 10 seconds. That's kind of mind-boggling. The saving grace there was that a lot of those turnovers ended up being balls out of bounds, and so Tennessee's points off turnovers weren't totally crazy, despite the raw total of turnovers. I thought in the 2nd half we were mostly "breaking" the press fine, i.e. getting it over half-court with the defender at our back, but then Hailee or Chloe would get near the 3-point line or the top of the key and be going downhill so fast that they couldn't make a decent play, so we had some charges and balls bouncing out of bounds off of our feet. The press kept us out of rhythm, but I'm not sure getting into our half-court offense and running sets would have been a boon to our team anyway. When we held onto the ball, we generally found good shots early in the clock. Hailee, Nunu, Lara and Chloe all looked capable of scoring against them in the 2nd half.
The Stanford D was good, though aided by their terrible shooting. Nunu and Lara mostly held up against their front line and we produced some steals in the half-court by collapsing on them when they had a foot in the paint.
The coaches may be reading this Board, because they found the best 5-person lineup and ran with it for most of the 2nd half: Chloe, Hailee, Courtney, Lara & Nunu. I think we should continue to note - with all the talk about Alex on this Board - that KP & the coaches are relying on Lara and Hailee as every-down backs on this team, and that's not something we saw much from Tara with any freshmen in the last 10 years (besides Haley Jones). They mostly abandoned Lepolo, despite all the turnovers, because it was obvious that she wasn't quick enough to beat their guards up the floor with the ball. Even though Chloe and Hailee were losing the ball a lot, they were at least capable of getting the ball past the Vols' players, and/or seeing over the D if they had to pick up their dribble. That 5-person lineup looked good to me - capable of playing with a team this physical, and skilled enough to beat them. We just need Hailee & Lara to slow down the game a bit and the pieces will start to come together more.
I would have loved to see Amborn get a few minutes and just position in her in the corner in front of our bench. Lara and Nunu were generally standing there when Chloe or Hailee were carrying the ball into the front-court, and while they are capable of making a corner-3, Amborn could be a real weapon there. And I think they could have gotten away with hiding Amborn on the defensive side because Tennessee really couldn't hit a shot.
I thought the team showed a lot of fight in the face of adversity and it was encouraging how Hailee and Lara played in this one. Ogden is really showing herself to be an improved players this year, too. They're not a top-16 caliber team and they're not going to be this year, imo, so I think we have to be patient with the ups and downs of this bunch.