01-31-2016, 11:07 AM
Overview:
Lili scored 6 in the first half but 24 in the second; Kaylee had 6 rebounds in the first half and 13 in the second; Stanford was behind in the first half and won by 17. Lili's hot shooting and Kaylee's more aggressive rebounding won us this game.
Pregame:
Fresh off a sizzling hot shooting night for Lili, today we take on hard-luck Washington State, which has played highly competitive games throughout the conference and fallen just a few points short in several games. They have beaten Colorado, Arizona, and US.C, so WSU is no doormat. WSU is the nation's 117th offense and 177th defense--a solidly average team at the Division I level. Their best category is forcing turnovers--they are 31st nationally. Their top scoring threat is freshman sensation Borislava Hristova, who is the 85th best offensive player nationally. We are going to see a lot more of her over the next four years. They also have a great assists leader in Dawnelle Awa, with the nation's 59th best assist/turnover ratio. 7 of their 14 players are from other countries--and all seven from seven different countries. Alanna won't be the only Aussie on the floor today.
Coaches Notes:
Kate talked to the fans before and after the game, and Tara came out after for some questions too. As always, lots of fluff questions, but a few of substance. With regard to Marta, the coaches are very well aware that she needs to become more offensive, and Tara notes she made a jump shot today--clearly a sign of movement in the right direction. Without some offense, Marta becomes an offensive liability and allows the other teams to play 5 on 4 defense. With regard to the offense vs. the zone, Kate noted that unless designated shooters like Karlie get an open look, the offense wants at least two ball reversals and six passes in each half court offense. The objective is to get the defense moving back and forth. I noticed that this was impossible today since the defense came out so far to cut off all passing lanes. Again we heard Tara talk about the youth of the team--not only in years but in experience. Both Kate and Tara seemed to be trying to stay very upbeat, focusing on improvement and how coach-able our players are. The best question of the day--"what do you think is the difference between last Sunday's performance and today's" Tara basically refused to answer--humorously feigning a memory lapse about last Sunday. She noted what we had done to improve against the zone. Kate was more forthright earlier, noting that the zone has been our Achilles heel all year and that we were working hard to correct it. We also learned that Kailee is expected to play Tuesday against C.al.
Flow of the game:
We got off to another slow start. We were warned by Kate that WSU plays a unique defense that has elements of zone and man and it is difficult to know the difference, and our team will have difficulties reading the defense and may have to just "play basketball." Whatever it was, it was a defense that extended itself way out beyond the three point line and contests every pass. I guess I would call it a 1/3 court press, reminiscent to me of ASU. There were basically no easy perimeter passes in the game--but perimeter players had to dribble and screen just to move the ball from side to side let alone get off a shot. This defense worked well against us in the first quarter, where we made 1 basket in the entire quarter--but 9 free throws. Still, the offense did look inept again.
The second quarter was somewhat better. By then Tara had taken Erica out of the game and much of the first half was played with only one "big," usually Kaylee, along with two wings (Karlie and Britt) and two guards (Lili, Bri, or Marta.) Alanna came in for a time, also. It seemed as if she was trying to get our maximum three point shooting potential out there, but with limited success--Karlie and Britt each went 1/1 from three in the second quarter. Most troubling, Lili was only 2/4 in the first half and seemed out of sorts again. She was guarding Hristova, WSU's freshman phenom, so I chalked it up to the expenditure of her energy on defense. WSU hit a trey at the end of the half and we went into halftime down 27-25, with another terrible offensive half under our belts.
Apparently, someone had simply forgotten to turn Lili's "on" switch on until halftime, since beginning in the third quarter Lili began to make her shots. She went 4/5 in the 3rd quarter and 5/6 in the fourth, and wound up breaking her personal best with 30 points for the game. She had some help too, with Kaylee snagging 19 rebounds and McPhee and McCall offering some scoring diversity.  The crowd came alive on a few occasions when we made three point plays or when the refs blew a call, and the team seemed to visibly respond to the energy. We took the lead 3 minutes into the second half and never let it go again. We were ahead by 6 after the 3rd, but WSU kept us to a single digit lead until the last few minutes, when Lili closed the game with two treys to break her record and break the backs of WSU.
Performances
Well, Lili is obviously going to be Pac 12 player of the week, but consider what she did besides her 30 points. Lili defended Borislava Hristova and held her to 3/13 shooting. So Lili executed our most important defensive assignment as well as contributing nearly half our offense.Â
Kaylee Johnson has been getting more time with Kailee nursing her injury. She grabbed 19 rebounds to go with 7 points.
Erica McCall had a marvelous double-double, with 11 points and 14 rebounds. Shocking that there were that many rebounds to get considering Kaylee was a vaccuum cleaner.
Karlie had 10 points. Some of those came when she went around her defender on the three point line to manufacture an open two point jumper. Highly encouraging to see that.
Marta had 5 assists and only 2 turnovers--and WSU specializes in forcing turnovers--in 32 minutes. She also took 4 shots which is encouraging, and made a jumper--the first I can remember in a long time.Â
Bri sadly has not broken out of her slump. She took a nice three point shot that did not go down, and that was the last shot she attempted all game. She started but played just 15 minutes, coming out for Marta most of the game.Â
Brittany McPhee played very well, I thought, scoring 9 points--all in the first half, before disappearing in the second half. Not sure what happened to keep her from playing more--she had 17 minutes. It is true we did much better offensively in the second half, but she was our best offense in the first, and the person who kept us in the game. She did have 0 rebounds, however, so maybe Tara was looking at that.
Alanna Smith got 8 minutes, mostly in the first half as I recall when Erica was out. I thought her defense looked better than in the past--she had 0 personal fouls--but she also had few numbers on the stat line.
Conclusion:
The first half continues to scare me that our offense is still highly unsettled and vulnerable to intimidating defenses. The second half reassures me that Lili can, if she gets hot, shoot her way out of anything. I'm still far from confident that we have fixed our offensive problems, but if Lili can shoot 11/15 and 5/6 from three point range every game, why then our offensive woes would in fact cease. Now, we need two wins in short order over C.al to start getting back into the league conversation again, and set us up for a homestand against the Arizona schools. Let's hope that Lili can continue on her current pace the rest of the year.
Lili scored 6 in the first half but 24 in the second; Kaylee had 6 rebounds in the first half and 13 in the second; Stanford was behind in the first half and won by 17. Lili's hot shooting and Kaylee's more aggressive rebounding won us this game.
Pregame:
Fresh off a sizzling hot shooting night for Lili, today we take on hard-luck Washington State, which has played highly competitive games throughout the conference and fallen just a few points short in several games. They have beaten Colorado, Arizona, and US.C, so WSU is no doormat. WSU is the nation's 117th offense and 177th defense--a solidly average team at the Division I level. Their best category is forcing turnovers--they are 31st nationally. Their top scoring threat is freshman sensation Borislava Hristova, who is the 85th best offensive player nationally. We are going to see a lot more of her over the next four years. They also have a great assists leader in Dawnelle Awa, with the nation's 59th best assist/turnover ratio. 7 of their 14 players are from other countries--and all seven from seven different countries. Alanna won't be the only Aussie on the floor today.
Coaches Notes:
Kate talked to the fans before and after the game, and Tara came out after for some questions too. As always, lots of fluff questions, but a few of substance. With regard to Marta, the coaches are very well aware that she needs to become more offensive, and Tara notes she made a jump shot today--clearly a sign of movement in the right direction. Without some offense, Marta becomes an offensive liability and allows the other teams to play 5 on 4 defense. With regard to the offense vs. the zone, Kate noted that unless designated shooters like Karlie get an open look, the offense wants at least two ball reversals and six passes in each half court offense. The objective is to get the defense moving back and forth. I noticed that this was impossible today since the defense came out so far to cut off all passing lanes. Again we heard Tara talk about the youth of the team--not only in years but in experience. Both Kate and Tara seemed to be trying to stay very upbeat, focusing on improvement and how coach-able our players are. The best question of the day--"what do you think is the difference between last Sunday's performance and today's" Tara basically refused to answer--humorously feigning a memory lapse about last Sunday. She noted what we had done to improve against the zone. Kate was more forthright earlier, noting that the zone has been our Achilles heel all year and that we were working hard to correct it. We also learned that Kailee is expected to play Tuesday against C.al.
Flow of the game:
We got off to another slow start. We were warned by Kate that WSU plays a unique defense that has elements of zone and man and it is difficult to know the difference, and our team will have difficulties reading the defense and may have to just "play basketball." Whatever it was, it was a defense that extended itself way out beyond the three point line and contests every pass. I guess I would call it a 1/3 court press, reminiscent to me of ASU. There were basically no easy perimeter passes in the game--but perimeter players had to dribble and screen just to move the ball from side to side let alone get off a shot. This defense worked well against us in the first quarter, where we made 1 basket in the entire quarter--but 9 free throws. Still, the offense did look inept again.
The second quarter was somewhat better. By then Tara had taken Erica out of the game and much of the first half was played with only one "big," usually Kaylee, along with two wings (Karlie and Britt) and two guards (Lili, Bri, or Marta.) Alanna came in for a time, also. It seemed as if she was trying to get our maximum three point shooting potential out there, but with limited success--Karlie and Britt each went 1/1 from three in the second quarter. Most troubling, Lili was only 2/4 in the first half and seemed out of sorts again. She was guarding Hristova, WSU's freshman phenom, so I chalked it up to the expenditure of her energy on defense. WSU hit a trey at the end of the half and we went into halftime down 27-25, with another terrible offensive half under our belts.
Apparently, someone had simply forgotten to turn Lili's "on" switch on until halftime, since beginning in the third quarter Lili began to make her shots. She went 4/5 in the 3rd quarter and 5/6 in the fourth, and wound up breaking her personal best with 30 points for the game. She had some help too, with Kaylee snagging 19 rebounds and McPhee and McCall offering some scoring diversity.  The crowd came alive on a few occasions when we made three point plays or when the refs blew a call, and the team seemed to visibly respond to the energy. We took the lead 3 minutes into the second half and never let it go again. We were ahead by 6 after the 3rd, but WSU kept us to a single digit lead until the last few minutes, when Lili closed the game with two treys to break her record and break the backs of WSU.
Performances
Well, Lili is obviously going to be Pac 12 player of the week, but consider what she did besides her 30 points. Lili defended Borislava Hristova and held her to 3/13 shooting. So Lili executed our most important defensive assignment as well as contributing nearly half our offense.Â
Kaylee Johnson has been getting more time with Kailee nursing her injury. She grabbed 19 rebounds to go with 7 points.
Erica McCall had a marvelous double-double, with 11 points and 14 rebounds. Shocking that there were that many rebounds to get considering Kaylee was a vaccuum cleaner.
Karlie had 10 points. Some of those came when she went around her defender on the three point line to manufacture an open two point jumper. Highly encouraging to see that.
Marta had 5 assists and only 2 turnovers--and WSU specializes in forcing turnovers--in 32 minutes. She also took 4 shots which is encouraging, and made a jumper--the first I can remember in a long time.Â
Bri sadly has not broken out of her slump. She took a nice three point shot that did not go down, and that was the last shot she attempted all game. She started but played just 15 minutes, coming out for Marta most of the game.Â
Brittany McPhee played very well, I thought, scoring 9 points--all in the first half, before disappearing in the second half. Not sure what happened to keep her from playing more--she had 17 minutes. It is true we did much better offensively in the second half, but she was our best offense in the first, and the person who kept us in the game. She did have 0 rebounds, however, so maybe Tara was looking at that.
Alanna Smith got 8 minutes, mostly in the first half as I recall when Erica was out. I thought her defense looked better than in the past--she had 0 personal fouls--but she also had few numbers on the stat line.
Conclusion:
The first half continues to scare me that our offense is still highly unsettled and vulnerable to intimidating defenses. The second half reassures me that Lili can, if she gets hot, shoot her way out of anything. I'm still far from confident that we have fixed our offensive problems, but if Lili can shoot 11/15 and 5/6 from three point range every game, why then our offensive woes would in fact cease. Now, we need two wins in short order over C.al to start getting back into the league conversation again, and set us up for a homestand against the Arizona schools. Let's hope that Lili can continue on her current pace the rest of the year.
