Scouting Potential NCAA Opponents

I rewatched the Washington game because of your post on this very issue in another thread. You are doubling back on your preseason assessment of Jo being too slow and clumsy to play the post except in specific situations. The defensive problem with this team is not Jo but the parameter defenders. They have a problem staying in front of their players. Against Washington they were constantly beaten off the dibble even when the were in a zone. Scott recognizes that and that is why he stayed in a zone even with Mattie on the court and she was no better at challenging the three point shot from that position. They need Jo in the middle to guard against drives to the hoop. She intimidates the opposition and they do not take it to the hole but pull up or pass before they get there. With MW, JT, or any of the others they take it to the hole. 

Scott does not trust this team to play man to man against more athletic teams. He only played a man to man when the team was down 4 with under a minute to play. But he immediately went back to a modified zone. The team also did not play a straight up man to man on the last play. He played a man to man with no one guarding the inbounder and Jo under the basket to guard against drives. No one was assigned to Peterson so no one actually missed their assignment. That was the way the defense was set up. Scott found himself in a catch 22 situation. In retrospect he probable should have not challenged the inbound and just went into their regular zone. It is precisely against quick athletic teams that Jo is needed on the floor to guard against drives. 

Willtalk once again makes his conclusions above without having watched enough OSU basketball this season to truly derive accurate conclusions. Willtalk posts on a number of women's college basketball message boards throughout the country (California's and UConn's message boards come to mind among others). I believe that he lives in California based upon the other posts of his that I have read.
 Willtalk responds... What does my posting on other sites and living in California have to do with my post? You are borrowing almost word for word the same critique that another poster used when they disagreed with my posts on other sites. I don't believe your are the same poster are you? Also you have no idea of how many games I have watched. Either this season or past seasons. I believe there might be one game that was not streamed this season or played on the Pac 12 network. That one, early in the season would have been the only one I missed.  

It is Madison Washington. Or Maddie. Not "Mattie" as willtalk has frequently posted. It is perimeter defense that he is referring to, not "parameter" defense as he writes above and frequently writes on other message boards. Aside from the grammar issues and his unfamiliarity with OSU players and the team's most common offensive/defenses schemes, what bothers me is when he submits his opinions as facts and uses incorrect facts to support his conclusions. He did that when sharing his opinions of and when taking shots at Sydney Wiese two seasons ago.

So I submit my opinions as facts. Well you stated that I have not watched enough Oregon St games to truly derive an accurate conclusion. Now that seems like a statement of fact to me about something you could not really know about. How would you know how many games I have seen. Being that I have seen as many as anyone else could possibly have seen unless they traveled with the team your opinion is totally false. So you are guilty of what you accuse me of. 

Willtalk responds....As to your statement about taking shots at Sydney Wiese- I stated nothing I have not also stated her on Benny's house. Basically that she should have quite shooting three's instead of going 0-10 in the game against Florida State. I was at that game and felt Oregon St should have won that game. They were the better team. Wiese was 3 for four driving to the basket. She could have done that all night instead of continuing to shoot 3's when she obviously was not on. I also felt Scott made a mistake by changing his defense in the second half. They had basically shut down FS until he changed and FS began their comeback. I believe Scott is one of the best coaches in the country but in that game he made a number of mistakes leading to that loss. Oh by the way I was at that game. 

beavershoopfan- instead of just dealing with the details in my post seemed to think he could make his point better by attempting to vilify the author via quoting things out of context by making be someone who attacked poor Sydney. Why not just say I am cruel to small animals and children as well. 

The Beavs have played effective man-to-man defense for most of the season, even against the more "athletic" teams like UCLA and USC.  Coach Rueck will mix it up defensively by having the team play zone and give the opposing team a different look for a number of possessions throughout different stages of nearly every game. The UW shot 4/33 from distance during the Beavers' 47-point rout over the Huskies in Seattle on January 25. The UW this season was not a particularly "athletic" team. The decision to play zone defense against the UW in the PAC-12 Tournament quarterfinal game was predicated on the UW having shot just 31% from distance during the season. Grymek was instructed to protect the paint/rim against the UW and not go out and contest the threes shot by UW center Darcy Rees. In hindsight, an adjustment should have been made after Rees hit two three-pointers in the first half and before she ended up with four three-pointers made before halftime. Grymek can't effectively guard out to the three-point line. An adjustment should have been made. It wasn't. That kept the UW in the game as the Beavers only lead 37-33 at the break.

Willtalk responds......Oh by the way the teams mascot are called beavers not beavs. I don't know if I should even take a poster seriously who does not even know how to spell the teams mascots name correctly. That should lead me to surmise that you do not watch enough games to know what you are talking about. I mean spelling tells us everything. 

Ree's hit her three's early and not just against Grymek. They also were not the reason that Washington took the lead. Oregon St still had a large lead despite Ree's three's. They lost the lead because they went cold and could not score. Ree's began to put up bricks without Scott making an adjustment. She ended up 4-13 from 3. Her 4 three's were a fluke. Scott was right to keep the defense the same. 

Yes the team did play and alternate man to man with zone most of the season. But towards the end they began to play mostly zone as Jo's play improved. 

Rueck has to trust that his players can defend in one-on-one situations. And he has done that for the majority of the season with consistent results with this season's squad. He usually can't keep Grymek on the floor for 30+ minutes per game due to foul trouble, ineffectiveness, and/or conditioning issues. Playing tough man-to-man defense has always been expected by Rueck from his teams. The Beavs play zone defense to give opposing teams a different look and to protect a 6'8" center who plays zone defense far more effectively than man-to-man defense when opposing centers attempt to lure her further away from the basket.

Willtalk responds.... While they have played a large portion of the season mixing up man to man with zone, they have recently begun to play much more zone. There have been many comments on this site about how the defense this year is not as good as it was last season. There have been comments by others on how the players can not seem to stay in front of their assignments. It is not always the same player getting beat either. It depends on the team and the matchups, but all you need is for one player to get consistently   beat to have to adjust to a zone. All that is a topic of discussion for another time on another thread. 

So he can not keep Grymek on the floor for 30 plus minutes per game because of either foul trouble ineffectiveness or conditioning. Well in the four games previous to the Washington game Jo averaged 33 minutes per game and with the exception of the SC game where she got in foul trouble with 2 fouls she only had one in each of the other games. In the previous games against Oregon she only averaged 25 minutes per game and was in foul trouble in one game. Everyone who has watched those games would attest that she was not ineffective either. So your statement in respect to Grymek's effectiveness, foul trouble and conditioning per lack of minutes was totally wrong in respect to her most recent games. 

They are not just playing Jo in a zone to give the other teams a different look or to protect her.  They also have been playing the same zone when Maddie is in the game. The play it because it works better. I also suspect they might be getting it ready for next season when they will be playing a lot more zone to utilize the size they will have to work with, and to get that size on the floor.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

As for the final inbounds play by the UW with 4.9 seconds remaining, I would agree that the coaching staff guessed wrong that the UW would drive with that much time left and didn't reinforce to the players during the timeout to ensure that the inbounder was quickly guarded after she inbounded the ball. Rueck stated as much during the postgame press conference.

I did not hear his postgame press conference, but had already assumed that he was faced with a catch 22 choice. We do not really know what would have happened if they had just gone man to man with someone guarding the inbounder. But we do know what happened when they didn't. 

I only brought this part up to correct an assumption I made before I saw the replay. I had stated on another thread, that someone had missed their assignment. That was wrong and I had made a mistake. No one missed their assignment. It was a coaching decision that just didn't work out. As I didn't hear the post game press conference I needed to see the replay to recognize that. 

I’m going to guess there was some poor seeding done in Corvallis. If #13 Boise State is worse than #12 UALR, it will be a boring game. That 12-seed was a gift for UALR.