Practice

Extracts from recent interviews relating to Jelena Mitrovic:

From the recent Kerry Eggers article
“Taylor is an outstanding defender around the basket. I believe Jelena can be the same.” - Scott Rueck

“Rueck told me before last season that Mitrovic, a native of Serbia, would be a “significant factor” by season’s end. That never happened; she sat out the entire season. This year, Mitrovic should at least earn a spot in the regular rotation.
“Everything was rough for her last year,” Rueck says. “It just took so long for her to rehab and get ready. By the end of the year, we saw her practicing with much more normalcy, and you could see the impact she is capable of having.
“She can step out and hit a 3. She is an excellent passer with great hands and the strength to catch the ball inside and make good decisions with her back to the basket. And she’s an imposing presence on defense. I believe the sky is the limit for her.””

From Talkin’ Beavers Podcasts:
 
9/16/20 “Checking in with Taylor Jones”
Taylor on Jelena...
“She’s looking great”
“She flew back to Serbia and she was able to train there... and I think that definitely helped. She has confidence now”
“Like we’ve never been able to see her play until like towards the end of the season when she was able to do some stuff in practice. And I’m extremely excited for her. She can shoot the three. She is very athletic and I’m excited. I think she’s going to do some damage.”

9/20/20 “Beavers WBB coaching staff on preparation, motivation and the Wubble”

Brian Holsinger - “She’s lost a ton of weight. She’s in great shape. She has been amazing in our workouts. It’s fun to se her finally healthy. She’s doing great. It’s been real fun to have her back playing and working out.”

Katie Faulkner - “She’s got it all. And right now, I mean, coming of an injury... especially something she’s done twice... there’s always a mental aspect of that so to watch her push through that, break through that barrier, “No, I’m healed, I’m ready to go”, this off season has been just the best thing for her as is watching any athlete... same with Kennedy... handle injuries and be able to push past that and be like “I’m good, I’m ready to go”. And so her confidence has blossomed. Getting her to see herself as an elite player right. now has been really fun. She has a skill set that is so natural... I mean she is just so smart in the post. And so she’s able to use what she has against anyone she plays against. And so, while Taylor comes with this fierceness and this “I’m going to outwork you”... and Taylor is just amazing in that way... Jelena has this suave’ and this smoothness about her...um, so they’re really both very unique and yet, yes, Jelena can hit the shot from the outside so she is so versatile and at 6’9”, where do you see that? And so it’s been really fun to watch her and [wonder] “ooh, how can we use her?”

When you watch player highlight tapes, you never see an air ball or a dribble off the player's foot and out of bounds. All you see is player making shot, player making steal, player blocking shot...

When you read what a coach says about one of his or her players, you never hear a disparaging remark. You get hyperbolic gushings of the player's strengths.

I always take both the tapes and the gushings with a big grain of salt. I certainly hope Jelena becomes a force, but I'll wait and judge for myself.

Some interesting points here about having a Big stretch the floor with her ability to hit 3s....

Here's something to think about on this topic - as I have faced it many times, and my reaction is somewhat different than it is being discussed here.

Whenever I encountered a talented post player who could also hit the 3, I'd order my defender never to follow them much beyond 10-12 feet from the basket. Especially if their team already has good 3-point shooters (in our case Goodman, Corosdale and Subasic and maybe Goforth).

Here's why: every time a talented Big leaves the paint and heads to the perimeter the offensive team loses its advantage; every time a Big shoots a 3, that's one 3 that your best 3-point shooters are not taking; every time a Big takes a 3 you lose that player's ability to help out as an offensive rebounder.

In other words, if Jelena could consistently hit the 3 at a 35% clip( is there really a 6'8 college WBB who can do that?) I'd never chase her. I'd let her drift out there and shoot all she wants. Personally, that's what I think the good coaches in the Pac will do as well.
Having a 6'8' WBB post drift out to try her luck at a 3 is a dim use of Big talent - in my view.

So, in sum, I'm glad Jelena can hit her 3s. Good for her. But I can't see it being of much tangible consequence to the Beaver offence....
GO BEAVS!!

To me,I want my 6-8 post player playing close to the basket versus shooting three pointers,unless she is a very good shooter beyond the arc. It's frustrating to,for example,see guys like Joel Embid at the NBA level at 7-1 shooting three pointers instead of using his height closer to the hoops. I know it's a style thing,but on principal,I want my tallest post player closer to the hoop to clean up missed shots.

The setting picks issue is a good point, and one that I did not consider when talking about letting a Big drift out to the 3-point line with shooting on her mind.
So, I'll have to think on that one for a bit.

In general, however, I don't like sending a good defender out very far to cover a Big who wants to shoot a 3.
P.S. I think you can count on a pirate's hand the number of 3s OSU post players have nailed in the past 6 or 7 years.

GO BEAVS!!

This is all quite intriguing to me, and starting to make me really look forward to the season starting.
OSU has made hay in years where our post had several inches on the opposing post player.
We have done it in a variety of ways - Marie was so mobile she could out-quick the defender. Taylor is a great finisher - once she has position and gets the ball in her spots, count the basket and head the other way. Ruth had some good moves, some mobility, and some spots. Grymek had some spots.......None of them would make you even *ponder* sending your defender out to the arc with them (the issue of screen setting notwithstanding). If ANY OSU post of the last decade decided to chuck it from the arc, as an opposing coach I would have been thrilled (and asked my team to back off the Aleah-wannabe post even more)......some of those aforementioned post players could return the ball to whomever fed them and reposition, others not so much. Some of those posts could even trigger back door cuts or give-and-goes.
Now we have an embarrassment of riches, and we might have a post that can do a lot of damage in all of those scenarios.....and present all sorts of dilemmas - dangerous at the arc, court awareness and ability to pass off the ball, rebound, take out the trash on errant shots from teammates. We might actually be entering new territory here with Jelena.
The beautiful thing is - in most years past, a hush would fall over the crowd when Taylor/Ruth/Marie picked up her 2nd/3rd foul (depending on time and score).......this year we might be able to trot out all sorts of *other* dilemmas should that happen.
Also, Jelena has had a year "in the system". I can just squint and imagine all the imaginative plays that might have been schemed for BLOBs and zone/man-to-man busting in the time she has been onboard, and more importantly in the time she has had to absorb the system.
I think of the year-over-year improvement we saw from Grymek - and let's be honest, there were some fundamental limitations to her game that often got explained away charitably by her years in the Juco ranks. We are working with a redshirt frosh here who from my cursory examination of tape is light years ahead of where Ruth started, might present little drop off from freshman Taylor/Kennedy, and can do some things that Marie was just starting to touch as a senior.
And that is just one player - just adding in Taylor and Taya to that mix would make most teams envious, but we then have grad transfers with size and skills just wanting to play like there is no tomorrow - and some of them weren't exactly chopped liver on their teams before they made a move to OSU (I think a "6'3" 15 ppg/6.5 rpg, 80% FT, 1000 points in 3 season Patriot league POTY/4 year all-Academic player" equates to a "darn good Pac-12 player from day 1", but we will see soon enough).
Good times.

Go Beavers!