WBB vs. Montana Western Nov 28, 2pm

Define “for real”. 

Thank you in advance. 

So she will only be 4 inches taller than everyone on the floor. You can get alot from these type of games if you know what to look for. For example in respect to Jelena- is how quickly she makes decisions and gets ride of the ball. I have also seen her play in the Euro's aganst legit tall centers and she has no problems getting her shot of in the post. She has moves and a hook shot. Something else I liked about her was how quickly she passed out from the post when she saw someone open instead of first attempting to work for her shot. Another thing I noticed is how she played a much smaller player on the perimeter. She used perfect distancing between her and the ball handler. Many taller players play too close or too far back. If you use the right distence you can not only stop their shot but also eliminate their drive. 

The main difference in respect to the post players playing a short team like that would be the level of difficulty making entry passes. It will be more difficult against taller players. Even short teams can present a different challenge that a taller team. This might become evident when teams try to play short against them when they can not match their height. What was most important about this game was it tested their decision making. You can work on plays and getting to know your teammates. Sometime matching up with shorter team is more difficult for a tall team. 

I like others suspect that Goforth will be the back up point. With Samual coming in as a shooting guard. 

 How players match up with certain players always remains a question. It is a question that also affects quick athletic players as well. It is obvious that your favor quick and athletic players. Athleticism can often become a handycap if it becomes a distraction to a player developing other skills. This often becomes a pattern that develops at the lower levels when an athletic player can dominate purely with their physical superiority over their competition. This applies to quick speedy players as well as the taller post players who seldom face anyone close to their size. 

Length and quickness/atheticism often is a trade off. One can mitigate a lack of length vial quickness and a lack of quickness via length. This is why I mentioned Jelenas proper use of distance on defense to negate her mans quickness. A tall player can negate quickness by playing off their man. The taller they are the farther the can play off of them and still challenge their shot. This is how a taller player can defend a shorter quicker player. Positioning and angles play a major part in good defense. Conversely a shorter quicker player faces the same problem but in reverse. They can use their quickness to advantage in off the ball help defense but it becomes a handy cap in on the ball defense.

While height and quickness can be a real advantage in basketball, they are not the only factors at play. Hand speed and positioning also plays a major role. One also needs to remember that short people give the appearance of being quicker than taller players because of the relative length of their strides. It appears to me that you percieve shorter players to be faster than they are and taller ones as slower than they actually are. It is an optical illusion. 

In respect to Jelena, I don't see your percieved lack of her quickness to be a problem. She is quicker than you believe her to be. Her straight line speed ( running the floor ) is the one area where she might be beat by a faster center on breaks. McCowan of Miss St. was actually slower and less quick than Jelena and no one seemed to focus on that because her abilities under the basket made that negative a good trade off. Your focus only on percieved negatives reflect your preferential bias only. Which is why you conversly overvalued Slocum. You focused entirely on her assets while ignoring her existing trade off liabilities. Jelena brings a lot of intangables that are valuable assets to team play. It seems that over seas players are taught fundamentals of basketball that are often ignored by players who play against sub par competition in high school. There is a huge difference girls high school basketball more than in any other type of sport. This causes them to develop some very bad habits that become developmental problems at the next level.

But are all the P-12 teams in the same boat?

Optical illusion? Really? So Sean Mannion was just as fast as Brandin Cooks? Good grief.

And you will see how much this team misses Destiny when they get pressed and Aleah becomes a turnover machine.

I think Taya and Ellie will help with the press.  The ability of the 4 to see over the defense and be an easy pass back if the PG gets trapped will help.