I was going to just listen on the radio, but then realized Mike Parker doesn't call women's basketball :-). He is the master of painting a word picture of the action, and Ron Callan provides a lot of enthusiasm, but doesn't really provide me with a good verbal visualization of the action. To that end, and especially given the few-and-far-between games at home in December made it possible to stomach the FloHoops highway robbery rates.....
Who am I kidding? My wife asked "are we not going to *watch* the games?" with that tone of voice that 28 years of marriage alerted me to the fact that it would be a marriage limiting move if I didn't sign us up post haste......and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the resolution of the streaming.
OK - my comments......
The Michigan coach really had an excellent game plan - push us off our spots. That made us very uncomfortable, and sped us up, where we rushed everything and seemingly missed everything.
I have to remember we have become very young: it showed in Greta getting pushed around a bit, and AJ not understanding time (that foul 2 seconds before halftime.....).
TVO is trying to fill Aleah's shoes, and Aleah (you don't just land up as an assistant at Duke without some serious mental basketball acumen) had big shoes.
We can also see the downside of the transfer portal - while you can import seniors and seasoned players, they don't have the years of experience in the system.
But I think Coach SR needs to dumb down the BLOBs a bit - they all seem to take 4.5 seconds to execute on a good day, and that aforementioned Michigan coach pushing us off our spots made them take 5.5 seconds.......imposing your will on Cal Baptist and Cal Bakersfield does not translate into imposing your will on a well-rounded top-10 team. With the experience level on the floor, SR might ponder a "relief valve" role on the BLOBs after 1-2 seconds.
KB is not mentally where she needs to be confidence wise - her early FT shooting showed that. This team might not be able to afford a 6'6" version of Gabbie Hanson (where teams would basically not even guard her on the offensive side, though felt her presence in spades on the defensive side).
Jalena needs to be reminded she is a big.
We lost out on a lot of 50-50 balls - not one of Taya's best games rebounding. But that just serves to remind me that we are still recovering from losing Mik's rebounding prowess.
We also need to find out who the finishers are on this team, and where we can look for the best chance of a bucket on a dribble drive.
Losing to a top-10 veteran laden team might turn out to be a good learning experience for this team - this kind of game has paid dividends for us in years past with SR teams.
But I will end with an observation that I am not sure time will cure.....because it is a coaching observation. We really, really miss Brian Holsinger and especially Katie Faulkner. It is like we switched to decaffeinated coffee in the coaching department. Perhaps Devan and Jenny are still getting comfortable with showing off their fiery competitive nature, but they literally never left their seats during the game. Contrast that with Katie - I would lose weight just watching her antics on the bench, and she injected a crap ton of energy into the game. Usually you have to calm teams down for big games like this one, it felt like we needed someone to pump them up, and I fear that person is now pumping up the Huskies.
There is a lot of talent on this team, and we will learn a lot from how they come out and play against Notre Dame, but from what I caught waiting for our game to start today they look like a dangerous team......
Go Beavers!!!
