Hawaii Game Thread Nov 7 5:30pm

Jelema did not have one of her better reaction games today. She did seem to be lethargic, however, I have seen her play much better. Players will have good games and not so good. I have seen other players have simular games where they just are not as quick to react. We shall see if this is just a short period or it it lingers he entire season. Some of you need to watch more basketball. I have seen the top pro's have games where they seem to be half asleep. That is why it is good to have depth for those games. However, she added enough on defense and ball movement to justify keeping her in the game.

However, some of you are being far too critical of her. One person in respect to her defense and te other in respect to her playing the high post. The offense moved much better with her in the high post. The start of the second half was such an example. With her in the high post it opens up the inside for drives and other players cutting to the basket. It creates better ball movement.

All in all their needs to be a larger sample size to draw from before coming to the conclusions many of you seem to have taken. As I always say- You are never as good as your best game nor as bad as your worst. People who are too quick to come to condlusions generally do so because it matches up and validates their preconcieved perspectives.

Making observations about a player’s play in a single game does not mean they are being written off for the rest of the season. I think we all want the best for/from Jelena even when critiquing.

Without saying anything, good or bad, about the game she had, the only time I would want my post hanging around the 3 point line is to set picks early in the shot clock. Then I want her setting up down low. And I certainly don't want her handling the ball a lot out there. I want her passing back out on an inside out game when she's doubled, or shooting over the defender if there's no double.

Agree - did not imagine we could play that poorly and get the W.  I would have assumed Talia played 1-on-5 to get the W. She did that a bit to close the game, but otherwise tried to let the team come along.

AJ looked like she took a step forward, and looks like she as figured out that she's physically just better than pretty much anybody playing her, even going 90% instead of 110%. She's a very tough guard when under control and picking spots. Athletic rebounder as well that can clean up. Talia looks like herself with more strength and quickness (or maybe just more linear cuts). Beyond that, only Hansford really jumped out as ready to go; she had two blocks called fouls that she'll learn from - she needs to stay higher and not come down with the blocking arm so aggressively to a void the foul calls. Range looked really good - Talia missed finding her wide open late where she would have had a chance to put the game away. After tonights game, I expect more off-ball screens for her to get shots.

Mannen and Pietsch were more game than I expected; Hawaii wasn't able to punish the lack of size even when they played together as much as I expected. 

Jelena didn't have a good game, but I thought that was a combination of Hawaii's gameplay (Spiller player her super aggressively, and when switched, have smaller defenders flop. She couldn't figure out what balance to have on her physicality with the ref's and Hawaii's approach. The result was a tentative, unsure game. I also didn't like where the offensive plan put her on the floor on offense. On defense she turned a lot of drives away where our perimeter was beat, allowing our defenders to cheat out. We'd have given up a lot more 3s without her rim protection.

Rough game for Aaron as well; disappointed that the game looked like it was going to fast for her. Hopefully she just needs to knock the rust off.

Beers - thought we'd see more offensive aggressiveness from her, but she stayed in the flow of the offense and Hawaii defended her well mostly. Hope she never has a game again where she doesn't get a rebound - that's the thing I thought she'd bring the most.

For that matter, Mannen has as many rebounds as Jelena and Beers combined.

Ugly win over a likely tourney team, with moments of promise. 

We barely beat an eight seed in the ‘23 tourney. Yay.

Jelena, I assume.  They had her at top of key and she held the ball too long on many occasions.