Post by 2ndGenBeaver on Dec 21, 2017 13:21:41 GMT -8
This is one of those games that is a puzzler because your assessment of how well the Beavs played is greatly dependent on how good you believe the UC Davis team is.
They are tough to figure because they looked good in spurts, had pretty good athleticism and had a very good scorer in Morgan B., their 6'3" forward-center who can shoot well, but didn't.
Cal Davis on offence had no interior game whatsoever. Some of their perimeter shooting bordered on panic as they unloaded from beyond even the NBA 3....
They had virtually no bench strength, and their starting 5 logged about 30 minutes or more each.....
Bottom line, UC Davis is solid but not strong by PAC12 standards.
The Beavs are a System Team. That is their trademark and that is their strength. Right now the Beavs have no one except Pivec who is a consistent offensive threat when the system is not producing good shots. Which is to say, can create and score on her own skill set. That is going to create some really frustrating stretches for the Beavs this season. As of now, Tudor and KMac have shown virtually no ability to penetrate, create and score I really hope that changes in a positive direction....
Another thread is comparing Miller & Rueck. One commonality that occurs to me is that Miller's team would win ugly. Consistently. At the final buzzer you'd say "Gawd they played ugly." Then you'd spell out u-g-l-y. Then you'd look at the scoreboard and see that they won by 8. That kinda reminds me of the Lady Beavs and Cal Davis last night.....
Agree with your analysis - though it seemed (after a while) that those NBA-range 3's from UCD were "in system", as they take a ton of 3's as a team, though maybe they were in-system as all the Beavers were giving them. Would hate to play that team if they were hot from the outside. If we believe the Beavers are a tourney team, then so is UCD.
When the system is not producing good shots - this is the continued evolution for this team - to identify and find the "give me the ball, get out of my way while you watch me create a shot" person that has been Jamie or Syd in earlier editions of the Beavers. I have had high hopes that KTMac could be that person, because of the fact her stature and skills will usually give us a positive mismatch on the floor, but she is not emerging as that person. So it likely falls to Mik, Kalmer or Goodman to be that "go-to" person. And last night Kalmer and Goodman weren't able to provide that.
The other thing no one has mentioned in this thread - last night the Beavers reminded me of the earlier years, with more casual TOs than warranted by what the other team was doing. Hopefully that was an aberration, with everyone mentally reviewing their Christmas to-do lists instead of being 100% locked in.......if it was something UCD was doing, then we still have our work cut out for us in that department.
I think this game came at the right time for us, where we were able to apply enough of the system to win, but were challenged in doing so. Bring on the Washington schools!
Go Beavers!
