McD Game

As for Chasity, she looks capable of becoming the best and highest scoring point guard we've ever had. Other than lacking a couple of inches in height, she has it all. We saw a lot of it on display today -- handles, shooting, speed, athleticism, rebounding, passing, free throw shooting, defense, and a great overall feel for the game; things just look so easy and natural for her on the court (but, no doubt she has worked hard at her game for many years).

So impressed with her shooting touch. So confident and silky smooth. As much as I love Brooke, Chasity's ability to stop on a dime and shoot that mid-range jumper consistently is a breath of fresh air and not something we've been able to witness by many players at Texas in the last 10 years.

In a recruiting year where point guard was not a major need, Coach A hit the jackpot with Chasity. Prior to Chasity's verbal commitment in June 2016, we were having some posters on here state that she was maybe favoring OU or A&M; I had no idea what was accurate. All I knew was that state of Texas' class of 2017 had so many elite point guards (Chasity, Chennedy Carter, Alexis Morris, Kiana Williams, and a couple more), and it would be a shame if we didn't sign one of them. But, I also thought that signing a PG in 2017 could impact our chances with 2018 PG Tatum Veitenheimer. Well, everything works out for a reason. And, Chasity showed us the last couple of days why she is so highly regarded.

No doubt she brings some skills that our current roster lacks. Thrilled to have her coming to Texas.

 

Chasity also had a game high 6 assists!

http://usatodayhss.com/?p=101165161

 

Good Job Boothe and Patterson.
Can't wait to see next year.
Who start.
Both of them can easily start to me next year.

 

One of the prettiest plays in basketball is when a player is headed up court at full steam, has the defense on its heals, stops on a dime and hits the pull-up jumper. Mooo saw that from Patterson today. I think I saw that once from McCarty in the Baylor game but that is not her best skill. Patterson appears to have it and makes it look easy. Maybe Patterson can learn the floater from McCarty and McCarty can develop the full-speed pull-up jumper.

 

For those who haven't looked at the box score, Patterson and Boothe led in just about all categories. Boothe was high point, with 18, including 4 threes, shooting 50% from the field. Patterson had the second highest points, at 14. Megan Walker was next with 13 points, but had to take 17 shots to get it. Boothe had the most rebounds of the players on both teams, and Patterson had the most assists on both teams.

 

I've been telling you all how good Boothe is, and now you see for yourselves. Nekia Jones-like skills in a fit body. And Patterson... Wow! Dynamic player!

Both will fill urgent needs for our team. Boothe's beast mentality is something we haven't had in a long time. Patterson is a tough little cookie too.

Can't wait!

 

Yeah, the box score was eye-popping....you mention the duo leading in scoring (Rellah), rbs (Rellah) and assists (Patterson), but Chasity also led in steals (double that of anyone else in the game) and Rellah tied for the most blocks. But how about this stat.....the East squad made 6 treys total during the game, and our two future Horns were responsible for all of them!! And the West squad only dropped two from BTA, so Rellah and Chasity were responsible for 6 of 8 total for the game.

 

One factor in Booth's effectiveness (besides her obvious skills) is that she is left handed. Never underestimate that. It is a significant advantage. All players are taught to overplay the offensive right hand which is the overwhelmingly predominant direction. Players get consciously or subconsciously committed to that strategy. Then even when they know to overplay left hand, it is difficult to actually do. Things just are different defending going left than right. Small things like that give a distinct advantage. The McD announcers mentioned that on the telecast. My AAU team had two and I always tried to get more. The left handed-ness is not what makes Booth good but is not insignificant. We'll take all advantages we can!

 

ESPNw highlighted 6 players from the game - Rellah and Chasity at the top of their list:
Rellah Boothe, Texas: Let's just say the Longhorns are smiling. The No. 3 prospect out of IMG Academy in Florida showed off all that is good in her game. The versatile 6-foot-3 forward had 18 points, including four 3-pointers, and nine rebounds. She competed hard on both ends of the floor and led the late-game charge for the East, which trailed by as many as 13 points in the third quarter. Boothe scored 16 of her points in the second half.

Chasity Patterson, Texas: Before the game even started, the 5-6 Patterson out of North Shore in Houston showed why she is one of the country's most capable scorers. Patterson had the hot hand on Monday night and won the Powerade Jam Fest 3-point contest by putting together a jaw-dropping streak. The lightning-quick and top-ranked point guard in the class had 14 points, including two 3-pointers, in the main event Wednesday night. She also had six assists, including some big dishes in overtime, to help seal the East's win. Patterson scored 10 of her points in the first half before handing off the scoring duty to her future Longhorns teammate. Did we mention that the Longhorns are smiling? And, if you're keeping score in Texas, the West squad had five players from the Lone Star State, and they scored 31 of the 74 points. Patterson was the lone Texas rep on the East.

 

There has been some excellent analysis on this thread that I enjoyed reading.

Coach ALWAYS leans towards starting and playing her senior guards, even if understudies at times seem more deserving. That will make sense next year with Ariel and Brooke, but you wonder how many minutes that leaves for Higgs, Sutton and Patterson.

Without getting hung up on whether Ariel is a guard or forward, if we go to a 3 or 4 guard lineup, you question whether it makes sense to take Holmes/Boothe/White/Twin off the floor. Of course, matchups are important, but look to a starting lineup of Holmes/Boothe/Atkins/McCarty/Patterson if not on Day 1, by Big12.

I think this lineup optimizes both offense and defense, and you can't play for Coach if the D is not there. I'm one of Lashann's and Alecia's biggest fans, but it's getting real hard to pick the best 5 these days. That's a good thing.

 

I didn't watch the game, but was Boothe mainly at the 3 or the 4?

I ask because if she has a decent outside shot, I would love to have her at the 3 and Holmes at the 4.

For me, a great starting lineup would be:
McCarty - G
Atkins - G
Boothe - F
Holmes - F
White - C*

Very athletic lineup lineup with 3 of them able to shoot the 3 and 4 of them able to create their own shot.

The asterisk is on White because I honestly have no idea how she will perform.

With the addition of Patterson, this puts Sutton on the "hot seat" to improve her shot. Higgs will always remain our primary option off the bench.

 

Was Magic Johnson a point guard or a post? He played all 5 positions and was better than his opponent at each. This illustrates that if a team has the talent, the traditional positions begin to loose their importance. Rellah played near the basket, except when she was far away from the basket; she looked good at both. Btw, I think we will see Rellah magically shrink from 6'3 to 6'1 when she gets to Texas, but like Magic, it won't matter.

Having watched Jatarie at practice, she will provide important minutes at the post and you can not teach 6'4. But I would go with my group.

 

Magic generally ran the offense, so I always considered him a PG.

I understand and agree with your notion talent trumps traditional positions. (See Sparks 2016 championship with Ogwumike and Parker.) However, talent for the last 2 or 3 years hasn't been the problem with Texas. As one poster put on the Baylor and Rebkell board, "Texas as a tendency to do less with more."

Obviously McCarty, Atkins, and Holmes will start.
McCarty will be at the 1.
Holmes SHOULD be at the 4 because of her athleticism and the fact she is still new to being a post player.
Atkins is trickier. I have literally seen her play 1-4. I prefer her at the 2 because she will be bigger and more athletic than most guards.

My problem with starting a McCarty and Patterson backcourt is while that provides great offense, how will the defense perform without Taylor there?

 

Texas has struggled to shoot the ball consistently from the perimeter since Coach Aston has been at Texas. They've had some good players the past 2 years but to say that "Texas has a tendency to do less with more" is ridiculous. Also Rellah is a power forward not a 3 and Brooke along with Patterson will be on the floor a lot despite the obvious size disadvantage on the defensive side of the floor.

 

My point being, talent wasn't the problem, but the utilization of that talent.

I didn't make the quote, I just relayed how others view our program.

If Rellah is a 4, I would rather have her at the 5 than Holmes who I don't think will be happy playing that position.

 

What I think is most important about this group next season is that they ALL will need to have a TEAM FIRST attitude, or there are going to be a few frustrated members due to playing time. If Coach Aston can persuade these ladies to buy into that, major kudos to her!!

 

How would you have utilized the players on this years team? Coach Aston obviously needs to improve offensively but at the same time this team was flawed.

 

Slow down DINO...lol

 

The defense will be just fine. While Taylor was a good defender (not great), she was a HUGE liability on the offensive end because other teams simply did not guard her. They sagged off of her because she had NO shot. This started with the Iowa State game and continued thereafter. Her defender played primarily in the lane, clogging up driving lanes for Brooke, Ariel, Lashann and even Joyner. THAT to me was a HUGE part of our offensive problems. It was basically 4 on our offense against FIVE defenders. I have said it over and over again. You MUST score in the half court in today's game and put pressure offensively on your opponent or you are not going to go very far. I also disagree about you putting McCarty at the 1 automatically. I think you will see Brooke at the 2 alot next year with Sug Sutton and Patterson sharing point guard duties. Also, I think Sug Sutton STARTS at the point next year.

I also think you will see Holmes and Boothe on the floor at the same time at the 4 and 5, creating nightmare mismatches. Hopefully, Coach Aston can figure some type of zone to help them if we have to defend a Big like Kalani Brown. I think Boothe is perfectly capable of playing the 3 as well as the 4. She was the BEST player on the floor yesterday and Patterson was right behind her. Our future is very very bright.

 

Tina certainly seems pumped about Rellah:

 

Thanks to Chasity and Rellah out-performing all the other players, Texas and Coach Aston received a lot of great publicity on TV and social media. The TV analysts mentioned Texas and Coach several times during the broadcast just about every time Chasity and Rellah made a positive play; even mentioned Joyner Holmes. No way we get that much exposure if our two signees weren't lighting it up on the court.

 

I'm a member of the faction that wants Aston to put more motion into the offense, etc; but as I said the other day, you can improve any offensive scheme with the right personnel. The fact is if Sutton or Audrey Ann had shot just 30% from the three point line this season, our whole offense would have been ten or twenty percent more effective. We would have won several of the games we lost. I agree Brianna was a liability on offense. They also sagged off of Holmes because she wasn't an outside shooter. As you say, Patterson and Boothe may solve that problem and open up the floor for everybody. As for "doing less with more," that's not fair. If anything, Texas was a little better then the sum of its parts last season and the year before. They were actually over achievers, and Brianna Taylor deserves immense credit for playing power forward some nights at 5'9"-- and doing a darn good job. In 2014 and 2015 she was very important to the system. This year Karen overestimated her team and over scheduled a bit. It didn't matter in the end. We got the seed we deserved, went to the Sweet Sixteen, and would have beaten Stanford with just a little bit more offense. And broke the spell and beat Baylor in their own gym.

 

Well, I don't get paid hundreds of thousands like Aston does, but a couple of things I would have done different...

Offense:
-More pick n' rolls and screens. Every offensive set should have 1 or 2 screens.
-Don't make a player something they aren't. Lang was great at moving without the ball. Not the best with her back to the hoop one on one.
-Have more offensive sets that geared towards different zones. Maybe Aston already had this, but the players never looked like they had set plays when teams played zone.
-Post up smaller guards. Atkins would post up smaller opponents from time to time and more likely than not, she either got fouled or scored.

Defense:
-Don't be afraid to double-team. Lang wasn't the best one on one defender, as seen in the first Baylor game, the second OU game and the second OSU game. I felt many times Aston should have sent another player in the paint if you notice a trend of the opposite team's 5 consistently scoring with ease.

I think Aston is great coach. I think Thompson and Carey are great coaches. I think we have great players who are impressive on and off the court. Constructive criticism for my alma mater doesn't mean I don't love and root for them.

Finally, I just feel like we are winning because of talent, but not because of strategy. We have the second most McDonald's All-Americans on a team in the country. Yes. This team had its flaws, but they were better than a Sweet 16 team.

 

So, you are telling me that the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year was just a "good defender"? Haha!

Yes. She was liability on the offensive side, but you can easily mask that with screens, pick n' rolls and strategic offensive sets. Another thing, while Taylor couldn't shoot and for some reason couldn't finish around that basket as she did in previous year, she was a good offensive rebounder. You take the good with the bad.

I like Sutton's game, but like White, she is a wild card. We don't know exactly what she will be like when she is 100%. Will her outside and medium range shots start falling? Who knows. I can't see her starting over Higgs.

While most on this board prefer McCarty at the 2, I like her at the 1. The offense always seemed to run smoother when she was in charge of it compared to Sutton.

As for Holmes and Boothe. I really think Holmes is more suited for the 4. It gives her more freedom to roam. Yes. Holmes is physically built for the 5, but she would be playing out of position. I would prefer to try to make Boothe a 3 and have Holmes at the 4, paving the way for a more traditional post player, White or Audrey, to take care of the 5. Remember, Enemkpali, who never had quite the range or guard-like abilities that Holmes already has, always played the 4.

However, to each his and her own. We all want the same thing.

 

Yes.....that is EXACTLY what I am telling you. I could care less about those Big 12 awards. I loved Bre's hustle and fight and tenacity, but she simply was no threat on the offensive end. Name me a time when Bre "shut down" a big scorer...just once. Didn't happen. The rules now highly favor the offensive player. You simply don't win with just "defense" anymore. Doesn't happen. Sorry, but I am being honest here. And NO.....you simply CAN'T "mask" a perimeter WING player not being able to shoot from even 10 feet with screens, pick n' rolls and strategic offensive sets. That is absolutely FALSE. Not being able to SPREAD the floor was IMO our biggest issue in the half court. I don't care how many screens, pick n' rolls, etc. you run, SHE STILL CANNOT SHOOT. That allows her defender to literally IGNORE her, clog up driving lanes, collapsing into the paint and creating issues for our other 4 players off the bounce. If you paid attention, you would see that after the Iowa State game, almost EVERY time Ariel took someone off the bounce and pulled up for her mid-range jumper inside of 17 feet, there were TWO defenders in her face.

And I do agree with you about Holmes not playing the 5. Neither Holmes nor Boothe are even close to being legit 5s, but I do think Coach Aston may use them at the 4 and 5 "together" at times to create mismatches. I also agree that Boothe may well end up at the 3. I think Jatarie White is going to fit well into our system and will be a big plus for us next year at the 5. Unless you are talking about injury, I don't think Sug is a wild card at all. She started to play with more confidence the last few games and I absolutely think she will start over LaShann.

 

I have to agree with Bobcat that there was simply no way to mask Taylor's offensive liabilities even with the best schemes, which we didn't have. And I think Lashann was an even better rebounder. It amazed me how many times she jumped up between 2 defenders 3-4" taller than her a grabbed a rebound due to her jumping ability.

I think next year we'll have the option of going small with Holmes at the 5 and running the heck out of big teams, or going big with White at the 5, Holmes 4, Boothe 3, Atkins 2, Brooke 1 and having excellent inside/outside scoring against smaller teams. We'll have a lot of options as versatile as Holmes, Boothe and Ariel are.

Where we still will struggle is against teams with an big athletic inside game such as Baylor with Brown, but how many teams can stop Brown? Certainly not many.

 

Too true.

 

There will be so many combinations to try that it will be a little mind boggling. To me, these 5 position numbers are very imprecise. I think more in terms of having a point guard, the other guards, and the big people who spend much of their time down low. Rellah and Joyner obviously have the skills to do more than just stay down low, and I expect each of them to be at the high post or out somewhere further some, and, especially Rellah, to be taking three-point shots. I like Brooke a lot at the point, but Sug is good there, too, and Higgs not bad either. On any given series, they hopefully will be moving a lot and not staying in a "spot." Having Patterson on board may spark a healthy competition between her, Sug, and Lashann which will improve the skills of each one. My hopes for individuals are that Joyner's shooting gets more reliable, Lashann gets more confident and trusts her instincts more, and Ariel fouls less. It is minutes, not who starts, that is most important.