Texas vs Tenn: The 40th Game

Andy Landers pointed out one of my main observations over the past couple of seasons.. you're going to get beat playing man-to-man defense because you're in a reactionary position to the offensive player, the problem is the help is not rotating over quick enough to help. Given that..why then do you continue to play that style of defense almost exclusively when you KNOW you lack rim protection? Furthermore, we've struggled against zone defenses for the past six years and we STILL haven't figured it out without having to take a halftime to adjust? Geeze!!!

Now that I have vented ny frustrations I will say I saw some encouraging things today and I thought we played very hard. 82 points SHOULD win a very high percentage of games. Props to the staff for the adjustments made after halftime on attacking the Tennessee zone.

I think how our season shapes up will depend heavily on Joyner getting into good form and Charli's development. Jatarie needs some help down on the block, and right now there is not much production coming from the "4" spot. That's GOT to change.

 

I think it was Ellis21d who first mentioned Audrey Warren on this board. A very good eye! I had never heard of her at that point. She is a major find. I agree that the 4 is an issue at this point. Sug is so good, sometimes I wish she would take more shots (drives and pull-up jumpers) and worry less about distributing. Danni showed some of her stuff this week.

 

It was good finally see them drive to the middle of the lane and pull up shoot. J. White look so slow up and down the court.
A. Warren play so Old School.
But she is good.
She always no where to be on the floor Offensively and Defensively.
Hookem'

 

I actually think the plan early on was to force Tennessee to shoot over the top. Texas was giving their guards too much space/cushion basically playing a really soft man. And Westbrook and Jackson would just rise up and make the 3.

Texas also didn’t do a good job of talking and communicating with the high ball screen Tennessee used. So once Westbrook and Jackson got hot from 3 you knew that Coach Aston wasn’t going to go to a zone.

 

Don't forget Sug not getting hurt.

 

Absolutely!

 

She's improved, but how many times do we need to see her going through a pick and drawing a foul. The reason why a player goes through a pick is because she's too slow to go around the pick. Joyner's timing is off and hope she supplants Jada as the 4.

 

I'm not a fan of Coach's substitution pattern of players getting on the court and not having the opportunity to get warmed up and then they get substituted out.

 

Audrey with FOTW honors again.

 

Yep, we got a good in Audrey!

 

Agree. It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason at times. It was especially odd in the last few minutes of the Tennessee game. I guess that's why I'm sitting in the stands and not coaching because I don't get it.

 

It was my observation during the final minutes of the Tennessee game, that Aston was inserting better defensive players when Tennessee had the ball (Joanne and Mide) and better offensive players (Destiny and Jatarie) when Texas got the ball back.