Game One in Austin: Texas vs Baylor

I agree that our ball screen defense is suspect. To defend a ball screen you have to active post players that step out and hedge or at least slowdown the ball handler and that is something that we do not have. Our post players like to hang back to protect the basket, which forces our guards to get hung out to dry on ball screens. We have been okay all year with soft hedges but really got exposed Sunday because Baylor's Jones was knocking down shots, it exposed that weakness in our defense. I guess you have to pick your poison. I thought we should have adjusted and had the guards go under the screens because she wasn't hitting 3 balls. She is killing us with the mid-range.

 

Baylor is good. Very good. Very Very good.
But continue the severe scolding

 

Agree with your assessment. I would add BU's offensive boards were another killer that I'm convinced don't happen with Brianna Taylor on the floor.

I look forward to the rematch.

 

I'm trying to figure out what goes in that"____" at the end of your post. Help!

 

Contrary to popular belief, if the athletes you're playing against are good enough, there is no proper way to "defend" a ball screen. If you hedge or trap, they pass to the person who is popping out for the shot or rolling to the basket. Even if help comes, if the offensive team moves the ball fast enough there will always be an open shot. If the team is good there is just no way around it.

If you go under or chase, they get wide open shots.

If you switch you have Jones isolated vs one of our bigs, and that is going to be to her advantage just about every time. Forcing help to come, and leaving someone for a wide open shot.

If you look back at the game, you will notice that the coaching staff tried just about all of these things. BU's offense was just better than our defense on that day. But a large portion of that was Jones going for 29. Not sure thats something she can do again against our team.

 

Having coached for many years, it has always been my philosophy to NOT let one or two players beat us. We knew going into the game that Jones and Davis were the two scores on the team. Once Jones got going, we should have doubled her coming off of every ball screen to force the ball out of her hand. Defending a ball screen is easy to defend, you just have to have 5 players committed to defending the ball. Too many of our players were only focused on their player, not defending the ball. Or we could have gone to a zone to slow down the one on one action of Jones. We gave up 16 points to Jones in the 1st half, 13 points in the 2nd half but 6 came from the FT line. Our carelessness with the bball and quick shots put us behind, we gave up 18 points off of turnovers in the 1st half. That plays into the strength of Baylor.

Going zone in the 1st half could helped us with two things, it could have allowed our players to stay out of foul trouble and it could have changed the pace Baylor's offensive. Baylor had one consistent shooter (Wallace), everyone else was like 1-4 from behind the arch.

That's my Monday morning quarter back analysis! lol The next game will be different for sure because we learned from our mistakes.

 

This just shows that coaching is not a exact science. There are many different ways to skin that cat.

When I was working on our offensive sets, I always instilled in my guards that no matter what the defenders do we have a wide open shot, it was just up to them to find it.

Outside of that, I agreed with much of your analysis.

 

Bohls writes that Brianna was indeed benched for an outburst during practice.

http://www.hookem.com/2016/01/20/bo...enues-last-year-why-wasnt-bottom-line-bigger/

 

I was there. It was ugly. Just hope that she saw she let her team down and learn from it. We need her.

 

The difference in my analogy and yours is you blame blindly and point fingers.....making excuses for some. I might blame (Brooke and others as you say) but also give her credit where and when it's due. I have not been prejudice towards any of the players. Bench and starters alike. If they're having a bad game I'm not shy about it. If they're having a good game yeehaw! Many on here do the same. My point is valid especially after watching tonight's game vs. TCU. Quite sloppy and embarrassing as a top 10 team. The bright spots were Imani and Ariel. I'd go as far to say Celina did a great job! Imani once again put the team on her back. Tonight's play will not get us to a Final Four......

 

It will get me to the Final Four----I just hope the team joins me....LOL~~~

 

Look mama, I don't have any problem with critiquing any player on this team. If I have the opinion that a player didn't play well and cost the team the game, I'll say it. I don't care if it's Tasia or Imani. And your point isn't valid because if it was Tasia wouldn't have played a whopping 1 minute in such a sloppy and embarrassing game as you said. Since you're obviously very sensitive when it comes to Tasia it might be a good idea if you didn't go on message boards. Just know, you can't cry and whine about people picking on Tasia and then you do the same thing with other players on the team. That's what we call being a HYPOCRITE!

 

Ummmmm, I think you're confusing me with the Tasia supporter in earlier thread. LOL

 

Nope, that would be you!

 

I believe it was you and "family fan" that got into the Tasia argument. (It was you and ff that went back and forth) I merely said she didn't do too shabby when first coming in off the bench. People aren't going to agree with what everybody says. Take it or leave it. That's what I choose to do. I will agree to disagree.