And it was St Francis that was pushing the pace. They made it to the tourney playing fast, and dammit, they were gonna stick with their recipe for success. They had a blast despite the lopsided score.
It runs its full court press the entirety of every game. Blowout or 1 point game. It is what its game plan is based on. Supposedly, they don’t even practice a half court defense.
You sure about that? How about South Florida?
Let's be serious around here for a minute. Tenn wouldn't beat Duke.... probably wouldn't beat Chapel Hill and likely would not beat State. A 2 point victory over a undersized, no defense playing F$U isn't impressing anyone in my household. A victory over an athletically challenged bunch from Iowa City is fine, but they are probably the 7th or 8th best team in the Big 10. I'll check back at the end of January to see what their record is.
Nobody wants to play against that style.
No they don’t because it creates chaos. But….if teams beat the press they’ll be forced to abandon it or just keep giving up easy buckets. Ohio State plays like that. Against better teams they have to play in the half court and they aren’t used to doing that for long stretches. That’s going to be the challenge. Whichever team controls the pace will win.
I do have to disagree on one thing: TN and Caldwell are trying, like all coaches, to impart habits. She has spoken of the difficulty of getting players to not "start going back up the court after a score". In her style of play, you want your players to do the same thing every time they're on the court. It may be hard for the other team, but you are asking a coach to allow her players to do things that are "bad habits" for their style of play. They do not have an alternative style of play that wouldn't encourage bad habits for their system. I get what you're saying, and I feel for the kids on the other end of the score, but I understand why Caldwell is doing what she's doing.
South Florida is not as good as either Iowa or FSU, but you already knew that.
Looking forward to the Oklahoma/TN game........should provide some insight
No quarrels on the UT schedule, but the point remains, both FSU and Iowa are superior to South Florida who Duke didn’t handle very well. I believe you are grossly underestimating this LV team due to their schedule, and to be fair to everyone here, we will wait and see as you suggest. My early thought is that UT ends up ranked higher than NC, NCSU and also Duke.
Filed….Tenn style knows how to routinely put up over 80 shots per game, figure out how a 64 shot per game Duke team would deal with that, esp with the 40 minute full court press UT employs by 10 players. Again, nobody wants to play against that. IMO, LSU, TX and SC will find this version of the LV’s very troublesome. I don’t think Duke would fair well at all, let alone UNC or State.
Let's be serious around here for a minute. Tenn wouldn't beat Duke.... probably wouldn't beat Chapel Hill and likely would not beat State. A 2 point victory over an undersized, no defense playing F$U isn't impressing anyone in my household. A victory over an athletically challenged bunch from Iowa City is fine, but they are probably the 7th or 8th best team in the Big 10. I'll check back at the end of January to see what their record is.
This is getting intriquing.
Duke and Tenn has common opponents in Fla St., SC and Oklahoma. Are you confident that Tenn will beat Oklahoma by larger margin that Duke did (10 points) and will keep the game SC game within less than 11 point margin than Duke did. Both those games are home games for Tennessee. Tennessee beat Fla St. by two points and Duke do better than that
I don’t know, but FSU is a way better team than South Florida.
TN will run LSU out the building. OU game could go either way, I don’t anticipate much defense being played, lot of points
I call it 85-79 UT over Okie at home. There will be a few stretches of defensive push back on both sides. They both find some success offensively at times. LV’s win with depth, they have closely mimicked the SC ten player rotation, just faster.
Will be a test of the two coaches….each has the quality to win with the right plan. I think Caldwell wins this one.
I don't know about way better, but they are better. They are, however, more talented than South Florida. I would favor USF's coach over FSU's.
Oklahoma's guard play was very shaky. Also, she made substitutions when the ones in the game were playing well and almost waited too late to put them back in.
