Long post--long day in the classroom--waiting for a student to take a makeup exam . . .
K. Aston has to find a better way to use J-Holms. Monday night down the stretch in the fourth quarter the UT offense started with her at the top of the arc simply setting pics. OK if she's then sliding to an easy lay up, but she wasn't.
That lady is capable of being unstoppable on the low block--she's more athletic than our K. Brown. K Brown just has more low block body mass that can't be defended (aka Courtney Paris type) once she gets position. Not sure why Aston didn't use McCarthy to get the ball to Holms on the low block vs. Kalani Brown--unless the commentors were right and Texas/Holms just ran out of gas and had no legs from the last 8 days. And she fouled our ON HER HOME COURT. Must have been gassed; homecourt top scorers ususally get the whistle's benefit. Shouldn't be a factor come conference tourney and Dance time.
On the low block I'll take our K. Brown, now that she's finally gaining the confidence (and knowledge) of how NOT to lose the handle on the inlet pass. But seems to me J-Holms could be almost as effective there AND be capable of drawing the opponent's #5 out away from the boards.
We got by with defending her with 5'11" Nina Davis at the top of the arc.
Maybe the early eye injury to UT's Lake Monday night who normally stays at the low block and takes up a lot of the opponent's #5 body hits made the difference and Aston decided to maintain the offense leaving Holms out high.
I guess this is why K. Aston is a top national coach and I'm just a prof who needs not to pontificate about women's bball.
And as for the other thread on Alexis Jones' injury, there's no mystery here or anywhere publicly or privately. WITH her we're a FF team. WITHOUT her, we're a potential FF team, but we'd have to play almost flawlessly--and get another 25-30 point night out of Brown AND STILL have to find another 10-15 points somewhere. We just don't' have veteran guards quick enough to get the ball into the offense on a consistent basis other than Jones. And we don't have a consistent #2 scoring guard if Wallace has to run the point. Our current point Kristi Wallace (a natural #2 swing) has the best bball head on the team, and the grittiest player (my personal favorite), but she's a step slow vs. Top 10 defenders in crunch time. I'm not sure we can keep the offensive mojo going that we somehow found Monday night vs. UT, unless we get Jones' quickness back on the court for at least 20-25 minutes.
UT is definitely a quicker team than we are. Therein was their win in Waco earlier in the year when both teams were at full strength. We just have too many big legs and bodies to run at most teams in the first half and wear down their BIGS in the second half.
A heads up. Only at midseason has Alexis PRINCE (our #3 normally) NOT felt her feet hurt in 3 years (over 10 surgeries in 5 years). She's the best defender on our team; and somewhere in the next three weeks, if Jones stays tender, watch for Alexis PRINCE on offense at the elbow 15 ft. jump shot (instead of standing in the corner waiting for an open three since she didn't have the feet/legs to drive). She's a capable 20+ point scorer--doesn't look like it because of her stone face and slow gait, but we may have to go to her for 15-20 pts if we have to live without Alexis Jones.
Hard to take that the whole tourney--1/2 round in Waco, Regional in Dallas, FF in OKC-- set up perfectly for our players and our fanbase to travel, and now we may have to face that without an All American guard. No number of BIGS can overcome not having a surehanded, scoring, All-American guard in crunch time.
