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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5187629, member: 12088"] I'm not overly impressed by Tennessee's two bigs, Spearman and Hollingshead. They are pretty good on offense, maybe better than Ice and Jana. Hollingshead in particular played well against Aaliyah 2 years ago. But I think Ice is a better defender than either of them, and Jana may not outplay them, but they won't dominate her. And we have someone who can bang with their bigs in Sarah, but can't really be guarded by them. Who will take up this slack? Puckett? Darby? Latham? I think Tennessee's strength comes from their trio of big guards, Cooper, Whitehorn, Spear, and the little guards like Spencer and Boyd give them good minutes too. And they have a decent trio of 6'2 players: Pucket, Darby and Latham. They can score and rebound, though they aren't as speedy as the rest of the lineup. We hear a lot of talk about the hockey-style lineup changes, but the second line is not nearly as potent offensively as the usual starters -- Spearman Cooper Spear Spencer Whitehorn. This is also the group that does the bulk of the scoring and can get 70 pts/g. I think the question is only half about how our starters line up against them. And I think Paige Azzi Sarah Kaitlyn and Jana match up quite well against them. If we can dominate against the [B]second[/B] lineup -- I mean if KK Ash Morgan Aubrey Ice can outplay Puckett Darby Boyd Hollingshead Latham -- that might force Caldwell to play the starters longer than they're used to. Their dominance depends in large part on the starters being able to run as hard in the 4th quarter as they did in the 1st. Take that away and you might just choke off their late rallies. I hope that Morgan and Aubrey do good work against the second unit. I have no doubt KK Ice and Ash will. I also hope we have better mix and match lineups than they do. Caldwell has experimented with mixed lineups, starting Puckett instead of Spearman for example. And Cooper Spence and Spear have on occasion played with the second lineup. But Geno may have done much more of this mixing of lineups. Over the last month we've seen him play KK and Ash and Ice, and even Morgan and Allie, with one or more of the Big Three quite often. That extra experience is likely to come in quite handy tonight. Being able to rest Paige Azzi and Sarah early, letting Aubrey or Morgan fill in here and there for Sarah or Ice, these moves could be difference makers. Lineups with chemistry play much better than last second patchworks. At the first hockey-style line substitution, if Geno brings in KK and Ash for Azzi and Kaitlyn, it might be quite a surprise. KK and Ash have at least as much intensity as any of the Tennessee guards on defense. There will be no fall off in that department. When their first unit returns, bring in Azzi and put Aubrey on Cooper and rest Paige and Sarah, and great things might happen. No hockey style changes, but the effect could be astonishing. [B]But my final crystal ball prediction is: if we can get a few stops to open the game, Paige Azzi and Sarah will take it from there.[/B] [/QUOTE]

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