Incredible game!!
PB is (almost) back and she took over late. I say almost because she still threw the ball away a couple of times and she had only one assist. The old PB would have had less and more, respectively. But it was all we needed – she was awesome and I have no doubt, Stanford is worried about her. I think she scored about half her points in the OT periods. She scored 8 straight at one point.
CW is a straight-up bully – she even bullies the bigger kids on her way to the hoop. Her aggression is unbelievable – she forces the ref to call the foul. Most of the time, playing the wing, she is giving up some height on the defensive side, but she knows she has the quickness to go by and even challenge the bigger kids on the offensive side. She was great and added 5 rebounds. If she could hit those 3s a bit more regularly (2-8 and roughly 20% in the tournament), she would be unstoppable.
is starting to warm up and the game is slowing down big time for her, right before our eyes. She seems so patient now, working her way through screens for the three or the midrange. She played great as well and added 5 rebounds. By the way, and CW played close to 100 minutes without a single TO! Think about that for a minute…..
Ono wasn’t great as I had hoped and predicted, but she was good enough and played tough. She has got to hit the FTs! The same with AE – not great but tough and a workman-like effort. Both of these players seem to be peaking at the right time and played well against a big, tough team. They got 16 points and 13 rebounds between and only 4 TOs in roughly 80 minutes. AE helped save our season with the 2 clutch FTs and the put back ORB in the 2 OT. I do worry about foul trouble on both of them, especially with Dorka out.
EW has been solid; hasn’t really shown out yet, needs to hit the open three. Gave us some solid minutes. Dorka was getting her swerve on until she got injured. Can Dorka play defense, set picks and get ReBs against Stanford, maybe even flip in a layup. She broke her left wrist….
NM played 8 minutes and directly gave us or contributed to giving us 5 extra possessions when she was in the game. She had a steal, forced turnover, ORB for two and 2 contested/hustle plays that disrupted NC State and we ended up getting the possession. She found CW after the steal for an easy two and committed exactly zero fouls! When she was in the game we went from 2 up to 9 up and kept that at 7 points even after Dorka went out.
Second half, NM comes in and we go from 4 down to 1 down. So, in her 8 minutes, we outscore NC State by 8 points. Similar to her contribution against Indiana. She saves possessions and gives us additional possessions. If we shoot it at roughly 50%, 5 additional possessions equate to 5-6 additional points, no matter who is shooting it. She is a real sparkplug off the bench.
By the way, she came in at the end of regulation for LIV…hmm thought somebody said she would never play at the of the game… Not sure why GA didn’t do the same thing at the end of the first OT. State needed a three so Liv wasn’t needed on Defense and NM could have fouled instead of us giving up the three….
There is something about CD that GA doesn’t quite trust. If she wants to stay in the game, she has to hit her first shot and her open 3s. Nothing against EW, but I’d like to give a few more of her minutes to CD.
A few little things almost cost us big time – how do you have a shot clock violation coming out of a TO, give up a three when you could have fouled, miss roughly 8 of your first 10 or so FTs, foul the three-point shooter at 28 secs in OT??
I love this team but we will have to keep peaking and play even better to beat Stanford. Their length could cause PB more problems….well, maybe, but she still goes for 30!
