Oh, that defense!

[MilfordHusky]

This reminds me of the Big East tourney a few years ago when the opposing teams' leading scorers barely scored:

UConn has now held the Top 3 scorers in the Big East – Rodgers, DePaul’s Anna Martin and Seton Hall’s Jasmine Crew – to a combined 22 points (7.3) on 20.6 percent shooting this season (7-of-34).

 

[alexrgct]

Is that good?

 

[MilfordHusky]

Is that good?

Very funny. It's better than good.

 

[Wonkster]

.
Yeah, but West Virginia suffered Skylar Diggins' career best point total and still won. So what is the meaning of all this, wrapped up into a single pearl of wisdom?

I dunno, but alexrgct's entry with "Is that good?" would get my vote.
.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Earl the Pearl played on the men's side. So did Pearl Washington.

Yeah, Skylar had a career high of 32 but she missed 6 FTs in a 2-point loss. So WV's free throw defense was good.

 

[Wonkster]

... Yeah, Skylar had a career high of 32 but she missed 6 FTs in a 2-point loss. So WV's free throw defense was good.

.
I don't think you addressed my point, which, simply put, is that the point total of the team's leading scorer is not necessarily determinative of her team's success. It's still a team sport.
.

 

[AboutWeston]

It had to be the refs. ND bigs seem to have fouled out - perhaps thanks to one of our favorites - Bonita Spence??? If I am reading the box score correctly:
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncw/boxscore?gameId=320430087

Also, the New York Times article on Diggins seems to have had the same effect as the "60 minutes" feature on Diana and UCONN. All the press hype leads to a fall???

And the NYTIMES story here:
http://nytimes.stats.com/wcbk/recap.asp?g=201202120423&home=423&vis=636

 

[MilfordHusky]

.
I don't think you addressed my point, which, simply put, is that the point total of the team's leading scorer is not necessarily determinative of her team's success. It's still a team sport.
.

Correct. But when the leading scorer is held well below her average and the teammates are more role players, there is a high probability that the team loses.

 

[alexrgct]

In any team sport, there are two defensive approaches one can take:

• Try to neutralize your opponent's best option.
• Try to neutralize everything other than your opponent's best option

Either approach can work.

In the WVU-ND case, turning the point guard into the primary scorer is not a bad strategy because they then lose sight of their job as PG of getting everyone involved.

In other cases, neutralizing the best scoring option often puts undue pressure to score on people who aren't used to shouldering that burden, and the result is a big mess.