Pac 12 games 2/2/18

[willtalk]

Tudor is invisible. Still scoreless, didn't even get a shot attempt in the quarter. I'm not quite sure how Stanford has been able to blanket her, while still double and even occasionally triple teaming Gulich at all times. Maybe they have 7 or 8 players on the floor?

They put their fastest player Williams to stay with her. Tudor tried to lose her but Williams stayed with her. Oregon St. doesn't seem to set any picks or screens to get their players open. Stanford certainly did and was very successful. Tudor was timed at being able to get her shot off between 0.4 and 0.45 seconds. If they can not get her a look quick enough to get off her shot something is really wrong. The most successful game plan against Oregon St. is cover Tudor and jam Gulish. This should open up open looks for the other players and Mc Willians hit hers in the first half, but didn't have many looks in the second either. Corosdale was totally missing everything but still kept shooting early in the shot clock. I agree with the guy who said they should have kept Kalmer in at the end of the game.

Oregon St needs to set more screens and picks to free up their players for shots. The only pick I saw was on a pick and roll with Gulish and McWilliams which got Mc Williams an open 3. They also lost that critical rebound of the Stanford free throw miss late in the game. Perhaps they should have put in Grymek on that play to get the rebound. Corosdale hadn't hit an outside shot in a couple games so she was already a liability on offense.

Oh I also thought Pivecs decision making in respect when to finish drives and when to kick it out was much better. She didn't force it this game.

 

[nwhoopfan]

I missed the later games. Looks like UCLA was in control most of the way, beat USC 59-46. Oregon opened up a can of whoop-***. Ionescu scored 28 on a very efficient 13 shot attempts, also had 11 assists. Anybody know what's up w/ Anigwe? She is not the same player this year. Still putting up decent numbers but not the dominant force she's been previously. Looks like ASU was sleeping walking in the 2nd half, only scored 22 points total but still won by 20. Ekmark had 15 points and 8 rebounds.

Looks like Oregon has a couple games on ESPN2 coming up so more of you can watch that don't have Pac 12 Network. On Sunday against Stanford and a couple weeks later against UCLA. Both games are in Eugene, those are the 2 teams closest to them in the standings, they could just about lock up the conference title if they win both.

 

[LoTrader]

They put their fastest player Williams to stay with her. Tudor tried to lose her but Williams stayed with her. Oregon St. doesn't seem to set any picks or screens to get their players open. Stanford certainly did and was very successful. Tudor was timed at being able to get her shot off between 0.4 and 0.45 seconds. If they can not get her a look quick enough to get off her shot something is really wrong. The most successful game plan against Oregon St. is cover Tudor and jam Gulish. This should open up open looks for the other players and Mc Willians hit hers in the first half, but didn't have many looks in the second either. Corosdale was totally missing everything but still kept shooting early in the shot clock. I agree with the guy who said they should have kept Kalmer in at the end of the game.

Oregon St needs to set more screens and picks to free up their players for shots. The only pick I saw was on a pick and roll with Gulish and McWilliams which got Mc Williams an open 3. They also lost that critical rebound of the Stanford free throw miss late in the game. Perhaps they should have put in Grymek on that play to get the rebound. Corosdale hadn't hit an outside shot in a couple games so she was already a liability on offense.

Oh I also thought Pivecs decision making in respect when to finish drives and when to kick it out was much better. She didn't force it this game.

Taya Coresdale is a freshman, and tonight it showed. The crazy thing is Rueck knows that teams are going to focus on Tudor. He has Tudor "2" in Taylor Kalmer, and she needs to be in the game when teams put all their focus on Tudor. Taylor Kalmer is the only player on their roster who can create her own shot without a screen to set her free. She is also a fine shooter from the 3-point line, and, can get to the basket like she did last night. Rueck needs to use Tudor as a decoy in these situations. Pivec, McWilliams, and Kalmer can all hit the 3. Rueck also needs to leave Maddie Washington on the bench in these critical games. She is nothing but a liability against better teams.

 

[willtalk]

Taya Coresdale is a freshman, and tonight it showed. The crazy thing is Rueck knows that teams are going to focus on Tudor. He has Tudor "2" in Taylor Kalmer, and she needs to be in the game when teams put all their focus on Tudor. Taylor Kalmer is the only player on their roster who can create her own shot without a screen to set her free. She is also a fine shooter from the 3-point line, and, can get to the basket like she did last night. Rueck needs to use Tudor as a decoy in these situations. Pivec, McWilliams, and Kalmer can all hit the 3. Rueck also needs to leave Maddie Washington on the bench in these critical games. She is nothing but a liability against better teams.

I totally agree with your post. I also could not understand why he kept Coresdale in the game. Kalmer was creating off the drive and hitting her outside shots. The only reason I could think of what needing her for defense against the taller Stanford players but she was totally ineffective in that respect. She was the one that gave up that offensive rebound on that critical missed free throw by Stanford. Yes they need to use Tudor as a decoy, but they don't seen to be able to do that either. The best bet is to put her out on the wing and drive to her side while putting your shooters on the other side of the court. What they do instead is run the offense from the opposite side from her. And when they do run it from her side they pass her the ball which allows the defense to shift over. When they drove between her defender and the post it created some open lanes in the second half. Both Pivec and Kalmer took advantage of those. Pivec was especially smart in this game. She made very good decisions in respect when to finish and when to kick out. They play Tudor so close that the driving lane on her side should be there to be taken advantage of. If the defender comes in to help they could kick the ball out.

I sometimes also wonder about some of Ruecks in game moves. It seems to me that he often gets to locked into his system even when it is not working. The opposing teams with athletes seem to have figured out how to defend his offensive sets. I thought that both Mc williams and Pivec took advantage of their opportunities but Corosdale killed them with her missed shots. She had plenty of open looks but just could not knock them down. She has been cold as ice for the last couple of games. That still didn't stop her from shooting every chance she got. I would have also tried using both Centers on the floor at the same time if he was concerned with defense in the paint and rebounds. The main thing was taking Kalmer out at the end of the game. That made no sense. I don't know how many time outs they had left but they could have put her in for offense and Grymek for defense in the final minute. Stanford was killing them in the paint both in scoring and rebounding.

 

[uconnbaseball]

Due to the unbalanced schedule, this is the only regular season matchup between the Bay Area schools and the Oregon schools. A bit of a break for OU/OSU that they don't have to travel to Stanford/Cal.

California is terrible; they must have naked pictures of some of the voters to have stayed ranked for so long. They have no quality wins...

Oregon is probably sad not to see them again.

 

[DefenseBB]

Looks like Oregon has a couple games on ESPN2 coming up so more of you can watch that don't have Pac 12 Network....

From an outside observer who doesn't get to see the PAC12 dynamics and only the box scores and very occasional game that's shown on ESPN, what's the sense on new pecking order and coaching/program outlook for the various programs not named Stanford?
I mean, to me, and all others feel free to opine as well:
Cal was a darling when Gotlieb took over from Boyle and then has underwhelmed since. Nice story but think she's average at best and underachieved with alot of the resources she has. Seems ok with recruiting, light on the x's and o's.
OSU-Rueck has proved he can coach, but seems light on the recruiting. You can't compete for National Championships by losing your backyard talent and not bringing in top talent elsewhere. Great that he got Slocum as a transfer but he needs more if he truly wants to build a program.
Oregon-Graves did well at Gonzaga and seems to have brought the mojo with him to the NY Yankees of College Athletic Administrations. Talk about money and resources..wow, the Univ. of Nike should be a force in WCBB. Graves has brought in good recruits, has Boley as transfer for next year and seems to know the x's and o's. This could be then next superpower.
UCLA seems to recruit well but then seems to underachieve. I think it was you, nwhoop who relayed she's a tad light on execution and her mediocre record since taking over for Fargas seems in line with this assessment. Lots of resources, tradition and yet meh...She's underachieved with Canada and Billings.
ASU with Charlie Turner Thorne has been there 20+ years with ok results so she's not going anywhere. The school seems content with the result which aren't bad and just being on the periphery of with top 16 periodically. Who am I to argue. Not really grabbing top recruits so she's done well.
USC Trojans- Trakh is back after a bizarro search. This program's administration is a mess. This is exactly what happens when you let sentiment run an athletic department-Lynn Swann as AD??? Sorry, no! Trakh seems like a nice enough guy and USC will need to either walk the walk or stop talking. They say they want to be taken seriously but then blow off the process. Leave Trakh alone, let him try to replicate what Charlie Turner Thorne is doing at ASU and be happy. You're a football school who can't even pretend to be interested in anything else convincingly...and oh, by the way, you're not taken seriously in football anymore.
Arizona-the administration puts a title IX product out there because they have to and it shows. Softball, swimming are their priority women's sports...nuf sed...
Utah-nwhoop has some good insight here and this may be a program on the rise. They did have a bad loss to Colorado but this AD seems to actually do a good job with women's sports.
Colorado-see Arizona comments.
Washington-Neighbors absolutely hung this program out to dry and frankly I question his success with what he had-wasn't it McGuff's? Then again, this is another football school whose women's sport is softball.
WSU-at least Arizona has MCBB and WCSB as well as MBB, what does WSU have? Certainly not a commitment to any women's sports...

This conference seems pretty bifurcated-really good top teams, maybe a potential great team in Oregon (Stanford, UCLA, Ore St, ASU and I guess Cal), two tweeners in Utah and then USC and yuk-Az, Colorado, Wash, WSU.

What am I missing?

 

[nwhoopfan]

For being on the outside looking in, you have a pretty spot on impression DefenseBB. Washington women's sports program is pretty strong overall. They're a volleyball school first and foremost, softball is decent, also crew/rowing is a powerhouse (men as well).

I think Arizona deserves some patience w/ Adia Barnes. In her first year they showed improvement, but they lost most of the team to graduation. This year was gonna be a down year, no question about it. She's recruiting well, has one McD AA coming in next year, and several more transfers. If they don't take significant steps forward next year then I'd be worried.

Yeah, I'm really disappointed at the result of Neighbors' almost complete lack of recruiting for 3 years. I have a hard time believing he's going to make any progress in a tough SEC w/ Arkansas based on what I've seen of his recruiting prowess. Whether he gets credit for bringing in Plum and Osahor is debatable. They originally committed when McGuff was the head coach, but they both kept their commitment obviously. I think he was the lead recruiter w/ Osahor. And Plum famously texted him "You stay, I stay" before he accepted the head coaching job. But after that class, he brought in almost nothing.

OSU and recruiting...don't know what to say. They've been in the top 3 or 4 for several big time recruits--Ionescu and Westbrook the most notable, but there have been a few others. Not sure what else they can do to turn the corner. Aquino is in the top 10 according to ESPN, but other services have her ranked much lower. Cameron Brink has been noted to attend many of their home games. Would be huge if they could get her. But that's a big if.

I live in Seattle, but I'm definitely not an insider. For an outsider looking in, it seems like there is something wrong there. After 3 straight Tournament appearances, their first ever Final 4, and the highest single season win total in program history...they barely get any local recruits to stay home. As noted above they have a generally strong women's athletics programs. The school is respected academically, it's a nice location. Maybe there was a bad relationship w/ Neighbors and local HS/AAU coaches? I have no idea, that's just pure guesswork. One thing I did notice is that he didn't make a priority out of having assistant coaches w/ local ties/connections. The new coach hasn't had much time to make local inroads. She does have a former UW player on her staff. I think she can coach, but she's got a long way to go to catch up to the top teams when it comes to recruiting.