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Message: [QUOTE="willtalk, post: 2481831, member: 1220"] I believe his starting Sabally in place of McGwire was sort of an experiment to adjust to a situation like they faced against Miss. St. McCowan just killed them on the offensive boards. She had 12 and those resulted in easy put back points. In that game he faced a catch 22 situation where he either had to commit a post to box out McCowan or supply help defense for his guards to help contain the quicker MS. players. This was made more difficult by VV being hot from outside which did not allow them to sag off her and therefor exposing them selves to her penetration with no defensive post help inside. Now McGwire is not quick enough to do both, Neither is Hebard. Graves tried putting a body on McCowan with some of his shorter quicker players but McCowan was just too tall and was able to get the rebound over them and then just put it back up. Graves is very offensive oriented. McGwire is a really good mid and long range shooter adding a lot of offensive firepower to the team. She is, however, not very quick and that often makes her a defensive liability against certain teams where help defense is required. I believe his inserting Sabally into the starting lineup was an attempt at looking for an answer to what he faced against Miss St. In that game he went with McGwire far too long before bringing in Sabally. Sabally might be their best defender, is tall and quick enough to cover a lot of ground and supply help defense. If Graves has any future plans for advancing far into the NCAA he needs to deal with players like McCowan. Baylors Brown is an even better O- rebounder and an O- rebound by players like them is a sure two points. Whether Sabally is even capable of doing the job is another question, but Graves wants to see if she can because with her he loses no offense. In this Graves is just being to stubborn and locked into his mind set. The player he could have used to keep McCowan off the boards didn't even see the court. He has the ,6'6" Giomi, who from what I have seen is good at and always willing to put a body on her defensive assignment. All she needed to do was keep her self between McCowan and the basket since her extra length would not allow McCowan to reach over her for the O-rebound as she did with the 6'3 and under players Graves attempted to use to box her out. Gildon is a very physical post but is really short at 6"1". Giomi is not very polished or effective offensively and that is why Graves is loath to use her, but when you are in a situation where a player like McCowan or an even better offensive rebounder like Baylors Brown can destroy you it is time to make some concessions towards defense. Giomi is also even by Graves own admission the fastest player on his team and looks quick enough to cover enough ground to supply a lot of help defense. He should have at least tried her. Graves is obviously in love with offense, but you can not always outscore you opponents. He needs to find answers to teams like Baylor and Miss. St even if it requires him to compromise his offense a bit. Hey Miss St. beat Uconn last year because they had no answer for McCowan. although this year they can counter with Stevens. And I am also convinced that both Brown and McCowan negated each other and that was why Miss St was able to beat Baylor. Basketball is about Timing and match ups and those sort of teams are night mare match ups for Oregon for which the now have no answer for. Graves needs to think outside of his own self constructed box. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach