So, what's Geno got up his sleeve?

[SallyH]

While this wasn't the pretty basketball Geno was talking about, 25 points is a convincing win. With some really tough games coming up - Russia - you know he has some strategies he's not yet showing. I noticed that the guards, with the exception of Whalen, didn't shoot much. Heck, Sue Bird passed up a W I D E open 3, really, there wasn't a player within 10 feet of her. So they were obviously working on something.

Good things yet to come!

 

[semper]

Do you think they were "working" on something in the first two quarters? I didn't see the game, but it sounds like we didn't play well at all. Surely that was not on purpose. So what is your theory?

 

[CTGirl15]

The team could have just been a little tired. I spotted at least half the team at the opening ceremony last night and I know some athletes that competed today were not in the opening ceremony because they did not want to be too tired to compete. Michael Phelps said that the ceremony includes almost 5 hours of standing around for the athletes, which is why many swimmers were not present last night. Maybe they were wired from the ceremony and were just not in sync because of it. It's a possibility. I know they are all unbelievably conditioned, but standing for hours on end will tire even the best conditioned athletes.

 

[Icebear]

Do you think they were "working" on something in the first two quarters? I didn't see the game, but it sounds like we didn't play well at all. Surely that was not on purpose. So what is your theory?

It was literally the teams first time on the court. They were supposed to have an hour the day before but London traffic delayed their arrival until 15 minutes into their period. By the time they made it onto the court Geno said there wasn't any time to do anything more than a little shooting before the buzzer ending their time sounded.

 

[t-gal]

It was literally the teams first time on the court. They were supposed to have an hour the day before but London traffic delayed their arrival until 15 minutes into their period. By the time they made it onto the court Geno said there wasn't any time to do anything more than a little shooting before the buzzer ending their time sounded.

The NBC commentators said the bus driver got lost and I literally laughed out loud. Traffic delays, sound more convincing. On a side note, I wish Rebecca Lobo was our sideline reporter.

 

[alexrgct]

The had a relatively early game after a long night on an unfamiliar court playing against a team that no chance of beating them. These things will happen. I imagine they will sharpen up as the tournament goes on.

 

[pap49cba]

The had a relatively early game after a long night on an unfamiliar court playing against a team that no chance of beating them. These things will happen. I imagine they will sharpen up as the tournament goes on.

Yep. They will be able settle down and get into a routine now. That should help.

 

[rocky rococo]

This is also where Team USA's overall lack of practice time together shows up. In every rotation, Croatia knew where to look to find their open outside shooters, it was apparent on several occasions that the US team didn't even know where to look and found people too late. I'm pretty sure this is why (despite the anti-Geno tirades made elsewhere) that USA basketball put so many UConn players on the roster, to try to minimize exactly that limited practice time together problem. Geno seemed to try to address it by having Sue and Lindsay out there at the same time quite a bit. There was also the problem of Seimone clearly not feeling it yesterday, and that won't happen too often. Once she's in her groove, everyone else will find it easier to get open because teams will have no choice but to key on her.

The little bench nucleus of Whalen, Angel and Maya is great fun to watch, a real game-changing group. It was while they were out there together that the game finally got blown open.

 

[Replicant]

As a consequence of all the reasons already stated, they played rushed. Other than Tina, the team was ice cold shooting in the first half. Because the cohesion is not all there yet, they defaulted to their comfort zone of 1-on-1 (WNBA style) offense and matador defense.

Big Syl had an off night, but she'll be fine. Maya got tagged with a bunch of questionable early fouls that limited her. Seimone went 1-8 and will need to figure out other ways to be effective if the shooting isn't there. She's surrounded by 11 other scoring machines and doesn't need to do it all.

I'm guessing those are the things Geno will focus on. I expect this collection of Lamborghinis will be running smoother and faster with each practice and game. It's unlikely they'll shoot 44.4% on FG's, or 27.3% on 3's going forward. They showed they could impose their will on any game when needed as shown in the 4th quarter. Angel was superb!