Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="AvidFan, post: 4235773, member: 11918"] Well I've been reading the boneyard for awhile but finally signed up, and this is my first post. We'll see if I executed it correctly or not. Although I agree with what has been mentioned thus far, I think one person has been overlooked in this thread to ensure success. That is Nika. The reason I say so is defense is so critical to 6 wins, especially wins 4, 5 and 6. Thinking back to last year's FF game against Arizona, we could not shut down Arizona and the combination of them pressuring us / us not shooting well (or not getting the shots we wanted), we could not simply outscore them. If we could have shut them down defensively, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Even though we currently have exceptional offensive firepower, relying only on outscoring our opponent doesn't 100% guarantee success. Releasing the husky dogs on defense greatly increases the odds of success. Nika is the head of the defense that starts the disruption so far away from the basket, our opponent has much less time to execute their offensive game plan. When we sub her out, no matter how good the defense was behind her, we can see a defensive difference for the team. Now I'm not saying she is the most important player, but her defensive contributions matter greatly and cannot be overlooked. I think we saw what happened last year when she went down with the ankle injury during tournament time. [/QUOTE]