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Message: [QUOTE="BruinGold, post: 5278359, member: 11533"] This is a Kiki Rice issue. She isn't comfortable going for broke, seemingly. She always slows it down, looking to start an offense. I don't know if that is a coaching issue (I kind of don't think so) or a Rice issue. Rice always is deliberate. She almost never takes advantage of numbers in transition and instead looks to start the standard offense. Aarnisalo was the guard who was going to make that cool half-court pass for UCLA, last year, not Rice. As far as Kendall Dudley goes, if Kendall would have asserted herself and taken the shots that she had, I'm sure that good things would have happened. But, both Avary Cain and Kendall Dudley turned down obvious shots that they had and took the extra pass, regardless of whether that was the best move. Almost no assertiveness on their part. Now, both players had terrible shooting percentages, which may have led to a hesitation on their parts. But, it is hard to play players who refuse to contribute on offense. Dudley had a ton of opportunities... and passed to another player or missed a layup almost every time. That said, UCLA has had a long history of having at least one or two players who just refused to shoot for loooong periods of time. This psychological hesitancy on the part of a player, the constant decision to pass to the alpha players instead of taking your own shot, is something that I see a lot with women on the court. But, UCLA attracts "nice girls" at a higher rate than some other programs. That alpha "I'm taking the shot" attitude is just less prevalent on the Bruins, and always has been. Maybe that's a function of coaching or maybe it's a function of who those players are. All I know is that players who scored in HS, but don't at UCLA, who then transfer away, don't magically become scorers at their new school. Recently, that has included Dominque Onu/Darius, Ashley Hearn, Ahlana Smith, and Jaden Owens. Players who played their whole careers at UCLA but refused to shoot include Dominique Williams and Mariah Williams. What's up with that? Coaching failures? Recruiting failures? Do you know how frustrating it is to have someone as supremely talented as Natalie Chou was on your team, and have to watch her disappear on the court over and over again? In any case, as a UCLA fan, I'm always wondering where the aggression is. Londynn Jones was our go to "screw it, I'm taking the shot" player. Now, she's gone. Is Kneepkens the "I don't remember my past 4 misses" player, now? There are clearly players at UCLA who are expected to take "the shot": Betts, Rice, Jaquez, and, I think, Leger-Walker and Kneepkens. But, the Bruins need Sienna Betts, Angela Dugalic, Lena Bilic, and even Amanda Muse to put themselves in places where they can score, and be willing to put the ball up. And Kiki Rice (and maybe Leger-Walker) need to be willing to give them the ball, on the fly. The urge to defer to the "alpha players" in almost all cases is ultimately bad, and will be a limiting factor against UCLA. [/QUOTE]

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