Olivia has greatly improved play recently. She has progressed from someone who comes in, gets in foul trouble, and leaves. She is now a player who knows how to block and defend without fouling. She has begun to look for her shot and her teammates have begun to look for her. She makes shots inside or gets fouled and she makes free throws. I think she has a lot of potential to effect games, especially defensively, by tournament time.
Mikayla has gone from a player that Geno won't even talk about, to someone who plays good defense and has really good ball handling skills. As with Olivia, I see Mikayla contributing to an improved defense for the rest of the year. Every time she looks at the basket, I hope that she shoots and it goes in.
The problems with Lou getting beat up remind me of Stewart's problems at the beginning of her junior year. She was beaten and bruised almost every game. She was having trouble dealing with the absence of Dolson, who absorbed the punishment under the basket. Gene seemed to solve that problem by setting up screens and specific plays for Stewart and sending Tuck inside, where she handled the physicality. He also found that KML really liked to slam bodies and mix it up under the basket. Maybe, Geno can find similar ways to take the focus off of Lou. There's no Tuck and KML, of course, but I have seen bodies flying off of Walker and Collier lately, and Olivia is becoming a big presence.
