USC @ UCLA tonite

[BruinGold]

Came across this cool pic

Ann Meyers Drysdale and Denise Curry are the only two women who have had their jerseys retired at UCLA. Both attend many home games. A Reggie Miller sighting at either Men's or Women's games is much rarer, though he and Cheryl will make appearances together. The UCLA Women's Basketball Alumni attendance has been quite strong in general for some years now. They don't usually call attention to themselves, but you can tell that the informal networking is very strong.

 

[BruinGold]

I agree but I also they think don't get her in a multitude of ways- for a big like her, you can -

1. Catch her rolling to basket off a screen
2. Get her Iso'd on the block off an inverted wing with your best three-point shooters
3. Do a pass, repass, post and repost (which they tried)
4. Do set plays where 3 point shooters shoot intentionally and allow her to offensive rebound.

Close has restricted her to the paint and if she is she needs to Monica Czinano her and tell her not to dribble because she travelled everytime she felt pressure against USC. You either do one or the other. But I think using her as a decoy was better, she is a terrific passer.

Regarding Betts, you will notice that Betts will (1) roll off the screen, but will rarely get the pass in motion. 2 and 3 will happen quite a lot. 4 doesn't happen enough, possibly to create space for a shooter by clearing space close to the basket for the threat of a drive to cause the defender to sag off the shooter.

Frankly, Betts, though improving, doesn't have the best (biggest?) hands. She's perfectly capable of making a good target and catching a pass from a static position, but handling something in transition (from high to low post, or cutting diagonally) is much more of a crapshoot. She's clearly gotten better at this over her career, and, as you mentioned, her passing can also be impressive.

In this game, USC had three competent post players to burn fouls with, along with assorted other players, and were clearly trying to frustrate her with physical defense. This clearly was effective. Subjectively, the refs called quite a lot of these fouls early in the game, causing a sizable foul differential in UCLA's favor, but started to ignore some of the physical post play when it might have seemed like they (the refs) were going to decide the game. As well, UCLA started playing Betts in the high post later in the game, which opened the middle for drives but eliminated Betts from the offense.

 

[WBBTakeover]

Subjectively, the refs called quite a lot of these fouls early in the game, causing a sizable foul differential in UCLA's favor, but started to ignore some of the physical post play when it might have seemed like they (the refs) were going to decide the game.

Are you suggesting that they (the refs) made questionable/ticky tack calls in favor of other UCLA players while allowing USC's posts to be more physical with Betts than what should've been allowed (i.e., effectively masking their true intentions)? Because that would suggest that they fixed the game--and I don't think we want to go there.

 

[BruinGold]

Are you suggesting that they (the refs) made questionable/ticky tack calls in favor of other UCLA players while allowing USC's posts to be more physical with Betts than what should've been allowed (i.e., effectively masking their true intentions)? Because that would suggest that they fixed the game--and I don't think we want to go there.

No. I think they were trying to be "fair" by not calling post fouls on USC on every possession. You could just as easily say that refs would get "tired" of calling Betts for 3 seconds on every possession. I don't think that referees, in general, are ever trying to do anything but make sure that a game is played fairly. But, they are human and respond to suggestion, perception, the crowd, etc. A natural part of a coach's job is to "work the refs" and complain about calls... because refs are human and they can be influenced.

My perception during this game was that Betts was getting "manhandled" in the low post throughout the game. (I think that most skilled posts take a lot more "allowed" abuse than guards do) I don't think that the level of physical play changed much when Betts was in the low post. It changed when she was in the high post, certainly. But, the calls stopped coming as the game went on. I speculate that the reason for that is that calling 15 fouls on USC posts doesn't feel fair to an officiating crew. UCLA has specifically tried playing Betts in such a way that she doesn't foul... she's too valuable on offense. So, the post fouls in almost all UCLA games are pretty lopsided. That's not going to feel "fair" to refs after awhile.

If you could ever get a "robot ref" in basketball, in the way that baseball will be trying out a system to call balls and strikes, it would change game play quite a bit. Not because human refs aren't fair, but because they try to be fair by making things as equal as possible... even when they aren't equal.