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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5049975, member: 12088"] I actually agree with most of your analysis. Especially the dribble penetration issue, which killed us against ND. We just weren't ready for the sort of offensive pressure Hidalgo could bring in the half court. But I would also say about that game part of the problem was not playing to the scout. I didn't go into this above because I didn't wanted to get into the weeds. KK could have contained Hannah if she'd cut off the drives to her right hand. She didn't do that despite what the scout surely said, and neither did Nika who wasn't nearly quick enough to keep up with her. I think one reason why they didn't play to the scout on Hannah (just a guess here) is that the rest of the defense wasn't yet switching crisply enough. But I don't see that same problem dogging us this season for a couple reasons and the Syracuse and USCw games show this. By the time of the tournament, our freshman-heavy lineup was now more experienced and we were able to contain another speedy guard in Dyaisha Fair. This isn't an accident. It was just that we were playing much better defense by that point in the season. This is what happens when your rotation consists of three seniors and four freshmen. You play ragged defense early on and then you improve. KK Ash and Ice improved. You say that USCw was probably better than us much of the year and that we only won because of matchups. Here I halfway disagree. They were in a sense better than us early on because Juju could carry them until her teammates got up to speed, while we were hobbled by hidden injuries to Azzi Ayanna and Caroline. Juju is that good, and we weren't... yet. I'd say in the MD Louisville and UNC games, Paige had decided to be much more dominant. The Louisville game especially was a game in which the matchups didn't favor us except for Paige. Their big guards caused problems all game long. But Paige (like Juju) simply shouldered the load and outplayed them. I think there was a moment in the MD game when Paige turned something on and she wasn't the same for the rest of the season. Watch for that technical foul in the second quarter and see what you think. She went into 'beast mode' and never turned it off all season. Back to USCw, they played better than UConn much of the season, but come tournament time UConn had come together and was playing great team defense and USCw wasn't playing as well. We absolutely were a top-10 team by then. In the Elite Eight game, the matchups still favored USCw in Juju and Forbes, but despite that Nika KK Paige and Ash were able to outplay them for most of the game, and Aaliyah was simply better than Marshall. It's not merely that they lacked a PG. It's that we outplayed them at almost every position. You can't say they were a better team and only lost because of matchups if we beat them when they should be playing their best. As for SC in 2023, I think you're right. We were undermanned, but matched up well enough. They lacked a reliable perimeter shooter and Lou was just too big for Raven and Zia to handle. The solution was that they fouled her constantly and prevented her from moving through the lane. Dorka and Aaliyah countered Boston and Cardozo in a sense -- Boston and Cardozo scored and rebounded really well. But they couldn't contain Aaliyah who was unstoppable on offense, and Dorka denied them total control of the lane on defense, though her stat-line was unimpressive. Nika was just good enough to contain Raven and Zia, and Aubrey was also a difficult matchup for them. And I agree that the next year the addition of Te-hina created a problem matchup for us, though lacking Aubrey and Caroline and Dorka also doomed us. Where I disagree with respect to SC is in assuming that the same matchup problems will exist again. If they do -- that is, if the injury demon ravages the roster again -- sure, there's no way we can matchup. But I get bored by dwelling on injuries. Until I have to, I will assume everyone's healthy. In that case, there's every possibility the matchup problems will be in our favor. [/QUOTE]

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