In Reply to: The difference is Close moving the O away from Betts. She has posted by azbruin on March 10, 2026 at 10:20:25
It should be noted, Betts put up a lot of points vs. UConn. Geno said post game, "I figured she's going to get hers, and we focused on stopping everyone else."
Regarding Betts, things that have improved, in some semblance of order of importance: 1) we are not All Betts, All the Time. We are not so ridiculously predictable as we were last season. (I love the little slip pass to a cutting Jacquez that we've added when the post is doubled. It only gets us a basket/game, but it makes the opponent think). 2) Last year our entry passes to Betts were soft butterflies that took minutes to arrive. During that time, the doubler could come over and the primary defender could give Betts a good shove in the back. 3) Betts is getting moved around a lot more. 4) Betts related: If Betts (Lauren) doesn't succeed, or is not succeeding in getting position, we sometimes move her out and post up Sienna or Dugalic
Thing that has gotten worse, if anything, she's getting shoved more.
The rest of the offense has improved night and day. It will be more difficult to shut down our shooters. Obviously, our shooting has improved. But, last year, we just assumed that throwing the ball in to Betts was enough to get someone open. The problem was that teams doubled off the entry passer. We'd just throw it out to the passer, and the doubler would run out at her. That was our plan B. And, that's all we had was plan A and B. We did not shoot well with someone running out at us. (We still shoot a lot better when we have all day). And, Jones was so short, it was hard for her to get a shot under those circumstances. This year we're doing a lot more to get open shots for our shooters. Skip passes, not waiting 10 seconds for Lauren to get set and then wait another 5 for her to pass it back out, drive and kicks.
We won't be nearly as easy to defend in the half court.
And, we are a damn good running team. We got 4 players that can make the assist pass on the break, and those same four can finish on the break. We're not a fast team, but we're still proficient. And, we've got four players who can spot up off of the break.
And, in the last month or so, we've become a fantastic defensive team. Iirc, in each of the three games of the tourney, we had 6 players get steals. And, Lauren defending on the perimeter is new and pretty impressive.
Hats off to Close for totally remolding the team.
One thing I'd like to see us add would be to have plays where we run multiple screens for Kiki and get her open shots - threes preferably. That would really open things up for other players. You could just put Kneepkens in the corner and she'd come open a lot with defenders helping on Kiki. And, if they weren't coming off Kneepkens, they may be helping off Lauren.
I still have this sinking feeling we're going to lose in the semi's. We've improved a ton, but so have Texas and SoCaro.