In Reply to: For those of you who missed the ladies b/c you were at the men's posted by Cachorro on November 04, 2025 at 14:16:20
having watched the full game.
The new players, CLW and Kneepkens are very good passers. We should be very good on the break. At least 3 players that can run it, at least 4 players that are fast and can finish it. And, Dugalic is not afraid to get behind the D and finish a breakaway.
And Muse had a really nice pass to hit a cutter.
CLW and Kneepkens have kind of funky strokes. Like a push shot. But, they shoot a good %, so as long as they're getting open ....
Maybe it's more how it looks, rather than actuality, but it looks like Muse has really good straightline speed. Not sure that affects the game much, but watching her run is kinda like watching Femke Bol.
My earlier comment about maybe missing Jones' intensity ... scratch that. Kneepkens and CLW both get after it. And, Kneepkens had 2 blocks in the first half.
Here's a weird one - I really liked the entry passes to Lauren. Last season when we fed her, we usually tossed in helium balls that took a long time to get there. I guess the theory was that Lauren is taller, so throw in a ball that no one else can get to. But, those helium balls gave the defender(s) at lot of time to get position. (Barker was our only player who would give her passes that barely got over head level at the top of their arc). This game I didn't see one helium ball. That was nice. Maybe it's because SDSU's center is 6 feet tall. We'll see. We still had TO's trying to feed Lauren into double teams, though. Shades of the UConn game.
Bilic played a lot of minutes, according to the score sheet, but she was pretty invisible in the game. Might take her a bit to settle in.
In other news, I checked the stats on Tennessee's first game. They lost a close one to a very good NCSt team. Barker's stat line was surprising. Not many rebounds. But .... she was 3-5 on 3 pointers. I'll get flack for this next statement. So, remember, I may be the least knowledgeable basketball person on the board. I'm just a fat guy on the couch. Call me ignorant - it's true. But, I just feel like there's something about the way Cori runs the O that diminishes our players 3 point shooting. According to an announcer, Barker was a very good 3 pt shooter at Baylor. Granted we had a plethora of snipers here last season, but Barker rarely shot the 3 and when she did, her accuracy was not good. Goes to Tennessee and goes 3-5 against a very good team. Will be interesting to see how well, in particular, Kneepkens and CLW shoot the 3 ball this season.
On the flipside, there seemed to be a lot more movement in our offense. It wasn't just take your positions, then throw it in, throw it out. And, w/o checking the #'s, we ran the break more than we were in the 2nd half of the season last year. Looking at the #'s, on 2 point shots, CLW 3-4, Gianna 3-5, Jacquez 5-7. Take out Muse, Betts, and Dugalic (they didn't finish the breaks) and those three shot 69% on 2 pointers. Again, SDSU is short, so we'll see.
We play some tough pre-conference games - #6 Oklahoma, #11 UNC (Aarnisalo started their first game), #4 UT, #8 Tennessee. Should be fun to watch.