WBB Duke vs Clemson

[CameronBornAndBred]

Game on now. Video available free on Clemson's site.
http://all-access.cbssports.com/player.html?code=clem

[chrishoke]

35-19 duke at half - very sloppy game.

[CameronBornAndBred]

- very sloppy game.
Both teams now with 12 turnovers. Against a good team, those TO's will hurt us badly.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Devils win by 26 in a total mismatch of talent...but made far too many turnovers. Luckily, Clemson is not a team that can capitalize on them. The ladies played impressive defense, and were pretty physical. Vernerey fouled out with only 4 points, but she is an asset on defense and did a nice job protecting the basket.

[MHTorringjan]

Devils win by 26 in a total mismatch of talent...but made far too many turnovers. Luckily, Clemson is not a team that can capitalize on them. The ladies played impressive defense, and were pretty physical. Vernerey fouled out with only 4 points, but she is an asset on defense and did a nice job protecting the basket.

That has been a consistent problem with Duke for the past 3 years, and has generally been the cause of our downfall in losing games. The ATO ratio is much lower than expected for an elite team, and it's not an issue of the forwards/centers turning the ball over lots while the guards play relatively clean games. The best guard with respect to ATO is Shay, with just over 2:1, and she doesn't get as much playing time as the 1.6:1 guards. I can't help but wonder what Coach P is saying to the team about the (relatively) high number of turnovers. I love the gals, they're a very talented team and can be very fun to watch, but this is their achilles heel. It's possible that she has a philosophy similar to Sylvia Hatchell's "turnovers don't matter as long as you score enough" philosophy, only reversed to "turnovers don't matter as long as you don't let them score points off of them through strong defense."

On the up-side, they seem to have cut down on the turnovers from last year, and they do have games where they play very cleanly. We're currently committing 6.5 fewer turnovers per game than our opponents, which is decent, although it could be much better. Against the wrong team, 15+ turnovers (we're averaging 17.6 per game) turned into 15+ points is not going to help our stress levels in the stands.

On a more positive note, I agree with you about Allison, she's already a major asset to the team and I'm looking forward to seeing her the rest of this season and the rest of her time here!