2024-25 DWBB - ACC Champs!

Duke leads by 35. It's nice to see us not playing down to the talent level of our competition. We had done that in the past far too often, having close games with teams that we should be dominating.
This game is way over, the only surprises remaining are if we'll win by 40 and if Miami will get to 50.
 
heyman25 said:
Kara Lawson wants Reigan for Senior Leadership and she just has become lacking to be a scorer. Don’t understand. But hope she gets her Mojo back
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If you only consider scoring as leadership, then yes, she’s in a slump; 1-5 today.

But, the Cavinder twins were both held well below their averages, and committed 5 and 6 turnovers. Reagan is the best on-ball defender we have, and is greatly responsible for that. She didn’t force shots, just didn’t make 4 of them. Happy to get 4 assists, a couple of them very impressive.

Everybody who played scored, including LouAnn, who had a steal and layup. Ash and Toby got there’s with good shooting and moved. Delaney didn’t score a lot, but set some great screens inside, opening a lane for drives. Oluchi with a couple of great plays, including a drive to score at the end of the third quarter. Don’t think anybody had a bad game. Let’s keep that up!
 
DU82 said:
If you only consider scoring as leadership, then yes, she’s in a slump; 1-5 today.

But, the Cavinder twins were both held well below their averages, and committed 5 and 6 turnovers. Reagan is the best on-ball defender we have, and is greatly responsible for that.
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I've learned to live with Kara's starting five, which at sometimes is baffling when you look at the box score. I think Taina is the poster kid for this; until recently she rarely made a dent in the scoring column, so there had to be a reason why she was starting over Vanessa (who is not only a solid scorer but a really good passer).
Defense. That's Coach Lawson's system, and if you keep the other team from scoring, even if you don't put up numbers yourself, you are going on the court.

That being said, we KNOW that Reigan is an offensive threat. I'm confident she'll find her shots again.
 
CameronBornAndBred said:
I've learned to live with Kara's starting five, which at sometimes is baffling when you look at the box score. I think Taina is the poster kid for this; until recently she rarely made a dent in the scoring column, so there had to be a reason why she was starting over Vanessa (who is not only a solid scorer but a really good passer).
Defense. That's Coach Lawson's system, and if you keep the other team from scoring, even if you don't put up numbers yourself, you are going on the court.

That being said, we KNOW that Reigan is an offensive threat. I'm confident she'll find her shots again.
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Jayden’s the prime example of defense over offense, although she’s taking a few more shots in the paint lately.

Tiana’s a better player on both sides of the ball compared to Vanessa. At this level, Vanessa’s a bit slow. Not enough not to play her, but she’s not the disruptive force Taina is. On offense, Taina drives more, but I will say that Vanessa has great shot selection, as a result her shooting percentages are excellent.
 
dudog84 said:
I think Toby firmly wrested the ACC ROY away from GT's Dani Carnegie today.
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Toby scored 24 today, in a game that I didn't think she was playing all that great overall. I made that mental note as I looked at the box score seeing she had 20. She's so good that "not her best" is noticeable, and most teams would very happy to have her on an "off" day.
And "not her best" equaled her being the leading scorer of the whole game. She's like Cooper in a way, and as fans we can get spoiled by expectations of excellence. So unfortunate for us when "merely good" is great by any other standard. :sneaky:
 
Either Taina has more control or the team has caught up with her (probably a little of both), but over the last games she has fewer turnovers. She is strong on offense and defense.

Today Ashlon played point more than I recall seeing this year. She is clearly a leader, maybe even more so than Reigen.

Toby has an edge. Luchi is Luchi, never never gives up. Emma looked solid today too. Really everyone played well.

Miami was overmatched. To their credit they played hard the whole game.
 
Stats v. Miami

Here are the numbers from today's game against the University of Miami Hurricanes at Cameron:

OFFENSE
Possessions: 75.3 (very fast)
oRtg: 1.196 (excellent; adj. 1.225, #2)
eFG%: 55.7% (good)
3pt%: 36.4% (good)
2pt%: 56.3% (very good)
%three: 31.4% (average)
FT rate: 22.9% (good)
OR%: 31.4% (OK, at best, and well below our prior norm)
TO%: 13.3% (very good)
a/to: 1.900 (excellent)
%assisted: 54.3% (not so good)
fast break pts: 23 (25.6%) (outstanding)

DEFENSE
dRtg: 0.651 (outstanding; 0.551 adj., #1 by a huge amount)
deFG%: 40.4% (excellent, in stark contrast with our prior two games)
3pt%: 22.2% (excellent)
2pt%: 44.8% (good, but normal for us)
%threes: 38.3% (a touch high, but at 22%, that's OK)
FT rate: 36.2% (bad)
DR%: 75.9% (good)
TO%: 37.2% (excellent)
a/to: 0.179 (amazing, second best of the entire season to Belmont)
%assisted: 29.4% (outstanding)
stl%: 14.6% (good)
blk%: 17.2% (very good)
fast break pts: 0 (0.0%) (perfect)


I haven't done a lot of review on this, yet, but it sure felt like our best game on both ends for quite a long time.

We defended well. Well enough to force a shot clock violation on at least four different occasions that I recall, including the game's opening possession. We stole the ball a fair amount, which got us going. Initially we had some trouble with them forcing uncomfortable switches leaving their imposing center, Cameron Williams, under the hoop guarded by one of our more diminutive guards, and as a result she scored 14 for the game, leading the team. But we did better as the game went on, and our centers got better at knowing when to switch, and doing better with hedge and recover. We ended up forcing Ms. Williams into 5 turnovers (which didn't even lead the team). That honor belonged to Hanna Cavinder, with 6, while her twin also committed 5, and between them, the twins scored 19 points, but on fairly inefficient 7-16 shooting.

Offensively, we were humming, too. Toby Fournier led all scorers with 24, on 9-15 shooting, including 1-2 from three. They had real trouble stopping her, and she shot 7 freethrows (making 5 of them). Ashlon Jackson was our other major threat, scoring a surprisingly quiet 23 points on 8-14 shooting, including a red-hot 5-8 from deep. She's been truly deadly recently, which has been wonderful to see. Oluchi Okananwa was our only other double-figure scorer, with 16, but every single other player who played in the game scored at least 2, even Louann Battiston, who had a nice steal and layup in the last minute or two of the game.

As mentioned above, Jordan Wood was a DNP-CD, having dressed for the game, but it was really a DNP-Injury. She was wearing a brace on her left knee, and i asked her about it at the post-game. She said her sitting out was precautionary, and they weren't yet sure what the issue was. I wished her luck, and I hope it's nothing too serious. Obviously, we didn't need her today.

Good game against a weak team (Miami is current fighting just to make the ACC tourney), which was good therapy after loss followed by a somewhat mediocre performance against a not-quite-as-bad Clemson team. Next up is league-bottom Wake on Thursday, which is the trap game before we face the third-ranked Fighting Irish a week from Monday. Fortunately, I think they are bad enough that it will be impossible to fall into that trap, but let's just make sure and keep it going.
 
Phredd3 said:
Good game against a weak team (Miami is current fighting just to make the ACC tourney), which was good therapy after loss followed by a somewhat mediocre performance against a not-quite-as-bad Clemson team. Next up is league-bottom Wake on Thursday, which is the trap game before we face the third-ranked Fighting Irish a week from Monday. Fortunately, I think they are bad enough that it will be impossible to fall into that trap, but let's just make sure and keep it going.
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Thanks as always for the great analysis, and especially the info on Jordan. Just wanted to point out that we beat Clemson by 19, and uNC just beat them by 2. Home vs. away, but still.
 
Phredd3 said:
It's hard to say, since I have seen much of Robeson, Nelson, or Skinner. Usually a rookie is going to have a tough time at first based on how long it takes to learn Kara's defense and her complicated offensive sets, but Ari and Riley have been attending practices for a year, so they may already be over that hump. So it's tough to know how they'll fit in until we see them in action.

More generally, I actually think the schemes on defense are brilliant, but I think it might help the team if we were to simply the offense. If we aren't fast-breaking, the team looks over to Coach for directions on nearly every play, and it's not uncommon for us to spend 12-15 seconds of the shot clock just setting up what we intend to run, often with some evident confusion on where everyone is supposed to be. If the play is then thwarted by the defense, we don't seem to be very good at improvising off that and we can end up with a bad shot as a result.

I think Kara could learn a little something from Jon about running schemes and reads more than set plays. Mind you, I think Kara's offensive designs are really clever and often get us good looks, but we just seem to be a little micro-managed in our half-court offense. That's worked with the level of recruit we've had, but as we get better and better players, I'd like to see a little more freedom on that end.
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Thanks for your great response to my question.
 
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