We were defeated by a good basketball team. It wouldn’t surprise me if they wind up in the top 15. Compared to us, they were a very experienced team starting three seniors and two juniors. I think the experience showed down the stretch when we collapsed after the one minute mark in the third quarter, where at that point we had an eight point lead and we were out scored by 16 the rest of the way.The performance by their Bigs highlighted our Achilles heel, which is lack of height. We were out rebounded badly when it counted. They’re two bigs both had double doubles , scoring over 20 points and having over 10 rebounds each. We had no answer for either of them. Ayana Mitchell is our only true post, and she has a long way to go to be effective down low.
This tournament also exposed another weakness of ours. We don’t handle pressure well at all. To be a team with as much quickness as we have, one would think that we could handle pressure, but it may just be lack of experience and get better as the season wears on. We seem to try to play scared and behind pressure instead of working through it . We are quick enough to do that, but at this point seem too timid when we get pressed . That can be corrected and I expect Coach to address it. With the ball handlers that we have, we should not be turning the ball over as much as we do.
While I think Michigan State is better than we are, they were lucky today, too. We will have to shoot well to big teams like this, and today we did not. We will have to shoot well from the three to overcome our lack of size, and we have the horses to do it. We only shot three or 14 from the three, and that just won’t cut it. If we’d hit 40% this would have been a nail biter at the buzzer.
I am disappointed that we lost, because we would be in the top 25 next week had we pulled it out. However, it isn’t the end of the world and we will get better. I’m confident that Coach will see to that.
This tournament also exposed another weakness of ours. We don’t handle pressure well at all. To be a team with as much quickness as we have, one would think that we could handle pressure, but it may just be lack of experience and get better as the season wears on. We seem to try to play scared and behind pressure instead of working through it . We are quick enough to do that, but at this point seem too timid when we get pressed . That can be corrected and I expect Coach to address it. With the ball handlers that we have, we should not be turning the ball over as much as we do.
While I think Michigan State is better than we are, they were lucky today, too. We will have to shoot well to big teams like this, and today we did not. We will have to shoot well from the three to overcome our lack of size, and we have the horses to do it. We only shot three or 14 from the three, and that just won’t cut it. If we’d hit 40% this would have been a nail biter at the buzzer.
I am disappointed that we lost, because we would be in the top 25 next week had we pulled it out. However, it isn’t the end of the world and we will get better. I’m confident that Coach will see to that.
