2018-19 Season Discussion

Nice to see that clip pushing WBB season tickets during the VB game between the Horns and Baylor. Lots of highlights of our returning starters (LaShann, Sug, Joyner and Jatarie), especially of LaShann. :hookem2:
 
I'm going to bore everybody by beginning a discussion of this season repeating the same points I made at the end of the last one. I just watched Notre Dame's Final Four run to the championship again. This is one of the great runs in the history of basketball, and there are some lessons in it. What a team! They lost four players (three of them stars) to leg injuries at the start of the season. They used a grand total of six players in the two games of the Final Four. In the Championship game against Miss. St. they scored only three points in the second quarter, and were behind by 15 midway through the third...and they won. It was a wonderful thing to watch. Marvelous talent, true grit, and great coaching. I'm not a basketball expert, but it gave me a few thoughts.
1. You can win a national championship with a zone. Baylor plays one a lot. So does UConn. Notre Dame's zone was marvelous in the Final Four and it helped keep them in games. Maybe man to man is better 75% of the time, but not always, and you have to adapt to your personnel and your opposition. I think U.T.'s roster lends itself to more zone this season.
2. As a factor in big games, depth is greatly overrated. Since the rise of modern conditioning programs, the chief contribution of a big talented roster is as injury insurance and a way to rest the starters in the regular season. Of course its nice to have extra players for practice or in case a starter goes down. Ask Notre Dame. But that doesn't mean that the 6,7,8 and 9 players, let alone the 10,11 and 12, have to take a lot of minutes away from the 2,3,4,and 5 in important games. UConn and Notre Dame have demonstrated that fact pretty thoroughly over the last few seasons. In terms of rotation, less can be more.
3. One of the things I've always liked about Karen Aston is that she plays everybody. One of the things I've started thinking about is maybe too much of that is not a good thing. Maybe it makes more sense to pare the rotation down to the essential 6 to 9 and leave 'em in there to develop intuitive anticipation and chemistry. Aston not only plays a lot of people, she play them in constantly shifting discontinuous combinations all year---at least to my inexpert eyes she does. Obviously in important games she pares the rotation down. Maybe she should do that more often.
4. You will not win many conference or national championships without at least one explosive scorer on a team of good scorers. Notre Dame could put five scorers on the floor at the same time. Mississippi State could not. Neither could Texas. Atkins, Higgs and McCarty were too often not explosive scorers when we needed them to be. It was probably more the players than the system, but maybe our inside/out offensive scheme contributed to it. Notre Dame has a great center in Shepherd, but they play an open offense designed to produce dribble drives and three point shots. They don't start inside.
 
Dr. D said:
I'm going to bore everybody by beginning a discussion of this season repeating the same points I made at the end of the last one. I just watched Notre Dame's Final Four run to the championship again. This is one of the great runs in the history of basketball, and there are some lessons in it. What a team! They lost four players (three of them stars) to leg injuries at the start of the season. They used a grand total of six players in the two games of the Final Four. In the Championship game against Miss. St. they scored only three points in the second quarter, and were behind by 15 midway through the third...and they won. It was a wonderful thing to watch. Marvelous talent, true grit, and great coaching. I'm not a basketball expert, but it gave me a few thoughts.
1. You can win a national championship with a zone. Baylor plays one a lot. So does UConn. Notre Dame's zone was marvelous in the Final Four and it helped keep them in games. Maybe man to man is better 75% of the time, but not always, and you have to adapt to your personnel and your opposition. I think U.T.'s roster lends itself to more zone this season.
2. As a factor in big games, depth is greatly overrated. Since the rise of modern conditioning programs, the chief contribution of a big talented roster is as injury insurance and a way to rest the starters in the regular season. Of course its nice to have extra players for practice or in case a starter goes down. Ask Notre Dame. But that doesn't mean that the 6,7,8 and 9 players, let alone the 10,11 and 12, have to take a lot of minutes away from the 2,3,4,and 5 in important games. UConn and Notre Dame have demonstrated that fact pretty thoroughly over the last few seasons. In terms of rotation, less can be more.
3. One of the things I've always liked about Karen Aston is that she plays everybody. One of the things I've started thinking about is maybe too much of that is not a good thing. Maybe it makes more sense to pare the rotation down to the essential 6 to 9 and leave 'em in there to develop intuitive anticipation and chemistry. Aston not only plays a lot of people, she play them in constantly shifting discontinuous combinations all year---at least to my inexpert eyes she does. Obviously in important games she pares the rotation down. Maybe she should do that more often.
4. You will not win many conference or national championships without at least one explosive scorer on a team of good scorers. Notre Dame could put five scorers on the floor at the same time. Mississippi State could not. Neither could Texas. Atkins, Higgs and McCarty were too often not explosive scorers when we needed them to be. It was probably more the players than the system, but maybe our inside/out offensive scheme contributed to it. Notre Dame has a great center in Shepherd, but they play an open offense designed to produce dribble drives and three point shots. They don't start inside.
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I agree with everything you’ve written. Although I continue to believe that the main issue last year wasn’t offensively it was defensively. The offense and the shooting as a team for me was the best that it had ever been under Coach Aston. The teams understanding and use of spacing was really good for the most part. And the pace at which they played was also the best that it’s ever been.Teams love to say that they play an uptempo style of play but Texas truly was/is an uptempo team especially when you look at their possessions per 40 minutes.

Their overall understanding of just knowing how to to play offensively was the best that it’s been under Coach Aston IMO. But there were also times when a zone like the one UCLA used did slow them down and cause a lot of turnovers. I also felt that there were games that our perimeter players would take some ill-advised shots and didn’t give Jatarie Enough touches in the post when perimeter jump shots weren’t falling. As we’ve discussed before, hopefully Coach Aston will play more zone and other defenses as a change of pace to give teams different looks.
 
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Agree on all of Dr. D's and Kurupt's points. Zone --- obviously. Many of us have been virtually begging for strategic use of a zone for many years. And, enough teams have shown that they can go a whole game with a very small rotation and lose nothing (e.g., Notre Dame). It often takes awhile for a player to get in their groove. Karen's quickness to pull players can be a bit much. The best talent should be on the floor by far the majority of the time, IMHO. Of course, that's easy for me to say, but with our team it is often not clear who the best talent is, since we have a lot of it.
 
Karen Aston discussing first practice, leadership, player development and the incoming class:
 
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"DFW_Horn, post: 1598761, member: 134865"]Karen Aston discussing first practice, leadership, player development and the incoming class:.."
Really good interview with several little tantalizing bits. Now I am even more excited for the season to start.
 
Just listened to the Karen tape, so now I know what one more means. I love it. Joyner has worked on her outside shot. Hope she has also worked on her under the basket chippies.
 
Practice video and brief comments from a couple of players. I’m not sure they didn’t speed up the video of the very last play - we all know Lashann is fast but that was unnatural.
 
JoeDallas said:
Just listened to the Karen tape, so now I know what one more means. I love it. Joyner has worked on her outside shot. Hope she has also worked on her under the basket chippies.
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Agreed. It's her close to the basket moves and shooting I hope she worked on. I doubt at this stage in her career, Joyner is going to turn into a big-time outside point producer, though I wouldn't mind being wrong about that. Her star potential lies in becoming a monster around the basket. Last season her form underneath was awful; she'd just sling the ball up there; no footwork; no disciplined moves. She's one reason we didn't go further in the tournament. She needs to understand her destiny is probably inside. She could be great if she accepts that role and works to refine it.
 
Dr. D said:
Agreed. It's her close to the basket moves and shooting I hope she worked on. I doubt at this stage in her career, Joyner is going to turn into a big-time outside point producer, though I wouldn't mind being wrong about that. Her star potential lies in becoming a monster around the basket. Last season her form underneath was awful; she'd just sling the ball up there; no footwork; no disciplined moves. She's one reason we didn't go further in the tournament. She needs to understand her destiny is probably inside. She could be great if she accepts that role and works to refine it.
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The commentators have said it since she first stepped on campus. Joyner's basketball hero is Kobe Bryant. She wants to shoot threes and is just so-so in that regard and doesn't focus as much on the close-to-the-basket part of basketball, which is where she could excel.
 
this doesn't really belong anywhere that I could see. But I just wondered what a "director of offensive analytics" does. Specialization appears to be here. Wonder if Vandy has a director of defensive analytics?
 
I imagine Madi Williams and Tatum Veitenheimer at OU could be in the running for FOY too since they are likely to get tons of minutes, with Ortiz and Manning gone.
 
jusme828 said:
I imagine Madi Williams and Tatum Veitenheimer at OU could be in the running for FOY too since they are likely to get tons of minutes, with Ortiz and Manning gone.
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I have to agree with the post from the other thread that Joens at ISU would probably be a good bet.
 
If someone went to the scrimmage/potluck could you please give us your thoughts both on the scrimmage and how the potluck went.
 
I think Kysre G. at WVU will be Newcomer of the Year.

As noted by others, don't see Nalyssa Smith or Charli being FOY as neither will be starters, IMO. Maybe Acquira DeCosta from Baylor, assuming she starts at SF for the Bears.
 
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