Illinois State/Indiana State

[1972Shocker]

We play Evansville (6-8) and Southern Illinois (2-12) on the road, and close out at home against Missouri State (7-8). We will win out, but since we are a one-bid conference, that regular season championship does not mean much as far as NCAAs go. Our predicted season-ending RPI by Warren Nolan is 75.

I can't see us losing to SIU but Evansville is not a gimme. We should be able to handle MSU at home but that assumes we don't play another game as bad as we played today.

Not sure winning the Valley Tournament is all that big of a prize because whoever gets the auto-bid will probably have a very short one-and-done stay in the NCAA Tournament.

[Shox1979]

I'm pretty much an Idiot. I really believed we would run the table. We didn't; and then I thought we'd finish big time strong. Whoops!! I wish I could blame the refs; I can't; we didn't finish, we didn't adjust to the Refs and Jody didn't adjust to the defense of Indiana. Their coach had a nice game plan and executed it. I'm a bit nervous now. The Valley has figured out Bonner; They will zero in on Alex; they know Kelsey can't shoot outside of 5'; they know to pack in a zone. I still believe we will win the Valley, but we need to get going. Please, don't tell me we need to play the bench. Our bench would have been destroyed against this Indiana State team.

This I all spot on coach. We flat out just got outplayed today. Michelle hit the offensive boards like a madman, but we missed a ton of layups on the ensuing follow attempts. I like Kelsey's length on the defensive end, but her lack of shooting touch past a certain distance definitely hinders us at times. I thought the ladies looked tired today. A long season, a lot of minutes and small nagging injuries may be taking a collective toll. Couple that with foul problems and we never really had a chance today. Don't think its Jody's style to give the ladies much time off but I think they could probably use it right now.

[1972Shocker]

Very disappointing. Michelle rebounded well. Aside from that, we were out-coached and outplayed. We may have been figure out.

Michelle rebounded well in the 1st half. Not so much in the 2nd half. On Friday we scored 38 points on 30 Illinois State turnovers. Today we turned Indiana State over 23 times but could only convert those into 12 points while Indiana State converted our 15 turnovers into 17 points.

[Shox1979]

Except the part about you being an idiot coach. I don't believe that for a second. You are definitely one of the finer contributors to the ladies forum.

[Shox1979]

I can't see us losing to SIU but Evansville is not a gimme. We should be able to handle MSU at home but that assumes we don't play another game as bad as we played today.

Not sure winning the Valley Tournament is all that big of a prize because whoever gets the auto-bid will probably have a very short one-and-done stay in the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe it will be a short NCAA stay, but having that exposure, and adding it to our resume gives us another bullet in the gun when it comes to recruiting. It also bolsters Jody's resume and makes her increasingly more attractive to other jobs, but I don't want to think about that.

[1972Shocker]

Worst I have seen us play all year. I was particularly disappointed in our lack of rotation and intensity on defense.

The Grier kid (#15) that torched the Shocks for 22 today on 7-9 FG's including 5-7 on treys came into the game averaging 2.6 PPG on the year. She looked like a Valley POY candidate.

[1972Shocker]

Except the part about you being an idiot coach. I don't believe that for a second. You are definitely one of the finer contributors to the ladies forum.

I have to disagree somewhat. Getting to the tournament and being competitive is probably worthwhile.
Getting to the tournament and getting blown out (like we did in our 45-71 loss to Texas A&M last year) is probably not really worth that much.

[ShockTalk]

I have to disagree somewhat. Getting to the tournament and being competitive is probably worthwhile.
Getting to the tournament and getting blown out (like we did in our 45-71 loss to Texas A&M last year) is probably not really worth that much.

How many Dances have we been to??? I think every NCAA Jody can rack up is a plus regardless of the game outcome. Somebody from the Valley is going to Dance, have to play a high seed, and probably get beaten pretty well. It might as well be us. Isn't that better than not qualifying at all in a weaker conference? You want to have something to sell recruits on and Jody is not going to be able to recruit better talent not going to the NCAAs. She can sell that she has gotten WSU to the top of the Valley, gets to the Dance, and tell that recruit that she now needs them to take WSU to the next level. The women's program just doesn't have any history to recruit to. It's a much different animal than the men's. Look at it more like Marshall at Winthrop. He got his ass kicked pretty good early on, too, but I'm sure those Dance cards he built up really helped.

[flyingMoose]

In the post-game, HCJA made a comment about being able to attack their zone, expose their zone defense - something along those lines. We just didn't do it well at all.

The Shockers have an inside-first offensive philosophy, whether against a man or zone defenses. Against the 3-2 we saw today, we had a lot of trouble getting it inside or doing much with it once we got the ball there - either scoring or kicking it back out for a three. And then, when the clock is winding down and we want Alex to dribble-penetrate to create a shot, it is harder to do against three up top as oppose to the 2-3 zone we saw by Illinois State. (Differences in athleticism of the two opponents being another factor, too.) We tried moving Alex around. We tried lots of things, just none of them worked to speak of.

I thought we made more "low basketball IQ" decisions than normal, too - inside people dribbling up the court in traffic, an inside player giving the ball to another inside player instead of a guard to bring the ball up, dribbling into trouble on the baseline.

Weak plan? Weak execution? Bad day at the office? Hopefully things can head in a better direction next weekend. And @1972Shocker is right, Evansville is no gimme, but I think the other two games we have are.

[flyingMoose]

Game report from the Eagle.

Here we go again. It's the team's fault. Ugh.

[1972Shocker]

Game report from the Eagle.

Here we go again. It's the team's fault. Ugh.

If you don't now what your identity is as team after 26 games of pretty successful season then their is no reason to keep looking.

IMHO, I don't think that it is so much we don't know what our identity is as much as it is the competition has figured out what that identity is and have adjusted to take away what we do best and try to make us win with what we don't do so well. Indiana State probably has the best personnel to make that happen.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

If you don't now what your identity is as team after 26 games of pretty successful season then their is no reason to keep looking.

IMHO, I don't think that it is so much we don't know what our identity is as much as it is the competition has figured out what that identity is and have adjusted to take away what we do best and try to make us win with what we don't do so well. Indiana State probably has the best personnel to make that happen.

Don't forget, Indiana State was predicted to win the Valley, so they are a decent team. They broke our press off of the dribble, which causes us to foul in the no touch era of officiating. We had a number of shots from 2' we just flat out missed, our intensity was not where it should have been. We need to play our next three games as if there is no tomorrow, because in reality, if we don't, there won't be a tomorrow.

[flyingMoose]

our intensity was not where it should have been.

I wonder about this. Was it an intensity issue or was a tentativeness issue because of being unsure where our shots were? For example, twice Jamillah decided to try dribble-penetrate when Ali was open for a three. Although we have seen 2-3 and 1-1-3 zones, I think this is the first time (at least at home - I don't pay to watch the road games) for us to see a 3-2 zone. With the right personnel (think Rolando Blackman at K-State under Jack Hartman), that can be a tough zone to crack - and the Sycamores had the right personnel.

Not intense? Tentative? I'm can't tell the difference from the stands.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

I wonder about this. Was it an intensity issue or was a tentativeness issue because of being unsure where our shots were? For example, twice Jamillah decided to try dribble-penetrate when Ali was open for a three. Although we have seen 2-3 and 1-1-3 zones, I think this is the first time (at least at home - I don't pay to watch the road games) for us to see a 3-2 zone. With the right personnel (think Rolando Blackman at K-State under Jack Hartman), that can be a tough zone to crack - and the Sycamores had the right personnel.

Not intense? Tentative? I'm can't tell the difference from the stands.

The 3-2 needs to be broken from the baseline not the perimeter as we tried to do too often. When our girls are full of fire they are very focused!!!! I just thought we played a little soft. Kelsey only scores 7 per game, but is very disruptive in our press, her sitting from fouls hurt, but not enough for us to lose. I saw her walk out of Koch today as I believe she gets regular treatment on the torn Meniscus to make it through the season. I believe we'll be back to ourselves and sweep the final three.

[Spaulding1977]

I might be displaying my ignorance, but I didn't think this loss was all that bad.

- Grier's shooting in the 2d half was phenomenal. Seriously. Her previous high for pt.s in a game was 9. If an opponent gets all "Reggie Miller" on you, you're going to struggle.
- They had 18 assists to our 11, probably because they were well-prepared for our press. Our press didn't seem to bother them that much. It might have hurt us more than it helped.
- We had several shots that rimmed out. If even three or four of those drop, it's a much closer game.
- Our players seemed "sped up" as Self calls it. They were just outside their comfort zone -- taking shots that were just outside of their normal spot, or having to release just a little faster.

I agree with oldtime's comments about attacking the 3-2 on the baseline. Hopefully we'll practice against that in the next few weeks, get used to running a million screens down low, maybe throw a half-court trap in once in a while so teams can't rely on us using only the full-court press, and we'll be ok.