Game 4: Gophers Host Arkansas Pine Bluff (11-20-18)

Golden Rules

I believe this is the first meeting between the Golden Gophers (3-0) and perennial schedule fillers the Arkansas Pine Bluff Golden Lions (0-2).

Last season UAPB finished 8-21 (6-12 SWAC). That was good for a three way 7th place tie. In 2016-17 the Golden Lions were 9-9 in conference giving them a 5th place tie.

This season, head coach Nate Kilbert’s Golden Lions were projected ninth in the 10 team SWAC. Center Shawntayla Harris was second team All SWAC preseason selection. Kilbert, a SWAC coaching veteran, is in his seventh season at UAPF.

A game with UAPB is always a bit of a measuring stick-especially in the first half when the host team is playing its starters. For the Gophers our references are UAPB’s first two opponents. The Golden Lions lost at Wichita State 39-76 and at Oregon State 33-89. A 37 point loss and a 56 point loss.

You can break it down further and look at the first quarter. Wichita State out scored Pine Bluff 24-4. Oregon State, on the strength of a 22-0 first quarter run, topped the Shockers output and led UAPB 26-4. At the half, the Shockers led 39-14 and the Beavers 48-10. A San Diego/Minnesota 10-9 type score at the end of quarter one would be alarming.

In obvious understatement; Pine Bluff lacks height. It would be a good night for Whalen to give her post players a work out. Taiye Bello’s double double streak is a good bet to continue.


Losses: @ Wichita State 39-76; @ Oregon State 33-89.


Projected Starters:

6’0” C Sr Shawntayla Harris
5’8” G Jr Noe’ll Taylor
5’3” G Sr Kye Richardson
5’10” F Jr Sha’Kendra Tilley
5’9” G Jr Atitiana Vincent


Others:

5’11” F Jr Katherine Darden
5’5” G So Kyeonia Harris

I feel like this game is one they should look to run plays for and establish Pitts. Her struggles early this season have been discussed and I feel if they get her going early, maybe a 8-10 point quarter gains her confidence that is carried the rest of the game and forward. I know they have two games before, but a 7 point a game and struggling Pitts almost guarantees no way of having the fire power to compete with Syracuse. Listening to the radio of the San Diego game, they mentioned in the second half Pitts is not even really looking to score, prime example passing up a layup to Brunson 1 foot away which lead to a turnover. 3-13 from 3-point range at least right now is not something to push the panic button on but its close. If they can get her rolling in this week's two games, that will help spread out defense for Bell, Pitts and Taiye for the Syracuse game.

bball_craz_26 said:

I feel like this game is one they should look to run plays for and establish Pitts. Her struggles early this season have been discussed and I feel if they get her going early, maybe a 8-10 point quarter gains her confidence that is carried the rest of the game and forward. I know they have two games before, but a 7 point a game and struggling Pitts almost guarantees no way of having the fire power to compete with Syracuse. Listening to the radio of the San Diego game, they mentioned in the second half Pitts is not even really looking to score, prime example passing up a layup to Brunson 1 foot away which lead to a turnover. 3-13 from 3-point range at least right now is not something to push the panic button on but its close. If they can get her rolling in this week's two games, that will help spread out defense for Bell, Pitts and Taiye for the Syracuse game.

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At this point, it's all about making adjustments both as a team and individually. Eventually I think Pitts will settle in, but they're adjusting to a new style of play and undoubtedly Lindsay is asking Bell and Pitts to do different things from last year to a certain extent. It's also compounded by the absence of Hubbard, which would have forced the opposition to account for her on the offensive end as well, opening up some things for Pitts.

With that said, we know how talented a player Destiny is. Once she gets into the flow and figures out what Whalen expects of her, I think the offense will come. For now, they're content to ride with Bell, Brunson and Taiye Bello shouldering a lot of the load.

I was trying to figure out why Whalen was so chummy with the Pine Bluff assistant. He recruited her at the U!

Taiye out rebounding the Lions 19-16.

Taiye, the nation's leading rebounder, finished with 19 boards. Could have had 25 if the game hadn't been a blowout. Staples with her first double-digit scoring night for the Gophers with 13. Byrne with her first points as a Gopher, including a 3. Plenty of time for the bench players in a game against an inferior opponent. Pitts in double figures with 7 of 8 from the line. Brunson 3-3 from the field with two 3's. Bell a solid shooting night. Still needs to clean up the turnovers and shoot better from the line. Gophers with way too many turnovers again. Cornell on Friday. Team going to Coach Whalen's place for Thanksgiving dinner.

Nice win lady Gophers!

Game went as expected except: TURNOVERS. The turnovers are a bit troublesome because Pitts and Bell both had five ugly ones.

Carly Thibault had the best assist of the night (well, no, not as good as Kenisha's) when, from the bench, she spotted Taiye's contact lying in the paint and went out to pick it up when the play was at the opposite end. Taiye lost her contact twice in the 3rd quarter tonight.

Seven threes, including 3-4 from Staples and 2-2 from Brunson makes the offense look much, much better.

Good win. Let’s take care of business on friday and then get ready for Syracuse.

These non-conference games are particularly important to Lindsay Whalen and the Gophers first season together.

The Gophers Freshman player to watch is Mercedes Staples. If she can develop outside shooting threat, the team will come a long ways toward building up the points production of Carlie Wagner. She won't replace Carlie in her Freshman season, but she'll improve through time.

https://gophersports.com/documents/2018/11/20//20181120_Quotes.pdf

Minnesota Head Coach Lindsay Whalen
Opening Statement:

“I think tonight what we set out to do. All day that our team was just preparing and really focused from
shootaround on. We had a really good understanding of what the game plan was; I felt like we executed.
There’s stuff we can work on, there are always things we can work on. I was talking to our guards about
executing and being efficient and, other than the turnovers, we shot the ball well we shared it really
well. We got to the line and we executed a lot of things, that was one of our main parts of our game
plan was executing. So I thought we took a step in that direction which is good.”

On what she learned about the team:

“I think we handled a lot. They threw a lot of different looks at us, a lot of different 1‐2‐2’s, some
trapping stuff, some run and jump. I felt like even though we had a high turnover number we were we
actually stayed pretty poised and composed. Give credit to Arkansas‐Pine Bluff, they did a good job in
that and we were able to stay poised enough to be able to get some scores and some stops as well.

On the team’s high‐percentage shots:

“It’s always part of the plan. You hope you knock them in and you hope you make your shots. You make
shots the game looks easier. Overall I think I’m most proud of oour defense right now and where we are
at defensively and these guys are playing so hard. It’s something that I hope our fans are enjoying about
this team is how hard we are playing and how hard we are competing on every possession. These guys
are giving everything they have so I hope the fans that were here tonight and I hope the fans that will
continue to come out and support us are seeing that effort that they are getting every night because
these guys are doing everything that they are asked. We’re just all as coaches are tremendously proud
of the group and you know just seeing them what there tenacity is, it’s been fun to watch so our defense
is giving us a chance every night.”


Minnesota senior guard Kenisha Bell

On trying not to do too much when the team is ahead by so much:

“We just take it one step at a time, not overthink passes, and when you make a mistake, just work on
getting back on defense in order to get us going in the flow.”

On what she was doing to get good shot opportunities:

“I was being aggressive on offense. I also took time after shootaround and get some free throws in
because last game, I was off at the free throw line, so I thought that my main focus was to still stay the
same s that I don’t go in and do stuff that I don’t usually do.”

On if her shot felt good during warmups…

“Yeah, I felt good. We were working hard from the start, we didn’t come out slow. We were talking and
we just ready for this game, just coming out of the last game, we were pretty slow, we didn’t want to do
that again, and when we came out slow, we warmed up kind of slow too, so I thought that we came out
all hot and ready to go.”

Following up on thatjanelpick ... re Danny Evans

https://uapblionsroar.com/coaches.aspx?rc=366&path=wbball

" ...
In his one season with the Jaguars, Evans help rebuild a women’s basketball program that had six players from the previous season. Through Evans' vigorous recruiting efforts, which netted eight new players, South Alabama was able to assemble a 14-player roster for the 1996-97 season.

Evans then returned to the Midwest, when he was named assistant women’s basketball coach at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

In his three seasons at Minnesota, Evans recruited and signed Lindsay Whalen, a First Team All-Big 10 selection, who is currently a member of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA.

In the fall of 2003, Evans made his Southwestern Athletic Conference debut, when he was named assistant women’s basketball coach at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.

..."

Westgate said:

Following up on thatjanelpick ... re Danny Evans

https://uapblionsroar.com/coaches.aspx?rc=366&path=wbball

" ...
In his one season with the Jaguars, Evans help rebuild a women’s basketball program that had six players from the previous season. Through Evans' vigorous recruiting efforts, which netted eight new players, South Alabama was able to assemble a 14-player roster for the 1996-97 season.

Evans then returned to the Midwest, when he was named assistant women’s basketball coach at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

In his three seasons at Minnesota, Evans recruited and signed Lindsay Whalen, a First Team All-Big 10 selection, who is currently a member of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA.

In the fall of 2003, Evans made his Southwestern Athletic Conference debut, when he was named assistant women’s basketball coach at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.

..."

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It was a little odd that the names of the Pine Bluff assistant coaches were not announced. Are we still that angry about the Littlejohn era?

hungan1 said:

These non-conference games are particularly important to Lindsay Whalen and the Gophers first season together.

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I'll have to agree with you, which is a change in my thoughts from earlier this summer when the non-conference schedule was first announced. Except for quality teams like Syracuse (and San Diego - a bit more quality than I expected, actually), the non-conference schedule is so weak that we're going to get beat-up badly in the RPI race come tournament time, even if we win all but 3-5 of our conference games. I was worried (and still do worry) that the NCAA might be throwing us another "On the bubble" party, thanks to the weak non-conference schedule. This is still a potential issue, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. In the mean-time, I think it actually was beneficial to set up lots of weak non-conference opponents to use as cannon fodder for getting the Lady Gopher team to assimilate the challenging parts of the new schemes (most notably defense) and gel together as a unified Team + Coaches. Syracuse will be the acid test.

When Lindsay says stuff (at Arkansas Pine Bluff presser) like "We had a really good understanding of what the game plan was; I felt like we executed." - part of me thinks, "OK, it's good to get in the habit of having and understanding a good game plan and then properly executing it"; but the other part of me thinks, "Do you really need a game plan for a team that you ultimately beat 84-42?" Anyway, thank you to Arkansas Pine Bluff for helping us gel as a team, and challenging us at least enough for us to make incremental progress toward taking on Syracuse.

Ignatius L Hoops said:

Game went as expected except: TURNOVERS. The turnovers are a bit troublesome because Pitts and Bell both had five ugly ones.

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Next game plan should feature "Stop turning the ball over!" just like the last game plan did.

hungan1 said:

The Gophers Freshman player to watch is Mercedes Staples. If she can develop outside shooting threat, the team will come a long ways toward building up the points production of Carlie Wagner. She won't replace Carlie in her Freshman season, but she'll improve through time.

Click to expand...

Ignatius L Hoops said:

Seven threes, including 3-4 from Staples and 2-2 from Brunson makes the offense look much, much better.

Click to expand...

Definitely an improvement on the offensive side: Bell and Brunson were hitting strong (and I'd say their off-season shooting practice has helped, with both Bell and Brunson shooting better this season, minus aberrations like San Diego); Bell cleaned up her poor free-throw shooting of the last game; Pitts was getting involved and absorbing a lot of fouls (which with her free-throw-shooting ability, is just as good as a made shot); Lamke playing strong; T. Bello breaking yet another personal rebounding record; Staples hitting double-figures points for the first time; and all freshmen getting on the board.

I also observed something that caught my eye as, at least, intriguing. I was comparing Staples' guard play from the last game (San Diego) and also the first three quarters of this game, against the fourth quarter of this game. It seems like in the (former) normal case when she's in there with either Bell or Brunson, she plays the style of Bell/Brunson - with a lot of dribbling and hand-offs and short passes - basically using foot speed to try to get somebody the open shot. That doesn't seem to be Staples' natural style. Recall how, in the SD game, she won the "Doh!" award for "best" (funniest?) turnover, when she stood around dribbling facing the defender, who promptly sauntered up and stole the ball as it was being dribbled.

Contrast that to how Mercedes Staples played guard in the 4th quarter of the Arkansas Pine Bluff game, joined by a full squad of 2nd-unit players. In that case, she was clearly and solely in charge of the point-guard role, with side-kick Irene Garrido Perez as shooting guard. Also, it was a taller unit using three tall (low) post players with the 3rd tall post replacing shorter Destiny Pitts. First, it was great to give the bench a full quarter of playing time - which will go a long way toward improving their confidence. But interestingly, this unit was not freeing up shooters by dribbling all over the place, but rather, was passing the ball all over the place - including many full cross-court passes - and mind you, they were not turning the ball over at all in spite of what otherwise might be considered risky passes. I haven't checked the numbers, but I suspect there were far fewer trunovers by the second unit in the 4th quarter, than in any of the other 3 quarters by the starters and first-off-the-benches.

Also, when Staples brought the ball up and over the time line, she wasn't going to stand still and wait around for the defense to pick her up (with them perhaps wishing to cause another "Doh!" turnover). Rather, she was (almost always) tossing the ball up-court via a longish pass to a forward, located in a wing position. She almost always took this play-starting pass off the dribble - triggering a bit of deja vu in me, since I noted that it looked so much like the off-the-dribble passes that Lindsay Whalen used to throw to a surging Rookie Maya Moore (a few years ago). That play-initiating pass was Mercedes statement to her team-mates to "let the passing begin."

It was almost like Staples asserting (Lindsay-Whalen-like) "my team now, I'm in charge, so we play my offense." I claim that we could have used more of this style of passing offense against the stingy San Diego defense. Their defense was so fast that, if we ever tried to move the ball (via dribbling and short passes) from current strong side to current weak side (i.e., future strong side), then the San Diego defense figured it out, and they beat us there. So perhaps a mixture of (Staples-style) long-passing offense plus (Bell/Brunson-style) speedy-guard-dribbling style guard play could have been more effective against San Diego. (Of course, in order to do so, the second unit would have to teach the first unit how to throw long passes without making turnovers.)

I found that 4th quarter rather enjoyable, just for the variety in approach, and also enjoying the accurate long passes as a contrast to the oodles of turnovers in the first three quarters. The following is just speculation, but I suspect that this radically different style of guard play (and offensive approach) during the 4th quarter was not without Whalen's approval. In other words, I don't think Mercedes Staples went rogue, or anything like that. I think it's consistent with Whalen's approach to effective basketball by means of leveraging her players' best talents in the most natural manner. And effective it was. We got some treys, including "first points" from Byrne, for instance. So I think Lindsay found another nice tool to put in her coach's toolbelt.

My wife and I were so thankful when we saw K. Bellow approach the scorers table at the end of the 3rd quarter. We were so frustrated these past years when we were blowing out teams and players at the bottom of the depth chart would come in at 2.5-2minutes of game time remaining, at best! We were always so frustrated with this philosophy because it didn't make sense to us since the only downside to putting in the bottom of the depth chart players was less experience for the most experienced players. Whereas putting in the bottom of the depth chart players gives more experience to players with far more upside for improvement which improves the quality of depth while reducing the likelihood of injury to the best performers and has to improve camaraderie. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would see all those players playing almost the entire 4th quarter. When I saw K. Bello approach the scorers table I told my wife and neighbors I hope they put in K. Bello, Byrne, Staples, Barbora and Perez (I think Perez was the 5th I mentioned). And I believe indeed all 5 of those were in for virtually the entirety of the 4th quarter.

Thank you Lindsey for showing such good judgement (at least from my point of view)!!!!!

Completely agree with you Ragnor! I love the bench getting so much action in these blowouts.