B1G Game 1: Gophers Host Badgers (12-28-18)

Kaposi's immediate thought to receiving the pass was to pass out instead of going up for the wide open lay up. I wonder what her confidence level is because her last two buckets were nice.

Last night Kaposi was 3-3. For the season she's 10-30 with a lot of those shots and misses coming under the hoop. It's good to see that Palma has calmed down and focused on her shot because she's going to get open and the Gopher inside passing is improving.
 


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Jasmine had some cool assists last night. I thought this was 2nd best to her drive the lane, wrap the pass around Howard to Kaposi for the layup.

This play was mostly about Pitts, but Brunson got the most kudos, while you could get down on Bell (again) for not getting out in transition.

Pitts created the turnover by doubling on the post player who was clumsily trying to dribble in the low post. Pitts immediately runs out full steam in transition while Bell is frozen, possibly waiting for the handoff from Bello, who came up with the loose ball. The thing is nobody from Wisconsin was pressuring Bello after she gained possession. Bell should have gone into transition herself.
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Luckily, Bello spotted Brunson who was further ahead and in better position to run the transition.

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The value of a two PG system. I’m sure there are shortcomings and maybe you could make the case that Bell isn’t a true PG, but this play shows the value of having two.
 

How can this be called a rivalry when the U has won the last 12 games!

(sarcasm)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Not only did Lamke score 20, she heaved the pre-game introduction tee shirt into the second deck. It's a first I believe.
 


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The three top plays are:
3-Brunson and Pitts fast break
2-Bell's look away to Lamke
1-Brunson's pass around Howard to Kaposi
 


Pitts created the turnover by doubling on the post player who was clumsily trying to dribble in the low post.

Oops, my bad. From this angle it appears Bello created the steal, although it looks like she may have gotten away with a foul on the play.

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Love the defensive convergence in this situation. Some teams don’t even triple team Teaira McCowan but here they are triple teaming a lowly Wisconsin post. :cool:
 

Not only did Lamke score 20, she heaved the pre-game introduction tee shirt into the second deck. It's a first I believe.

I've noticed that she's almost always aiming for the second deck, at least in those high attendance games with people sitting up there. She definitely doesn't "throw like a girl." After all, I think in high school track she threw javelin and shot put.

Maybe she should be the go-to shooter for full-court buzzer beater shots.

I'd like to see her get more touches, especially at the high post. For one thing, she's an 80% free throw shooter from there, so she can probably hit 65% jump shots from the top of the key. Perhaps more importantly, the give-and-give-back play from there works exceptionally well with Kenisha Bell. There was a good example of that in the Badger game. And Keke is a dead-eye from13 feet. I think Bell could be more efficient running it through Lamke and perhaps getting it back. Of course, Bell needs to go off the dribble quite a bit too, both to mix it up, and also cuz she's one of the best at that.

In a game like last nite, where Lamke is "on," Annalese is scoring almost 3 points per shot attempt. That's equivalent to a three-point shooter who's shooting at a 95% clip - and even Pitts can't shoot the trey that well.

In comparison, when Bell has a bit of an off shooting night like last night, she's shooting about one-out-of-three on mostly twos, so scoring about 2/3 point per shot attempt. What would you rather have, 3 points per shot attempt, or 0.667 points per shot attempt? So quite often, Lamke's efficiency is offset by Bell's inefficiency.

Now to be more fair in this back-of-the-envelope analysis, we should factor in two more things. First, Bello's offensive rebounding plus putbacks or dishes out to the three point line tend to clean up a lot of Bell misses. Second, many Bell "misses" are actually fouls that result in Bell free throws (which is why it's important for Bell to continue her gradual improvement in free-throw rate). Adding these factors bumps Bell's efficiency higher than the nominal box score indicates.

Even so, I like the trend I'm seeing of playing through Lamke or Bello in the high or low post, with the guards possibly getting it back in a more open or driving position to shoot at a higher efficiency.
 
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many Bell "misses" are actually fouls that result in Bell free throws (which is why it's important for Bell to continue her gradual improvement in free-throw rate).

Shots where a foul occurs only count as a statistical attempt if it goes in.
 


T-shirts to the upper deck

It was a first for Annalese, although she has tried before this season.

To the best of my knowledge, no one had done it since Janel McCarville. You could always tell how pumped JMac was to play when she got a t-shirt tossed to the upper deck.

Annalese played a huge game last night!!
 

I think that's correct-no one since McCarville. I think Wagner had a good arm and got good distance; but not upper deck.
 



Outstanding start to the season, Whalen has brought positive energy and renewed excitement back to this program! Even with the 12-0 start, I believe the team has underperformed at times thus far this year, which is a good sign. The slate is set to get quite a bit tougher, so hopefully they continue to play cleaner basketball and progress as the season goes on. It'd be nice to hopefully get Diva back in the fold soon.
 




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