My thoughts at this early stage

[SoonerNorm]

I think LaNesia has proven she needs more playing time. She only played 20 minutes last night and was the second highest scorer (14 points) behind Sharane (16 points) while Sharane played 32 minutes. There is no question she is playing better than Carter who logged 16 minutes last night and scored 7 points before fouling out. LaNesia is a better ball handler than most other guards and she is athletic enough to guard her position effectively. I would start her now and give her 30 minutes a game over the next 5 games and see how she handles it.

I think Treece needs more playing time as well. She is limited in athletic ability but she can shoot out to the free throw line and she has a pretty high basketball IQ.

Sherri needs to spend a lot of practice time on defense and rebounding. Those are both weaknesses and it will be interesting to see if Sherri can make improvement in those areas as it will be critical when we play teams like Baylor, UWV, and Texas.

Last but not least, if you watch the movement without the ball on Lon's team, it is considerably better than it is with Sherri's team. The men are constantly moving while this group has too much standing around like they did last year. Ortiz and Kornet seem to be the exception.

 

[jerry]

I just don't understand why Carter starts. She fouls as much as Kay Kay, turns it over and was guarding the girl from USF that went for 19 in the first half. Let's try someone else???

 

[j2d2]

It looked like last year: dribble, dribble, dribble and pass around the top of the circle then Carter makes a desperate charge to the basket and gets a charge call, loses the ball, gets her shot stuffed, etc. Or we have to take a poor shot. They had a good defense and it stifled us. We didn't know what to do. We have no one who can get off her feet under the basket and so got continually blocked. We sill get better offensively but I'm skeptical about our defense and rebounding getting better.

 

[SoonerNorm]

It looked like last year: dribble, dribble, dribble and pass around the top of the circle then Carter makes a desperate charge to the basket and gets a charge call, loses the ball, gets her shot stuffed, etc. Or we have to take a poor shot. They had a good defense and it stifled us. We didn't know what to do. We have no one who can get off her feet under the basket and so got continually blocked. We sill get better offensively but I'm skeptical about our defense and rebounding getting better.

I think a lot of our dribbling is directly connected to a lack of movement by players without the ball. It is very easy to guard a statue.

 

[Soonerbay]

I've seen a few games thus far and it's always good to get a W, but those opponents are not the reality for conference play and beyond. Yesterday's game was a prime example. It's going to be a tough row to hoe this season. If they improve rebounding, get a few more top recruits that truly have a passion to not only play the game, but do it at a high level...then they can become a top 10 team again. Otherwise, it'll be more of the same as the past few years...mediocre. And that's ok for some fans...one and done at the tournament, if you make it. It's great to have great community service activities and high academic standards (doesn't seem like there have been as many academic awards as in the past either...but I'll have to check), but I'm a fan that appreciates a team that is very good at doing it all. It can be done. It has been done...but I don't see any trips to the FF anytime soon. I guess we should hope for a conference title, continue the mission trips and a trip to the big dance every now and again. No thank you. JMO...never been a settle for less kinda' person when more is available. You just have to want it and work, very, very hard and smart. And consistently.

 

[MisterF]

Same problem that has existed for several years now. We struggle against teams that are athletic.

 

[Oliver Hardy]

I was hopeful we ha broken the dribble around the perimeter millstone. So much for that hope.

Same old stuff from Kay Kay when the competition gets tough. That's fine Treece or ViVi will take her starters spot and most of her minutes by mid-January.



Carter has absolutely NO business being in the top 7.

I really don't see us winning another game on this road trip.


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[SoonerNorm]

I was hopeful we ha broken the dribble around the perimeter millstone. So much for that hope.

Same old stuff from Kay Kay when the competition gets tough. That's fine Treece or ViVi will take her starters spot and most of her minutes by mid-January.



Carter has absolutely NO business being in the top 7.

I really don't see us winning another game on this road trip.


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We won't if we don't defend and rebound.

 

[sybarite]

Sherri seems to have a vision in her mind of Kay Kay when she plays well. That just never seems to happen when she encounters good opposition. She becomes lost on the court, like she didn't know what to do. She turns on when she can dominate. She turns into a recluse when she can't. It is unlikely that Kay Kay on the court will ever be the one that Sherri envisions. Carter is a similar story. Both play well at times, usually when the opposition is inferior. Carter seems to do better at garbage time. I think she had zero points before the game had been decided.

We need to instill an attitude. We have some good young talent. LaNesia and McKenna actually play when the game is on the line. Kay Kay was completely stopped by their defense. McKenna fed off it. If McKenna had the stamina, I would play her forty minutes until Kay Kay got serious and Vivi learned to shoot free throws.

LaNesia and Sharane are our two best players right now. They need to be on the court. We keep seeing bits of Maddie. She seems to be able to get the ball inside, and she can rebound. Yet, she doesn't seem to get many minutes. Confusing. I want Gabi learning what Maddie can do, get the ball inside. Gabi is one of those passing the ball around the perimeter.

Rebounding is 'want to." The girl who was killing us under the boards is 6-1. The player that we couldn't guard was 5-8, about the same size as Plum. We don't have a guard to guard the other team's top guard? Rebounding could have been at least even if we had actually reached up for the ball. We did this for three games. Last night, it looked like last year. We should provide Kay Kay with a ticket so she has a better seat as 5-8 guards get rebounds while she watches.

You do have to want to. I thought we did, until last night.

 

[SoonerNorm]

We won't if we don't defend and rebound.

I should have added, stop the turnovers and make our free throws.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

No doubt Norm. You cannot win when that keeps happening. I believe it was the Texas game in Austin last when I was most frustrated about turnovers. I think 25 or so - if I recall correctly. Cutting those in half would have guaranteed a win down there. But it just continued all year. And cost us numerous times.

We also had major such problems last year on free throws. Especially as we got closer to the end of the year. Even years ago, it did not appear that Courtney was taught to improve on free throws either. She is much better at it now.

 

[Mac]

Small forward seems to be a weakness right now, Carter isn't that good, and while Williams had okay numbers, she didn't shoot well. Kornet should start, but then we would lose a lot of bench scoring.

 

[SoonerNorm]

To be fair to the girls, we haven't played a team that pressured us the way Kentucky did in quite some time. That causes missed shots and silly turnovers. The way to avoid that is to make quick sharp passes before the pressure arrives. Tonight, the pressure would hit then we tried to react but it often resulted in a mistake. I think the pressure overwhelmed us at times and it resulted in turnovers.

Honestly, I wish we played defense like that.

 

[SoonerNorm]

I get the feeling the men who practice against the girls don't really pressure the girls that much. If so, one wouldn't expect to see that many mistakes. Just an opinion as I don't get to watch practices.

 

[Mac]

Just seems like we have the same issues every season turnovers and rebounding... Seems like OU has only been a good rebounding team when Paris was here. Watching the sooner men play today I would love to see the girls box out more... 2 guards from Kentucky had double digit rebounds and one is about 5'7.

 

[sybarite]

I have wondered if Kornet wouldn't be the one to have a breakout year. At this point, she seems to be the most consistent shot that we have. She is doing the things that we wanted Carter to do. She was an MVP of her All-American game, and she may be emerging. I like the fact that she got angry. Given the circumstances, I would probably have been angry myself. Bad officiating intrusion into a game that had already been injected with incompetent officiating.

Did Kay Kay look better coming off the bench than starting? She didn't play most of the game. But, she was actually doing better at the end of her game than she had all year.

Right now, I think I would go with McKenna, Sharane, LaNesia, Peyton, and Gabi, with Nicole being the first off the bench. I might bench Gabi until she learned not to throw it to the opposition and to hit free throws. You can't have a point who is something like 0-10 for the year on free throws.

 

[Mac]

Even thought Kornet should have kept her head In the game, you have to like the fight she's been playing with, and we need a team leader she seems to be the one stepping up.

 

[inoref]

Looks like for the most part same old type of team we had in the last few years. Got to be able to recruit much better players.