How about the people that really need to be working to get open be the focus of your conversations. Vegas? She still led in scoring. Mention the others for a full team effect instead of focusing on the elite players' lack of production. That has been one of the chief problems over the past few years.
I'm still baffled at how three of the best players in recent and school history (Courtney Paris, Danielle Robinson, and Aaryn Ellenberg) consistently get negative remarks from some on this forum. Stacey Dales and Whitney Hand could do no wrong. I wonder what the link is?
You're headed in the wrong direction with your assumptions. Last year, we had three seniors who were disappointing. Each was capable and a person of honor and commitment. But, none was that player who scored when we needed to score to win a game.
Morgan often tried too hard and ended up driving wildly, throwing up a layup from six to eight feet from the side, which was essentially a turnover. She also had a tendency to lose concentration and just lose the ball, sometimes off her foot, sometimes because she just didn't notice a player sneaking up behind her as her concentration was directed ahead of her.
Vegas, even as a senior, could lose the ball dribbling into a crowd as quickly as Griffin could. She sometimes just lost the ball off her foot as she dribbled---as a senior? You get over that.
About the middle of the conference season, when the game was close, I kept looking for Carter to do something. Vegas and Morgan just didn't seem to make the play, had some hesitancy. Carter could actually get to where she wanted to go. At least, she got off a decent shot,even if she didn't hit it.
When you are looking for an inexperienced freshman to make a play because your seniors have lost three of four games by not making plays that resulted in overtime losses, you have a problem. The ones making the game-winning plays should be the seniors.
It is one thing to score thirty-five points, but in a loss? It was interesting this past year that OU lost in Austin when Texas was without its leading senior scorer, Fussell, and OU won in Dallas when we were without our leading senior scorer. It's team that wins. The frustrating thing about this team was that we had three seniors who had started for three or four years, but it did not translate into good play in close games. When the score was tied, I found that I wanted the ball in the hands of a freshman.
I would love to have those three seniors, but they were the type that needed a go-to player to do something to win a game. They needed a DRob.
They could not be that player that had to step up at the end of the game.
I don't know that I care who is the leading scorer this year. I feel more comfortable this year that there are players who will step up at the end of a close game. From what I've seen and heard, I have a lot more faith in Maddie, Peyton, and Gabi at crunch time. After all, I was hopeful that Gioya would get the ball this year at crunch time because she tried to be effective.
