Seattle U.

[bbjunkie]

This was a frustrating game to watch, in what should have been a confidence builder for our game against Idaho State on Saturday. PSU scored enough points to win, but once again our inability to switch to a zone defense allowed SU to score at will during important stretches of the game. Every other D1 college team that I watch, and I watch a lot of games, employs a zone defense at some point during their games. We refuse to switch into a zone even when the other team is relentlessly attacking the basket, with drives and dishes, or lob passes into the post for high percentage inside shots. That is exactly what SU did. They exploited our weakness, which is an inability to defend the paint in a man-to-man defensive scheme. Same old story, which has caused losses to all the top teams in the Big Sky so far this season. And it's a serious concern as we will be fighting to secure the sixth and final spot in the Big Sky Tournament in the next few weeks.
As things stand now, we will need to win important league games against Sac. State in order to finish sixth in league. Sac. State has a tall front court and scores most of their points in the paint. I am going to go out on a limb and predict that PSU will lose both games to Sac. State if we continue to exclusively play "man" defense. Unless we switch to a zone, their posts will abuse us down low and get a lot of easy high percentage shots. They will probably get us in foul trouble too, as we are inept at stopping tall post players from scoring when they get the ball under the basket. I hate to make this prediction because we still have time to change our defensive philosophy and be successful as we embark on this important stretch of games. But stubborness by our coach in refusing to make these needed adjustments has not given me a shred of confidence that it will happen. Sad.

 

[mvem]

I'm not sure why you thought this would be a confidence builder. Seattle U was 13-9 coming in & had roughly the same RPI as the Viks.

As for the zone thing, I don't know. PSU used a zone well when they surged to a Big Sky Tournament title 2 years ago. Maybe it's just that Murrell has no confidence in her team's ability to play it (based on practice). I know for the Griz men in Tinkle's first two years, he would repeatedly say things in the post game like "I would've liked to go zone there, but our zone just isn't good enough right now." It could be something like that. It could also be that the post players just aren't long enough to contest jump shots well (you guys start nobody that's taller than 5'10" and have nobody eligible that's taller than 6').

Or maybe Murrell should just say "screw it" and start running the Westhead style like Sac State & Oregon do.

 

[mikechristoffer]

"As for the zone thing, I don't know. PSU used a zone well when they surged to a Big Sky Tournament title 2 years ago." Correct, but PSU doesn't have the inside defensive presence it had two years ago. They had the league's best defensive post who set a new tournament record for blocks and was able to patrol the key. They had four tall and talented posts in Valentine, Wade, Yankus and Depaepe and I think the 2009-2010 team would have easily beat the current team. PSU simply does not have that kind of depth inside this year. I don't know if playing a zone will help that much if the team continues to start 4 guards and one forward. I mean look at the starting line up against Seattle. 4 guards and Stephanie. The team puts Lanz down low. She can score there but cannot guard a good offensive post. She just isn't long enough. I would like to to see the team play with Samms and Brock together to give them some inside muscle and scoring. The way it is now, both Brock and Samms seem to be lost in that they never know whether they will get decent minutes or not.

The other thing is that the team seems, at times, to just want to get the season over. Look at how badly they get out rebounded. Against Seattle it was 42-28.