BearBint said:

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Calbear73 said:

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This is simply an ass kicking. Worse game I've seen Cal play this year. Cal players look like they are asleep, moving slowly and it's some of the worse passing and turnovers I've seen all year. Not a good look tonight.

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Those godawful turnovers--but losing by 7 points is hardly an ass-kicking.

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=553382&vislive=cal

As predicted by Massey: https://masseyratings.com/cbw/ncaa-d1/games

I finally made myself really look at the box score: the starters were all in double digits, Michelle had a double-double, and Cal out-rebounded the Cardinals, and out-assisted them as well. It's hardly the sort of rout that Duke handed Cal. (Or the trouncing Palo Alto got tonight. That was painful.) They had to play hard to beat the Bears.

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Finnish Oski said:

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This game will we totally forgotten after we stun Notre Dame on Sunday.

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I like your confidence.

Maybe Charmin told the team the same thing.

I was working and couldn't watch this game. Was it good defense or just bad shooting?

Here's a quote from that article: "when the Bears play a team in the top 75 nationally in defensive turnover percentage, they are 3-4." Against all other opponents Cal is 16-1.

The Louisville pressure defense was also very effective because of their depth and quickness. They could wear us down with frequent substitutions. Those freshmen were elite - four and five-stars.

We also seem to get anxious when the pressure defense is employed which helps it to be effective. We need to relax, slow down and run the play like it was called. Otherwise, it's turnovers.

We need point guard Puff Morris right now!

SFCALBear72 said:

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The Louisville pressure defense was also very effective because of their depth and quickness. They could wear us down with frequent substitutions. Those freshmen were elite - four and five-stars.

We also seem to get anxious when the pressure defense is employed which helps it to be effective. We need to relax, slow down and run the play like it was called. Otherwise, it's turnovers.

We need point guard Puff Morris right now!

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Slowing down and "relaxing" isn't the answer. Bottom line: From the very beginning Louisville decided that on any high ball screen not only were they going to switch out but if possible double team the ball handler and from that point let the chips fall where they may.

The strategy worked. Way too many times we couldn't react fast enough. I had started a thread about adding more to the half court offense. I realize now that if not adding more, at the very least, Charmin has to work with the team to be better at offsetting this defensive strategy. Moving forward, we're going to keep seeing this type of pressure implemented by future opponents. Addressing it today is not soon enough.

I wonder how much of our performance can be attributed to travel fatigue...?

DWM81 said:

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I wonder how much of our performance can be attributed to travel fatigue...?

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None.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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DWM81 said:

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I wonder how much of our performance can be attributed to travel fatigue...?

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None.

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And you know this because?

BearBint said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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DWM81 said:

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I wonder how much of our performance can be attributed to travel fatigue...?

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None.

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And you know this because?

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You're right, I DON'T KNOW IT. But the team's last road game (excluding the furd game) was January 19th, over two weeks ago. So bringing up "travel fatigue" here is kind of weak. We got beat, it's not complicated.

CalFanatic said:

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wvitbear said:

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We always play poorly the first game of a road trip. Travelling coast to coast is fatiguing. i've done it enough to know. I asked when we left for our road trip but no one answered.

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This is a factor. The bigger factor is teams have a very easy blueprint on how to beat us. Extend the pressure and move up some form of a press on the inbounds.

20-25 turnovers guaranteed.

Puff appears to be a great ball-handler I'm excited to have her as a Bear.

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Substitute Puff for Kayla yesterday, do you really think that makes a difference?
And honestly, the "first game of a road trip" excuse is really weak. Did that affect UNC when they came out to play us? And I guess we really had an unfair advantage in our games against Auburn, Alabama, and NC State. But somehow we lost the advantage when we played UNC. Just maybe in all of these games, the team that played better won. 18-22 year old athletes that haven't been on a plane for 2 1/2 weeks, and its travel fatigue? Nope, not buying that.

^
Thank you!

bearchamp said:

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Moving the ball will defeat the press. Movement off the ball will defeat the press. Having three of the players standing around makes defending easy. Also, travel fatigue is not an excuse. A few hours in an airplane isn't that bad: they are not flying to Europe!

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I'm guessing that kind of travel is harder on academics than on basketball but I'm not speaking from experience. I've had many 12-hour flights to/from New Zealand but only for vacations. The hardest part was not being able to stay longer.

Yeah, we sometimes are out matched athletically and that disrupts our offense

Still Curry is not more athletic than us yet she caused a lot of problems for or offense

I still contend it's the teams who play an extended aggressive pressure defense that causes us the most problems… either because that's their style and their good at it, or because they have better/longer athletes, or both

They completely shut down our primary ball screen offense by aggressively blitzing Ioanna

They also immediately collapsed on Michelle every time she got the ball. She had a great game anyway with her scoring and kick outs

annarborbear said:

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We can be outmatched by depth and athleticism, which are not our strengths. And one of our own counter-strengths - great three point shooting - was simply not there last night.

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Sorry, as someone who has done my share of cross country business travel I can tell you it is very exhausting no matter how old you are. We are 0-3 in first games after travelling east (Clemson, Duke, Louisville) and 19-2 in the rest of our games. You can't tell me that the travel is not a factor.

polarbear said:

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Sorry, as someone who has done my share of cross country business travel I can tell you it is very exhausting no matter how old you are. We are 0-3 in first games after travelling east (Clemson, Duke, Louisville) and 19-2 in the rest of our games. You can't tell me that the travel is not a factor.

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Sorry, but you can't make blatant statements comparing business travel to young athletes, and not checking out the circumstances.

As I stated earlier, before Thursday's game our team had not been on a plane for over two weeks. Louisville was better than us on Thursday, TRAVEL WAS NOT THE FACTOR. Louisville outplayed us. And we lost to Duke by 34 POINTS. Enough with the travel excuses.

polarbear said:

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Sorry, as someone who has done my share of cross country business travel I can tell you it is very exhausting no matter how old you are. We are 0-3 in first games after travelling east (Clemson, Duke, Louisville) and 19-2 in the rest of our games. You can't tell me that the travel is not a factor.

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I can't have the conversation if I don't know if they chartered.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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polarbear said:

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Sorry, as someone who has done my share of cross country business travel I can tell you it is very exhausting no matter how old you are. We are 0-3 in first games after travelling east (Clemson, Duke, Louisville) and 19-2 in the rest of our games. You can't tell me that the travel is not a factor.

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Sorry, but you can't make blatant statements comparing business travel to young athletes, and not checking out the circumstances.

As I stated earlier, before Thursday's game our team had not been on a plane for over two weeks. Louisville was better than us on Thursday, TRAVEL WAS NOT THE FACTOR. Louisville outplayed us. And we lost to Duke by 34 POINTS. Enough with the travel excuses.

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What's it like having all of the right answers and everybody else is wrong...and weak? Hmmmm.
Not to mention using all caps/bold type to emphasize your point. It's like you're yelling at us to make yourself heard.

This is a discussion board. We discuss topics. Express opinions. I didn't sign-up to be lectured on the "value" of my opinion.

Good grief!

SFCALBear72 said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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polarbear said:

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Sorry, as someone who has done my share of cross country business travel I can tell you it is very exhausting no matter how old you are. We are 0-3 in first games after travelling east (Clemson, Duke, Louisville) and 19-2 in the rest of our games. You can't tell me that the travel is not a factor.

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Sorry, but you can't make blatant statements comparing business travel to young athletes, and not checking out the circumstances.

As I stated earlier, before Thursday's game our team had not been on a plane for over two weeks. Louisville was better than us on Thursday, TRAVEL WAS NOT THE FACTOR. Louisville outplayed us. And we lost to Duke by 34 POINTS. Enough with the travel excuses.

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What's it like having all of the right answers and everybody else is wrong...and weak? Hmmmm.
Not to mention using all caps/bold type to emphasize your point. It's like you're yelling at us to make yourself heard.

This is a discussion board. We discuss topics. Express opinions. I didn't sign-up to be lectured on the "value" of my opinion.

Good grief!

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Interesting, I'm not allowed to us caps and bold, but someone else is allowed to say - "don't tell me" " that travel is not a factor." Sounds like selected criteria on what is allowed. And I never said that nobody else's opinion doesn't have value, I simply stated that while travel can come into play, to use it when the team hadn't flown for over two weeks is a bit weak. Alabama, Auburn, and UNC all traveled to Haas to play us. Bama and Auburn lost, but somehow UNC won. Do you think that just maybe they're a better team than the other two? In my humble opinion, they are.

Florida State lost two games out here. their only conference losses. They beat North Carolina.