This is almost too demoralizing to watch. Way too many sloppy passes and poor angles on shots. Whoever said this was a practice season was right.

21 turnovers in half of the game

Believe it or not, we out-rebounded them 12-10. That's a start.

what is a coach to do when you have one legit ball handler against a pressing, trapping defense?

UofA hits 60% because they have made 11 layups out of 16 baskets. This is the weakest Div I team that I have seen play in a long time. I knew this was going to happen-that's why I didn't prepare a pre-game analysis. However, I thought that Cal would lose by 20 points per half, not 30! Cal has four players that can be competitive but the rest can not at this point.

Agree. If I was an opposing coach with quick guards, I'd press us contionusly throughout the game. Our bigs and backup guards are just not good enough ball handlers and passers this season. I may stick around to see if Muca can make a shot this game. Hope she can.

HoopDreams said:

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I'm liking Daniels the more I see her. Impressed with her solid ball handling, and she gets her elbow under the ball when she shoots so it's almost always inline with the basket

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just as I say that she misses badly from 15 feet

With all of the TO's, it is hard to work on anything in the way of player development. But Samb did just pass the ball back out of the post when guarded, which is something I have been wanting to see.

Barnes continuing to play her starters in a blow-out, risking injury.

Sierra with a good shot. Maybe she can hit a 3?

smh said:

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GoBears635 said:

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This is almost too demoralizing to watch..

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Touche.

Two Cal players receive a passing grade today: Dalayah Daniels & Evelien Lutje-Schipholt. Michelle Onyiah had her worst game of the season this afternoon, going 1-9. She missed two foot cripples and a couple of layups on drives. She fumbled away a wide-open pass in the 1st half on a back-door play. Onyiah should have scored ten points but got three. Leilani McIntosh was embarrassed by the best guard in the league in Aari McDonald. She held her to three shot attempts and stole the ball from her six times. Leilani failed to register a steal in the game.

The entire team failed free-throw shooting 101, only converting 6 out of 15! Cal turned the ball over 31 times, resulting in 20 layups for the Wildcats. UofA was up by approximately forty points before winning by 36...Today was a major step backwards for Charmin's program.

I liked the fact that nobody quit. Our posts were allowed to work on their one-on-one games in the final quarter. Lots of further work required on that. I think it was harder to do that when they were tired.

I always think that the Assist/TO ratio is the biggest concern. 8/31 in this one. Can't tell until next year if we are ever going to overcome these negative ratios.

Was also thinking about how miserable it must be to be on these Covid-era road trips with everything shut down and all of the restrictions.

Schroeder71 said:

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Two Cal players receive a passing grade today: Dalayah Daniels & Evelien Lutje-Schipholt. Michelle Onyiah had her worst game of the season this afternoon, going 1-9. She missed two foot cripples and a couple of layups on drives. She fumbled away a wide-open pass in the 1st half on a back-door play. Onyiah should have scored ten points but got three. Leilani McIntosh was embarrassed by the best guard in the league in Aari McDonald. She held her to three shot attempts and stole the ball from her six times. Leilani failed to register a steal in the game.

The entire team failed free-throw shooting 101, only converting 6 out of 15! Cal turned the ball over 31 times, resulting in 20 layups for the Wildcats. UofA was up by approximately forty points before winning by 36...Today was a major step backwards for Charmin's program.

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I noticed that Onyiah's left wrist (thumb?) was bandaged. I don't remember that agaist ASU. Don't know how that might have affected her game, but it probably didn't help.

As for keeping Arizona's starters in the game, it was bad form and should be remembered by our roster full of freshmen. Arizona did get beat by Stanford by 27 points on Friday, so they might have wanted to run up the score to blur the memory of that game - but that's no justification.

SFCALBear72 said:

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Please do send these comments to Coach Smith..

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fine post #2000 '72. signed, class of 73

Schroeder71 said:

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Leilani McIntosh has tremendously improved this season and had six steals in the ASU game. Her three point shooting has taken a major leap forward this season. Leilani is usually faster than her opposition but today she was outclassed by a future WNBA player in Aari McDonald.

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Yeah, I've noticed that Lei's long range shot has been going in

today she is the only legit 3 point threat (meaning defenses need to defend her 3 point shot)

A couple other players might have an adequate 3 point shot, but their percentages mean that defenses aren't worried about them much. Defenses figure the bigger priority is to defend the paint so they pack it in

Perhaps coach needs to design some plays to get Lei clean looks from 3

HoopDreams said:

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Schroeder71 said:

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Leilani McIntosh has tremendously improved this season and had six steals in the ASU game. Her three point shooting has taken a major leap forward this season. Leilani is usually faster than her opposition but today she was outclassed by a future WNBA player in Aari McDonald.

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Yeah, I've noticed that Lei's long range shot has been going in

today she is the only legit 3 point threat (meaning defenses need to defend her 3 point shot)

A couple other players might have an adequate 3 point shot, but their percentages mean that defenses aren't worried about them much. Defenses figure the bigger priority is to defend the paint so they pack it in

Perhaps coach needs to design some plays to get Lei clean looks from 3

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This is a good point. Maybe a kickout to her from a well gruarded big is the intended plan, but getting the ball into the big has been difficult and our bigs think shoot into a triple team first rather than passing back out quickly.

I kept hearing that Muca is a good shooter in practice, but we haven't seen it in games. In football, coaches often give an inexperienced QB some easy throws early to build confidance. If Muca is a naturally good shooter, it might be wise to design some plays to give her an open shot or two. If she can make a few, it might help to get her back on track. We need someone else who can make shots from outside.

Just read that Barnes has had 10 players transfer out since she took over at Arizona, replacing many of them with better transfers in. So icing some of her players on the bench in a game like this may have been her way of sending the "transfer out" message to some additional roster members.

>Perhaps coach needs to design some plays to get Lei clean looks from 3

Again, you cannot "design plays" to create open shots on a regular basis, especially with a roster that is so limited offensively. You can run a play once, or sometimes twice, that will get a player open, but after that, adjustments are made.

If coaches could "design plays" to get open shots, then pretty much every shot would be open. You need players to make plays -- penetrate off the dribble, say -- to distort the defense and create openings. If your offensive players can't make individual plays, then at this level, defense will dominate.

And as for playing her starters in a blowout, I've never understood why college coaches do this, but they do. It makes little sense, especially against a team like Cal that can't really score, but you see it all the time. Weird ...

ClayK said:

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>Perhaps coach needs to design some plays to get Lei clean looks from 3

Again, you cannot "design plays" to create open shots on a regular basis, especially with a roster that is so limited offensively. You can run a play once, or sometimes twice, that will get a player open, but after that, adjustments are made

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You can certainly design plays to get a player open and the best time to do so are after timeouts

Also, you design sets or actions that players can "run" to get players shots (not just 3 pointers but shots in the paint, shots at high post, etc). I'm sure our coach's do have plays/sets to get certain players open looks in certain places

Also, if a play actually worked twice, it would be a very good thing as scoring more than 40 points will be a challenge this year.

I know you know all this, so confused at your apparent frustration with my post

HoopDreams said:

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ClayK said:

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>Perhaps coach needs to design some plays to get Lei clean looks from 3

Again, you cannot "design plays" to create open shots on a regular basis, especially with a roster that is so limited offensively. You can run a play once, or sometimes twice, that will get a player open, but after that, adjustments are made

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You can certainly design plays to get a player open and the best time to do so are after timeouts

Also, you design sets or actions that players can "run" to get players shots (not just 3 pointers but shots in the paint, shots at high post, etc). I'm sure our coach's do have plays/sets to get certain players open looks in certain places

Also, if a play actually worked twice, it would be a very good thing as scoring more than 40 points will be a challenge this year.

I know you know all this, so confused at your apparent frustration with my post

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Hoop Dreams - I enjoy your perspective on the Men's Board - this i my first post/questions regarding the women's team. A honest/pull no punches assessment for me would be appreciated. Questions: 1) I remember we had recruited two 5 star players (are they playing? if so an assessment) 2) The scores I have followed are showing an an outclassed (and often crushing losses) team with no wins, why? The HC is in her 2nd year and thus far no growth/progress has been shown - I ask because when the Men's team has been struggling, strong criticism was voiced. Note - I have not seen any games this season, but I was an former girls AAU coach and support our teams.thanks.

If you don't have guards who can score you are in trouble. Especially against Arizona who applies the most pressure of any team in the Pac 12 on defense. This is our worst matchup of the season.

Just a perception and not based on data, but it seems to me that McIntosh is often open, but refuses to put up a shot. especially early in the clock. Instead, she is really focused on getting the ball to others and on getting the team into its offense. Ironically, if she did start shooting more often, it might actually open up the offense a bit more. Also, she could get past a player on occasion who is rushing out to guard her.

Maybe I'm just not a very good coach but I've never been able to draw up plays that create shots for specific players on bad teams -- at least against other coaches who have a clue.

Let's talk about plays out of timeouts a bit ...

First, it's very difficult, even at the college and pro level, to successfully execute plays you haven't practiced. Most college teams have about four or five sideline plays, and baseline plays (many have fewer). These are the ones they run, and they are scouted. You can change one or two during practice, but experienced players and coaches are going to adjust to screen-the-screener and other typical tactics pretty much on the fly.

So to imagine a coach sitting down, with an inexperienced team, and drawing up a play the players have never seen or practiced before, and expecting it to be run properly -- it's really not going to happen. (I had a really good high school team, a veteran team, and we had one basic play we would never run right. We finally just started laughing about it.)

Also note that a couple of the plays you practice are get-the-ball-in plays rather than scoring plays because really, getting the ball in is the first priority.

What that means is that during a timeout you can call one of the plays you've practiced, and go over it -- maybe with a single tweak -- and emphasize certain options. But remember, the coach on the other side is saying "Look, 24 and 12 are the only kids who can score, so make sure we stick with them. The others aren't going to hurt us, and if they do, we can live with it."

Now if I have a team with multiple scorers -- or even multiple three-point shooters -- the equation changes. The defense now can be distorted by the various threats who are on the floor. And of course, scorers can score even when guarded reasonably well, so that "good-looking play" is just my quick, fast, talented player making a strong cut to leave the defender a half-step behind and then burying a 12-footer.