Was just wondering the same thing.
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Sam making her season debut tonight.
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Sam’s knees didn’t look great but they looked way better than last year.
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The women’s team has this weird thing where they play their opponent close through the first 3 quarters and then absolutely annihilate them in the 4th quarter. Like, tonight, they were up 6 after Q1, up 10 at the half, up 11 at the end up Q3 (after W&M cut it to 5 or so), and then everyone was disappointed W&M hit a final long contested 2 to get the final margin under 30.
After 3 games (against fairly weak opponents), the women have outscored their opponents by a total of 78 points, and 45 of that has been in Q4.
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Has that ever happened where the men’s and women’s teams had the same game score back to back nights?
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Where’s Danny Neckle when you need him?
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It’s not nearly the wealth of info you can get on the men’s side, but Massey at least provides a top-to-bottom ranking with some basic off/def ratings, similar to Kenpom’s “main page.” I mostly use it for general expectations on opponent quality, e.g., whether Campbell is bad or really bad or almost halfway okay (answer: bad), what kind of point spread is expected against W&M (I think it was 22), do we have a shot against Oklahoma (we do*), that kind of thing.
*Massey has us at #58 and Oklahoma at #14, but we’re only 5-point underdogs with a 38% chance of winning. And with Sam back, we are a much better team.
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I love how Massey has a rating for pretty much everything. He rates all levels of men’s basketball - D1, D2, D3, NAIA, and more. I have no idea how something like that could be accurate but he goes for it.
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Lol yeah I’ve thought the same thing. It’s wild that he does high school football, Nascar, PGA… everything. For that reason you have to question the quality of it all, but at least it’s something.
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I think his method is pretty simple. He says on his site that “only the score, venue, and date of each game” are used to calculate the Massey ratings. Preseason ratings are just a weighted average of past season’s final ratings, no other factors included.
The hard part is getting the data. I have no idea how he gets women’s club handball data, for example.
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Every game I keep looking at the women’s 3P% and can not even imagine the riots that would ensue on LRA if the men’s team % was that low.
They need to figure out how to be more selective… and some of them shouldn’t be taking them at all…
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Absolutely, Sam is a beast. Though it actively pains me to watch her play, because she can do anything superbly well on a basketball court, except be free from the constant pain of her joints disintegrating.
I went to a D3 school for undergrad and one girl (who I may have had a huge crush on) was the star of the team. Obvious starter and team MVP as a freshman and easily good enough to play D1 and maybe even serious D1… Except that at 17 she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Constant pain in her knees, hands and feet and it was only going to get worse over time. Still played and was MVP and everything, but its hard to watch the painful losing battle against time.
On a more cheerful note, with a smidge more gelling and tighter ball-control, this could be a tournament team when Mir comes back.
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Yep. Lauterbach is 6’7" and I believe half her FGA have been from 3 point range (or at least the shots she’s intended to take, she gets called for a lot of travels. Actually, now that I mention it, UVA has been called for an astounding number of travels during the two games I’ve seen in person. I’m guessing 10 between the games? Also, early in Q1 there was a jump ball and I was telling my older daughter (the non-sports fan of the two) how it worked and that they were mildly uncommon, maybe 1-2/game. Then there were 4 in the first quarter) like, WTH is going on there? Just get her the ball close to the hoop and have her make a layup.
Fwiw, I didn’t see Sam play at Notre Dame, so I don’t know what Original Sam looked like, but I thought she looked healthier and more comfortable last night than she did at any point last season. In any case, she made a huge impact in limited minutes. Definitely elevates the team. Also great to see how happy she looked out there.
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It was the same last year… soooo many travel calls.
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Jillian Brown has zero chill in all areas of her game. Sometimes that’s awesome (she’s our leading rebounder at 5-10?!), and sometimes it means she’s bricking very difficult threes. She’s fun though.
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Lauterbach and Noyan feels like such luxuries after last year. You just know that at some point London and Cam will sit with foul trouble (Cam getting benched with 2 fouls in Q2, if not in Q1, is like death and taxes), and late last year that meant Lawson was forced to defend opposing bigs. Now that we actually have depth in the frontcourt, it feels almost weird. (And with Mox’s fast style of play, we really need depth, we can’t have these lumbering bigs sprinting up and down the court all game.)
Speaking of death and taxes, Cady Pauley will never, ever pass up a shot. Unfortunately, she’s not hitting them, same as most of last year. I’m still hopeful she can turn that around (she always looks good in warmups), but if she can’t, we really can’t afford to have her out there. She becomes a bunch of wasted possessions.
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Yeah, I have a soft spot for Pauley since she followed Coach Mox here from Missouri, she’s not a gazelle-like stereotypical D1 athlete, and was apparently her HS’s all-time leading scorer. And she can kinda do everything on the court, back-up ballhandler, pretty good rebounder, scoring from all three levels, etc. Which is useful in a sub.
But she’s 1/14 to start the season after shooting under 30% last year despite supposedly being a good shooter. That’s fine against W&M, but in games that matter she needs to either start hitting them or be content with being a glue-guy.
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They looked like they would mesh well the first showing or two, but now it’s back to the same old thing IMO. Last night was extremely messy with selfish plays. Throwing shots up for no reason especially when there were multiple players wide open… The current starting line up seems to all be competing with each other instead of their opponent. Defense is lacking. And the ones who play good defense aren’t played enough. You can shoot all you want but defense wins games. I watched Oklahoma play and a lot has to change before Sunday or they will not come out on top. We need to keep people in who play both sides consistently.
I love seeing Sam back in and she makes a huge difference on the floor. I also love “Os” presence on the floor when they decide to utilize her. Jillian is a force to be reckoned with also. Hoping to see something different this Sunday.
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Welcome!
To your point, I think the team hierarchy is definitely in flux with so many new pieces, so roles are up for grabs. I think that contributes to the hectic feeling of it all.
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