Rutgers Ends Maryland's Perfect Season, 68-60

Kudos to Rutgers for playing one hell of a game. They came out and did exactly what I thought they would do. Their defense was outstanding and they never got rattled no matter the deficit.

Other the other hand, we got rattled and it showed. Kristi, Marissa and the rest of the team seem frustrated with Rutgers' defense and instead of playing Maryland basketball they fell right into Rutgers' hands. There was a stretch at the end of the first half where we played uptempo and got our shots, but for some reason we went away from that in the second half. On that note, I have three complaints about the second half gameplan.

1. Going small when Vaughn picked up her fourth foul. Vaughn picked her fourth foul at 16:07 and a little over two minutes later with a 9 point lead we went subbed in Ashleigh for Crystal. That gave us four guards and a post player. Rutgers cuts the lead to 2 before we go back to the dual post combination and with that Rutgers was back in the game. Why not put Jade in if you want to go small and let her continue to work her magic down low?
2. Not attacking the paint with Vaughn on the bench and Ajavon with three fouls and in the bonus. Ajavon had three fouls and there was no shot blocker in the middle and we were in the bonus, yet we never drove hard and tried to create contact and get to the free throw line. Plus, with our four guard line up we never reestablished our post game which should have been a gimmie. WHEN WILL OUR PLAYERS LEARN TO FEED THE POST?
3. Staying in the zone too long. The zone was a wonderful idea in the first half as it kept Rutgers from driving to the lane. In the second half, Rutgers made adjustments and we didn't. Once the zone was solved and the score got close we should have switched back to man-to-man to regain our advantage on the boards. One thing I have learned about playing a zone is that it is harder to grab defensive rebounds as there are no block out assignments.

Do I feel Rutgers is a better team than us? No, but I felt they played better than us last night and deserved to win.

Now we have to regroup and win the next 3. Last year that first loss to Duke was our undoing and we pressed the rest of the year. Let's see if a year later has had any impact.