Well looks like the extra day of rest paid off on the defensive end as Ohio State was held to 29.6 shooting from the field, the second lowest we have given up this year. I loved the defensive intensity we showed last night as we challenged every one of Ohio State's shots. There was hustle all over the place. We could have rebounded better but when one team misses 50 shots, it's going to be hard to grab them all.
It was great to see Jade rebound from thee subpar performances. She seems to relish playing against these All-American type players. The game also showed that you can try and shut down Kristi, season-low 9 points, but then the inside game with kill you as Crystal, Laura and Jade combined for 39 points. The turnovers are still an issue but we seemed to cut down on them in the second half. I noticed that the turnovers are primarily a result of Toliver trying to play faster than the game. She forced a bunch of passes because she wanted to get going quickly. My only true disappointment was that we didn't keep attacking Lavender (boy wouldn't she look good in Red and not Scarlet?). She picked up a foul at 18:43 on a charge and didn't get another one the rest of the game. She was great inside and we needed to get her out of there.
Player of the Game: Marissa Coleman. Much has been said about her lack of defense but here is the stat line for OSU's star player: 2-11 (2-6 from 3), 0-0 from the line, 6 points. Packer was averaging over 17 points per game and shooting over 50 percent inside the arc. She made no shots inside the arc and one of her three-pointers came when Marissa was on the bench. After Marissa was done shutting down Packer, she scored 14 points and grabbed a crucial last second rebound to keep us from losing the rebounding battle.
Things to work on: Resting again. We have 4 games next week.
Next up: Rutgers on Monday at the RAC at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 as part of the Jimmy V Classic. A win will almost certainly lock up a 1 seed in March and will make C. Vivian Stringer even crazier than she already is.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Terps Stifle Buckeyes 77-53
Posted by Joey Nations at 10:25 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The Rutgers game will be Maryland's first loss of the season. Maryland has always been a finesse team, and they won't be able to handle Rutger's down-and-dirty style of play. It's going to be an ugly brawl of a game. The defense for Rutgers will be the toughest that Maryland has faced so far. Rutgers will be well rested, and they will have had plenty of time to prepare. Neither team will score over 60 points.
On Toliver, a couple of her good passes were flubbed last night.
Her mates will become more alert to the "new Toliver" and be ready for those passes soon, and the turovers should decline as the season goes on.
Toliver is always pushing, pushing her team to greater heights--probably at Brenda's urging--which results in excessive turnovers short-term. In the longer term, you get a faster level of play which maximizes the Terps' athleticism and talent against the better teams.
At the NCAAs, no one is going to surprisingly out-quick the Terps this year, we all hope.
Post a Comment