Terrapins Fight Off Illness and Raiders, 74-69

We are somehow the unluckiest team in America. Twice this year the team has gotten sick as a whole and for the third time in three years. And not only do they sick, they get violently ill where they are sluggish on the court. It wasn't a pretty game, but we won and I will chalk it up to being sick. I assume no presentations were done due to Brenda being home sick.

Here are some things I have noticed and don't like 12 games into the season. Please note that I have never coached before so I could be completely wrong on some of these.

1. This is Crystal Langhorne: . She is a National Player of the Year candidate and since her return to the starting line up she has missed only 10 shots. Is there a reason she doesn't touch the ball in the paint every possession? It seems that we have gone back to the guard-based offense again. For the second straight game, she went perfect in the first half and then went missing in the second half.
2. Our defensive focus seems to be stopping people cutting to the lanes and neglecting the outside shooters. Many teams have dribbled to the middle and then kicked it out for wide open three-pointers. We are also going under screens instead of over them which gives a shooter an extra inch to shoot.
3. We don't adjust the gameplan to attack an opponent's weakness. My philosophy is to attack players in foul trouble, ours sometimes seems to neglect that fact. Case in point, Brandi Brown had three fouls in the first half and finished with four (which she picked up with 2:30 to go). She was going nuts behind the arc. Would it have hurt to just pound it into the paint and make Langhorne, Harper, Perry and Mingo attack her to get her out of the game? The same thing happened at Rutgers with Vaughn out and Ajavon with 3.
4. Our press break seems to go backwards instead of forwards and we dribble to corners instead of the middle. We like to play uptempo, why when a press happens we slow down? Attack the the middle of the court and expose the press.
5. It's great to see Coach Park has helped our defense, but I am worried about his coaching. In the three games he has gone solo, we have trailed late and needed superhuman efforts to win. It may be time to let Coach Floyd lead the way and see how the team responds, especially if Coach Frese plans on missing some ACC contests.
6. We look like we go to low in our stances on defense in order to prevent the drive by. Unfortunately, it gives us a slow first step and "shrinks" our players allowing the opposing team an easier look at the hoop on jump shots.
7. Will we ever get respect from the refs? We are the number 6 team in the country and the opposing teams get more closer calls on our home court than we do. You think Tennessee and Connecticut walk away from home games against lesser opponents saying "we got screwed again" Also, I am afraid the bench is going to get a technical this year because I think we have been warned at least twice this year by opposing refs. Not a good impression to make before ACC season even starts.