One, remember this was essentially the "run your turkey and dressing off" game, so that goal was accomplished in an up and down the court game.
Two, as an above poster mentioned, we are still trying to work in our low post game. We did MUCH better at that with Vonleigh this game. When the offense was at the band end, our seats gave a perfect view of some of the entry passes from the club side and they were so open, not because of a height advantage, but because Vonleigh was working to get position low and then sealing off her defender for the easy baseline drop step to basket.
In second half, when NO tried to take that away, Aronette was able to float across the lane and drop some in over front of rim. Even saw some passes in from high post to AV. She's got to continue to work on consistency and endurance for going that hard every play. Picks up some cheap fouls when she gets tired. Also need to keep working with Kyla to become more offensive minded and Kayla to be more defensive minded. All these things are part of a process that takes time. Just keep developing.
Now, as also noted above, free throws and easy misses at the rim have to be taken care off. Too many times we don't reward ourselves for getting to the rim or free throw line. We are running some really good actions on the court, but then blow the finish. That's mostly on the players, but at some point, it has to cost the players something to help drive home how important each opportunity is, and you would rather that something NOT be a loss….
I was most surprised at how ineffective at times our defense looked, and not just on threes. I was expecting Coach Tony to get a little animated and vocal and he never really did. Don't know if that was because we were focusing on offensive goals for this game or if, well, I don't really have another guess. Maybe as we're waiting for our new player to arrive, we're not pushing the players too hard. It's got to be exhausting running an offense as fast-paced as we do and then turn around and run our usual in your face aggressive style player-to-player defense when you're short a major player in your rotation. I have thought it might behoove us to walk the ball down and set up a half court offense a little more, just to save some legs until the cavalry comes. Would also be good to be comfortable being able to play that pace a bit when we get in foul trouble like we did in the Bahamas, but that's not our identity.
Anyway, where we are now is not where we'll end up, so keep the faith and enjoy the process. We'll get there, I believe. Sic'em!