The first five second non-call was almost 7 seconds similar to the 2 non-calls in the first game. The second was called right at the five second mark because as you said, I think they knew they had messed up. Call I was most upset about was right at the end of the game when we're trying to come back and we get a steal Yaya gets hit from the side and behind and no call. Even though that looks like she might've lost the ball at the time of the first contact, I still thought it should've been called. So many would've could'ves.

I think TCU's obvious advantage on defense is there 6'7 presence in the middle who is mobile and a very activeshot blocker. Even when not blocking our shots, she altered so many shots and we threw up so many crazy looking shots with essentially no chance of going in. That makes it a lot easier for their guards to stay on the wing and guard our outside game. We can beat all of their guards off the dribble if there is not a big shot blocker waiting at the other end. Prince doesn't need much help inside. This is a game We really could've used Maryam Dauda if she had followed through on her reported verbal commitment to our coaches. She is 6'5 with long arms and a good vertical and probably could've done a better job at defending Prince down low although Nette did a much better job this game. Prince got the majority of her points shooting between the free-throw line and the arc. Prince would be able to body Maryam but I'm glad to say really couldn't do that with Nette. Sometimes you just have to say good game and move on. I still think we will beat them if we play a hybrid of our standard offense and our attacking the lane for pull-ups and drives. I think we can play similar defense but I hope we never shoot about 26% again.

LTBear19 said:

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I'll chime in before the "Moral Victory Warriors" make an appearance.

But in a nutshell - Yes.


From my seat in the arena, there appeared to be several times during the game where this was quite obvious, and I'll just name a few.

#1 - TCU's 'Glue' Guard (Donovyn Hunter) picked up her 3rd foul 3 minutes into the 2nd qtr. With TCU Coach Mark Campbell electing to stick with Hunter, there is NO reason we shouldn't have been going at her constantly throughout that 2nd qtr to get foul #4 on her. If she picks up #4, that likely blows up TCU's game plan. Instead, not only did we not attack her, she ends up finishing the game with 32 minutes and leading all players in assists.

#2 - We didn't shoot nearly as many open 3's as we should have. I'm ok with missing 3's early on and adjusting as the game progresses. But we only had 12 attempts all game long, and by not taking those shots when they became available, we weren't able to spread the floor better and loosen up the TCU interior defense.

#3 - Substitution patterns were questionable throughout the game, but especially at the midway point in the 4th. Given the situation, you could not afford to sub out Vonleh with Prince still in the game and trailing by 6. Call one of your 4 timeouts at that point if you have to. But her absence led to TCU getting a clean look for a three that pushed their lead to 9 with 4:29 left, and that was effectively the dagger.

#4 - Perimeter defense was atrocious in the 4th, and resulted in 3 wide-open looks that led to our demise. With as well as Vonley played against Prince, you could afford to do less switching and just trust your team to play solid, straight-up defense. If TCU hits tight, contested 3-point shots, then so be it.


Going into the half, I thought to myself that this would be the biggest half of Nicki's career here at Baylor, and would determine whether we'd finally turned the corner in this new era.

Well, sadly, it looks like there is still a bit of work to be done. And assuming she is going to be here for the long haul, then I really hope she can be successful.

But we shouldn't be making any excuses. We led late in the 3rd, Vonley had basically neutralized Prince with her own stellar play, and it was only a 2-point game heading into the 4th qtr.

So we had TCU right where we wanted them, but didn't get it done. And a big part of that is directly tied to coaching.

We can spin this however we want, but once you neutralize Prince (which Vonley did), then you have to take advantage and put your team in the best position to win.

And imo, that didn't happen last night.

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Ridiculous

Very insightful post,Dcheetah.. I agree on all counts. We did shoot so poorly. Holding TCU to 51 points should have been a comfortable win. But there were lots of reasons we shot 26% or so-just a bad shooting night, trying too hard, our short rotation, injuries, senior night (I have observed more than once that is often a distraction), but the main reason was that Prince is, very very good at rushing/altering shots at or near the rim without fouling. It is her best attribute and she is very good at it. We could get to the rim all night, and without her we could have made layup after layup. I believe without her, even this game would have looked more like ISU or KSU.

I still like our team, and pray we get healthy and do some damage in the Big 12 tournament and especially in March Madness. We are playing excellent defense these last few weeks, and that is big.

I had a bird's eye view of Connor's (TCU #2) 3 pointer that helped TCU reach that 9 point lead in the 4th quarter.
She blatantly pushed off twice to free herself for that shot.

The refs certainly let both teams play all game. But, when you use your off hand to clear out the defender for a wide open 3 pointer, that has to be called.

At the end of the day, this was an ugly but very well played game by both teams. Nothing was easy on either end.

I think Nikki's game plan was excellent. Just needed a few more shots to drop.

DP4LIFE said:

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I had a bird's eye view of Connor's (TCU #2) 3 pointer that helped TCU reach that 9 point lead in the 4th quarter.
She blatantly pushed off twice to free herself for that shot.

The refs certainly let both teams play all game. But, when you use your off hand to clear out the defender for a wide open 3 pointer, that has to be called.

At the end of the day, this was an ugly but very well played game by both teams. Nothing was easy on either end.

I think Nikki's game plan was excellent. Just needed a few more shots to drop.

---

Part of being on top of your coaching game is knowing how to work the refs for those 1st 3 quarters, so that they're less likely to ignore that type of call/play at a critical point in the 4th, for fear of facing your wrath.

LTBear19 said:

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DP4LIFE said:

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I had a bird's eye view of Connor's (TCU #2) 3 pointer that helped TCU reach that 9 point lead in the 4th quarter.
She blatantly pushed off twice to free herself for that shot.

The refs certainly let both teams play all game. But, when you use your off hand to clear out the defender for a wide open 3 pointer, that has to be called.

At the end of the day, this was an ugly but very well played game by both teams. Nothing was easy on either end.

I think Nikki's game plan was excellent. Just needed a few more shots to drop.

---

Part of being on top of your coaching game is knowing how to work the refs for those 1st 3 quarters, so that they're less likely to ignore that type of call/play at a critical point in the 4th, for fear of facing your wrath.

---

Completely agree.

Are you questioning whether Coach Nikki was working the refs for the first 3 quarters?

We played elite defense and had an elite atmosphere in Foster. If we have a bad shooting night we win by at least 5. Sometimes the ball won't go in.

DP4LIFE said:

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LTBear19 said:

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DP4LIFE said:

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I had a bird's eye view of Connor's (TCU #2) 3 pointer that helped TCU reach that 9 point lead in the 4th quarter.
She blatantly pushed off twice to free herself for that shot.

The refs certainly let both teams play all game. But, when you use your off hand to clear out the defender for a wide open 3 pointer, that has to be called.

At the end of the day, this was an ugly but very well played game by both teams. Nothing was easy on either end.

I think Nikki's game plan was excellent. Just needed a few more shots to drop.

---

Part of being on top of your coaching game is knowing how to work the refs for those 1st 3 quarters, so that they're less likely to ignore that type of call/play at a critical point in the 4th, for fear of facing your wrath.

---

Completely agree.

Are you questioning whether Coach Nikki was working the refs for the first 3 quarters?

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Well, I think it's obvious Campbell did a better job of working the refs (such as during the infamous 5-second call and anticipating when to get in the refs ears during key moments). He was pretty animated at times, which is sometimes necessary and sets the tone.

Vic Schaefer at Texas is a master at doing just that.

So now, we lost the game because we didn't bully the refs? Did they prevent us from making our shots?

No we were not "out coached". I don't think we were even out played. The women came out of the tunnel ready to play. The ball didn't go through the hoop. Sometimes you have nights like that. Maybe too much pregame hype? I think if we had Buggs it would've made a difference. We lost by 5 in FTW and by 3 w/o Buggs in Waco with atrocious shooting. Wish we would have won because frankly I can't stand the toads and have lost all respect for them with Prince still on the team.

LTBear19 said:

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DP4LIFE said:

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LTBear19 said:

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DP4LIFE said:

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I had a bird's eye view of Connor's (TCU #2) 3 pointer that helped TCU reach that 9 point lead in the 4th quarter.
She blatantly pushed off twice to free herself for that shot.

The refs certainly let both teams play all game. But, when you use your off hand to clear out the defender for a wide open 3 pointer, that has to be called.

At the end of the day, this was an ugly but very well played game by both teams. Nothing was easy on either end.

I think Nikki's game plan was excellent. Just needed a few more shots to drop.

---

Part of being on top of your coaching game is knowing how to work the refs for those 1st 3 quarters, so that they're less likely to ignore that type of call/play at a critical point in the 4th, for fear of facing your wrath.

---

Completely agree.

Are you questioning whether Coach Nikki was working the refs for the first 3 quarters?

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Well, I think it's obvious Campbell did a better job of working the refs (such as during the infamous 5-second call and anticipating when to get in the refs ears during key moments). He was pretty animated at times, which is sometimes necessary and sets the tone.

Vic Schaefer at Texas is a master at doing just that.

---

Whatever.

Refs screwed up on the first 5 second no-call and they knew it. They tried to make up for it when they called a quick 5 seconds on TCU a few possessions later.

Silly to me to blame coaching on a hard fought game that could have gone either way.

Excellent observation.

No mentioned of the fact they were at full strength and we were not.

We were at full strength in Ft Worth and they beat us. Excuses are always incredibly lame. TCU is the better team however, the margin is slim. It's hard to beat a good team 3 times in a season. If they play again in KC Baylor will win.

TCU ran a very disciplined offense. Baylor ran their usual drive to the basket and scooped up very low percentage shots (most of which they missed). They have been doing this all year and it finally caught up to them. Our team has no one who can consistently hit a mid range jumper (look at all of those that Prince made). TCU is just better this year than we are. Can they sustain it....time will tell.

Actually, I was encouraged by the game.

1. We were missing our best player
2. Her replacement was playing with grimacing injury.
3. The net was sewn shut by the basketball gods so much that even Andrews could not hit the side of a barn and Walker could not finish a layup.
4. Yet we had a chance to tie with the final shot


Encouraging!

BubbaBear said:

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TCU ran a very disciplined offense. Baylor ran their usual drive to the basket and scooped up very low percentage shots (most of which they missed). They have been doing this all year and it finally caught up to them. Our team has no one who can consistently hit a mid range jumper (look at all of those that Prince made). TCU is just better this year than we are. Can they sustain it....time will tell.

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This was my observation as well.

But - we do have a player who is very good in the mid-range - Jada Walker.

First time I saw her play was last year against UT - when she basically won that game with mid range jumpers.

Hopefully if they play again, they run sets to free her up.

She won the Va Tech game for us that way too.

So I wanted to look at the game again and make sure I didn't overlook anything or overreact before I posted a more thorough response.

Well, upon second glance, it's still obvious that we were outcoached by Mark Campbell and his staff. And anyone who denies that is kidding themselves.

Look - No one is saying that it was an outright poor coaching job. There were several things/factors that indicated that Nicki Collen and her staff put together a good game-plan going into the rematch.

But a big part of coaching is getting a feel for the game once the ball goes in the air, and adjusting accordingly. And, imo, the lack of adjustments is where the game was lost.


In fact, the first point I brought up was the key issue that came back to bite us.

When TCU's point guard (Donovyn Hunter) picked up her 3rd foul with more than 6 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, that was a blown opportunity.

I paid close attention to Campbell at that time. And while he did pull her out temporarily, TCU's offense became stagnant to the point that even the announcers noticed and made mention of Hunter's importance.

Campbell obviously figured that out quickly, had a talk with Hunter on the bench, then rolled the dice and brought her back in almost immediately afterwards (most coaches, including our previous Hall of Fame Coach, would bench a player with 2 fouls in a 2nd quarter, no matter what). But here he was, letting her play with 3.

At that point, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was thinking that every possession should have ended with her player going right at her (this only happened once, when Bella scored easily over Hunter). By doing this - Either the TCU coach realizes what's going on and pulls her, he leaves her in and she becomes a major liability on the defensive end, or she picks up foul #4 (and TCU's game plan goes completely out the window).

But once he realized we had no intention of applying any pressure, he had no reason to pull Hunter for an extended period of time.

And not only did Hunter stay in for the majority of the game, but guess who assisted on the critical back-to-back 3's by TCU in the 4th? Yep, Hunter.

Allowing TCU off the hook there would be considered coaching malpractice in some circles.

And that's just one key instance where Mark Campbell outcoached Nicki Collen.


Also, are we just going to ignore the coach's inability to get our players to stop taking bad, low-percentage shots throughout the game? Shouldn't that be discussed at halftime - during the "Adjustments" conversation?

If you are taking high percentage shots, but they just aren't falling, then there's nothing you can do about that.

But too many of our shots were of the "throw it up and pray it goes in" variety. Does anyone disagree with this?


And why we didn't even attempt a Christian Laettner-type play at the end of the game, instead of launching a prayer from in front of the TCU bench, I will never know.


Also, for those who were making a big fuss about the 5-second call - Yes, Campbell got the time-out in at the last second. If you watch the video again, he did beat the 5-second count, albeit barely (He made sure of that by running down the sideline like a madman to ensure the time-out was granted).


Bottom Line: Campbell outcoached Collen on Sunday. It is what it is.

Hopefully she can return the favor this week (assuming we meet again).

You have your opinion and I respect that, but I respectfully disagree.

LTBear19 said:

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So I wanted to look at the game again and make sure I didn't overlook anything or overreact before I posted a more thorough response.

Well, upon second glance, it's still obvious that we were outcoached by Mark Campbell and his staff. And anyone who denies that is kidding themselves.

Look - No one is saying that it was an outright poor coaching job. There were several things/factors that indicated that Nicki Collen and her staff put together a good game-plan going into the rematch.

But a big part of coaching is getting a feel for the game once the ball goes in the air, and adjusting accordingly. And, imo, the lack of adjustments is where the game was lost.


In fact, the first point I brought up was the key issue that came back to bite us.

When TCU's point guard (Donovyn Hunter) picked up her 3rd foul with more than 6 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, that was a blown opportunity.

I paid close attention to Campbell at that time. And while he did pull her out temporarily, TCU's offense became stagnant to the point that even the announcers noticed and made mention of Hunter's importance.

Campbell obviously figured that out quickly, had a talk with Hunter on the bench, then rolled the dice and brought her back in almost immediately afterwards (most coaches, including our previous Hall of Fame Coach, would bench a player with 2 fouls in a 2nd quarter, no matter what). But here he was, letting her play with 3.

At that point, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was thinking that every possession should have ended with her player going right at her (this only happened once, when Bella scored easily over Hunter). By doing this - Either the TCU coach realizes what's going on and pulls her, he leaves her in and she becomes a major liability on the defensive end, or she picks up foul #4 (and TCU's game plan goes completely out the window).

But once he realized we had no intention of applying any pressure, he had no reason to pull Hunter for an extended period of time.

And not only did Hunter stay in for the majority of the game, but guess who assisted on the critical back-to-back 3's by TCU in the 4th? Yep, Hunter.

Allowing TCU off the hook there would be considered coaching malpractice in some circles.

And that's just one key instance where Mark Campbell outcoached Nicki Collen.


Also, are we just going to ignore the coach's inability to get our players to stop taking bad, low-percentage shots throughout the game? Shouldn't that be discussed at halftime - during the "Adjustments" conversation?

If you are taking high percentage shots, but they just aren't falling, then there's nothing you can do about that.

But too many of our shots were of the "throw it up and pray it goes in" variety. Does anyone disagree with this?


And why we didn't even attempt a Christian Laettner-type play at the end of the game, instead of launching a prayer from in front of the TCU bench, I will never know.


Also, for those who were making a big fuss about the 5-second call - Yes, Campbell got the time-out in at the last second. If you watch the video again, he did beat the 5-second count, albeit barely (He made sure of that by running down the sideline like a madman to ensure the time-out was granted).


Bottom Line: Campbell outcoached Collen on Sunday. It is what it is.

Hopefully she can return the favor this week (assuming we meet again).

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Did not convince me. I totally disagree with you. Sorry...did not get outcoached.

It's a lot easier to get your midrange jumper off when you're 6-7 as opposed to 5-9.

Collen was certainly not out coached.. You really point to one thing with Hunter. How about the entire game when we trapped the point and essentially destroyed their pick and roll game that killed us in game number one with HVL and Madison Conner. TCU never adjusted to that.You can say the same with TCU. We had several players with four fouls in the fourth quarter and none of our players were attacked either. Most of their big baskets late in the game came on missed switches or a push off in transition. HVL turned it over 7 times in the game and our D came up with multiple turnovers. They hit a couple threes late when we missed switches. Nicki said the switches had been coached and just got missed. Nicki said they coached on what to do and it just got missed in the heat of the moment.

Even with several crazy shots we took at the rim, we still missed at least four or more point blank lay-ups at the glass that should have been easy 2s. If we had our own 6 foot seven shot blocking Center patrolling the lane (someday maybe) that needs almost no help, I'm pretty sure we would've won that game easily by double digits because then we could clamp down on every perimeter player andthey do not have the players who can consistently break you down going to the rim.

We did not have a timeout after that free-throw with two point something seconds left so it was the inbounder who made the decision to throw it short to Sarah. I have no idea what Nicki said to the team before that free-throw on how to do the throw in play so maybe Someone will ask sometime.

We played the team considered the best team in conference with the highest marquee out of Conference wins almost to a draw without our best player and two of our top players being injured, but playing through it.(Bella and Jada - high ankle sprain). Jada never went through one practice the entire week and her first action that week was during shoot around. She did a fantastic job onHVL only getting beat once that I can recall but she definitely missed on some of her traps that could've been corrected if she had been able to go through Practices.

I also loved that they were obviously coached to take more mid range shots and unfortunately, we just couldn't make any. Jada made the only one that I can remember and even she missed one or two others. I did like that strategy.

Anyway, I thought our coaching was very good and we just need to keep learning our assignments and playing them better and certainly finish better.

While you do bring up some valid points, it still does not negate the fact that we dropped the ball when it came to Hunter. If we had forced Campbell's hand there and taken advantage, there's a good chance their whole operation gets blown up, and switching becomes the least of your worries. That's just how important Hunter was at steadying their ship.

With her out (or playing limited minutes) they are a completely different team, and we're probably Big XII Champs today.

As for TCU making adjustments, they really didn't need to, since they held the lead almost the entire way (we only led twice the entire game). And while we didn't find ourselves down by 20 this time around, we did end up down by 10 with 1 minute to go. For those keeping score, we scored just 3 points in the 4th quarter (until that final minute).

And we can't really complain about other teams having a 6'7 post player, when we let our own 6'7 player walk in the offseason.

If people want to applaud the overall effort, that's one thing.

But let's not act like Nicki Collen put on a coaching clinic and ran circles around Mark Campbell, because that most definitely did not happen.

If it had, we all would have been watching the team cut down the nets on Sunday Night.

Our "own" 6'7" center was not effective. She couldn't even jump to get off the floor for rebounds. No one here shed a tear when she left. That is strawman number #1. Strawman #2 is saying people were acting like CNC outcoached Campbell. No one has said that, not even anything close to that. The only person that has talked about any "outcoaching" anyone else is you.

Look, if you don't want CNC as our coach, just state it. The whole thing has been based on Hunter. Well, let's suppose we had gotten her into more foul trouble. I have no doubt this coach who "outcoached" ours would have come up with an alternative approach. You don't change the game in the 2nd quarter without it affecting the entire rest of the game in ways that are not expected or assumed. And you are making all kinds of assumptions about how the rest of the game would have played out.

WE COULD NOT HIT THE OCEAN WITH OUR SHOTS. That is why we lost the game.

blackie said:

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Our "own" 6'7" center was not effective. She couldn't even jump to get off the floor for rebounds. No one here shed a tear when she left. That is strawman number #1. Strawman #2 is saying people were acting like CNC outcoached Campbell. No one has said that, not even anything close to that. The only person that has talked about any "outcoaching" anyone else is you.

Look, if you don't want CNC as our coach, just state it. The whole thing has been based on Hunter. Well, let's suppose we had gotten her into more foul trouble. I have no doubt this coach who "outcoached" ours would have come up with an alternative approach. You don't change the game in the 2nd quarter without it affecting the entire rest of the game in ways that are not expected or assumed. And you are making all kinds of assumptions about how the rest of the game would have played out.

WE COULD NOT HIT THE OCEAN WITH OUR SHOTS. That is why we lost the game.

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Blackie - Just Ignore LTBear19 !!! Obviously has a personal bias against CHC for whatever reason and there is an old adage that applies to LT - Don't confuse me with the facts I have already made a decision !!!
Not worth responding to a troll.
If everyone ignores ....... maybe the troll gets the hint and goes back under the rock.

I have to give it to you and Blackie. You all are digging in as hard for Nicki Collen as some on this site have done (and still do) for Kim Mulkey.

Not once acknowledging that maybe, just maybe there were some areas where CNC could have done a better job on Sunday.

I'm sure she'll be the first to tell you that she wished she could go back to Sunday afternoon and do some things differently.

Some people would rather stick their head in the sand and be the biggest homers than simply admit that Campbell did a better job on Sunday.

Also, I never once said that I wanted CNC to leave. She is a great ambassador for the University and she is doing her best to fill the huge shoes she's had to fill.

But I'm not going to be a sunshine pumper either, and just pretend that coaching mistakes did not happen.

If one ignores that, then they're no different than the one's who thought the former coach could do no wrong and walk on water.

LTBear19 said:

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I have to give it to you and Blackie. You all are digging in as hard for Nicki Collen as some on this site have done (and still do) for Kim Mulkey.

Not once acknowledging that maybe, just maybe there were some areas where CNC could have done a better job on Sunday.

I'm sure she'll be the first to tell you that she wished she could go back to Sunday afternoon and do some things differently.

Some people would rather stick their head in the sand and be the biggest homers than simply admit that Campbell did a better job on Sunday.

Also, I never once said that I wanted CNC to leave. She is a great ambassador for the University and she is doing her best to fill the huge shoes she's had to fill.

But I'm not going to be a sunshine pumper either, and just pretend that coaching mistakes did not happen.

If one ignores that, then they're no different than the one's who thought the former coach could do no wrong and walk on water.

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Go touch some grass.....

As a former coach, there are very few games where you didn't think you could have done something different.

NOBODY....absolutely NOBODY is saying that CNC is perfect or could not have done some things differently in the game. We all responded to a post that asked if CNC was "outcoached" based on one situation in a game where there are dozen of situations that can affect the outcome of a game and a supposed failure of the coach to bully the officials. I am certain also that Campbell could have done some things differently in the game. Do we need to go look at those and say he was outcoached in those situations. No, that is a ridiculous waste of time. Each made their own decisions as to how to "coach" the game. I am certain that both coaches would say they would like to do some things differently once they know how things turned out. But you don't get to do that. None of us do.

I nor anyone else outside of the coach and the players knows what players were coached to do. They may have done what they were told to do or did not. They also may not have been coached to do something a fan would suggest because of what vulnerabilities it could open up elsewhere from doing that, something that is beyond our pay grade to know. One could just as well make a case that CNC outcoached Campbell based on just being able to keep the game close without our first team all-conference rebounding machine along with two of the remaining starters not being 100%. But I am not claiming that.

We lost because we couldn't make shots, some being very relatively easy shots for a skilled basketball player.

I'm done with this. It is a waste of time to defend arguments I never made.

Why would Campbell lose any sleep over mistakes he made during the game?

So what if he didn't coach a perfect game?

He coached well enough that when it was all said and done, his team left Waco as Big XII Champs.

And ultimately, that is what mattered.

But you're right, it might be a waste of time reasoning with you on this one, because you've 100% dug in and want to die on the "we only lost because we missed shots" hill.

I can't even get you to acknowledge that putting pressure on the TCU coach (as it pertained to Hunter) wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world to do, with the championship hanging in the balance.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the players were not instructed to consistently go after Hunter in that 2nd quarter (unless they just completely ignored Collen, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the case).

Yes, we missed shots (both good ones and downright terrible ones).

But had our players been put in better positions by the coaches at several critical junctures of the game, then we might have been able to overcome the missed shots and still walked away as champs.