For some reason they played a nooner on a Wednesday that isn't in the week between Christmas and New Years. As I still have vacation time to use up I took the afternoon off and went.
Pitt beat North Alabama 85-83. Pitt actually trailed most of the first half and into the third quarter. But Pitt had a 28-9 run from late in the 2nd to early in the 3rd, which was enough to carry the day.
I still don't get what they are trying to accomplish on defense. It was pretty clear that the only way North Alabama was going to win, or heck, even stay in the game, was by making a lot of threes. And yet somehow we let them get off 33 of them, of which they made 14. They made 8 of 15 in the first half. And most of them were with the defense sagging off and just giving them open looks. As an example, with about a minute and a half left we had a two point lead. NA is taking the ball out under the basket. We are so worried about the inside game that if you had drawn a line parallel to the baseline about five feet out from the basket, all five Pitt players would have been between that line and the baseline. So NA just passes the ball out to a shooter wide open on the wing. Fortunately for Pitt, she missed. But that kind of defense is just inexplicable.
And I also don't understand the substitution patterns that we use. We have players that have good games, and then in the next game barely play. We have someone like Aislin Malcolm who has had games that she hasn't played or hardly played at all, and today she was on the court for almost all of the last five minutes of a close game. At some point in time they have got to figure out who their best players are and start substituting accordingly. Decide who the best eight or so are and play them that way. It's not like we press a lot or play high intensity defense that requires a lot of substituting to keep players fresh. So figure out who your best players are, and start playing them more.
Pitt beat North Alabama 85-83. Pitt actually trailed most of the first half and into the third quarter. But Pitt had a 28-9 run from late in the 2nd to early in the 3rd, which was enough to carry the day.
I still don't get what they are trying to accomplish on defense. It was pretty clear that the only way North Alabama was going to win, or heck, even stay in the game, was by making a lot of threes. And yet somehow we let them get off 33 of them, of which they made 14. They made 8 of 15 in the first half. And most of them were with the defense sagging off and just giving them open looks. As an example, with about a minute and a half left we had a two point lead. NA is taking the ball out under the basket. We are so worried about the inside game that if you had drawn a line parallel to the baseline about five feet out from the basket, all five Pitt players would have been between that line and the baseline. So NA just passes the ball out to a shooter wide open on the wing. Fortunately for Pitt, she missed. But that kind of defense is just inexplicable.
And I also don't understand the substitution patterns that we use. We have players that have good games, and then in the next game barely play. We have someone like Aislin Malcolm who has had games that she hasn't played or hardly played at all, and today she was on the court for almost all of the last five minutes of a close game. At some point in time they have got to figure out who their best players are and start substituting accordingly. Decide who the best eight or so are and play them that way. It's not like we press a lot or play high intensity defense that requires a lot of substituting to keep players fresh. So figure out who your best players are, and start playing them more.