On The Sideline: Looking Back...and Ahead
Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Last week, we played our first exhibition game against Northwest Christian University.  It was also our first game of the season with official uniforms and officials in uniforms.  Needless to say, our players are always excited about the game,  and some – particularly the young ones – very nervous. As coaches, it is always heartwarming to see this kind of emotion; that little-kid-in-us feeling that comes with first times, and first-time impressions.

We played NCU hard and despite not having a couple of our players – Taylor Lilley and Lindsey Saffold – we were able to play through the nerves and excitement and come out on the other side with a solid performance. 

Our opponents, Northwest Christian University, from just across campus, defensively played zone against us for 40 minutes.  Leading up to that game, we hadn’t done a lot of zone offensive work in practice, so I was very happy with the opportunity to use this part of the game as a teaching moment for our team.

While we had our “basic” offensive scheme to run against the zone, there are three common things that we try to do against any  zone, even before we think about the x’s and o’s of the scheme.  

The first thing we always want to do against a zone is run on it before the zone gets set up (we did that scoring 14 points in transition).  Secondly,  we want to have an inside out mentality against the zone (again we were successful as we got balanced scoring from both post: 45 points and perimeter: 42 points), and lastly, we want to rebound against a zone defense (which we did with 18 offensive rebounds).

With these ideas in mind, the teaching moment then becomes the players ability to put these concepts into action, and to do it together.  For our first game, I felt we did things together very well, as we had 21 assists on 34 baskets, which also keeps us true to one of our keys to a successful season this year, and that is to share the basketball.

And what we also truly enjoyed on the night of our first game was sharing the evening with our friends and fans in Mac Court.  WOW!   I know our freshmen; Amanda, Darriel,  Jasmin, and our junior college transfer Lindsey, were very much wide-eyed to see 2, 247 fans standing for the fight song and ready to cheer them on.

And I can tell you that all our returners also love the moment of introduction, the band playing and all our fans standing and clapping. And in the interest of a full-disclosure blog, it must be known that even this old “hooper” still gets emotional herself!

Which takes us to this week and our second and last exhibition game of the year against Western Oregon on Monday night.  Similar to the first game against NCU, we were unable to dress our whole squad once again. 

Last week in practice, Rita Kollo planted hard and heard something “pop,” immediately feeling pain in her foot.   The result of that popping and pain was that  Rita underwent surgery last Friday and will miss at least six weeks of our season.  We are hopeful that she will be back for the beginning of our  Pac-10 Conference games.  Adversity strikes in many ways and the injury bug is perhaps the hardest one to storm through, as it is always painful and emotional to see a teammate go down.

As well, Nicole Canepa turned her ankle on Saturday and so once again, we  were able to suit up only 10 Ducks to take on the Wolves.  Those 10 Ducks were ready though, and contrary to last week, this week our opponents played 40 minutes of person-to-person coverage.  I must say this was something we were looking forward to and what we needed.

Our goal for this game was to get better, to continue to establish our Duck identity, and to work on the execution of our systems while maintaining a high level of intensity and game tempo.  Playing against a person-to-person defensive system helped us to measure ourselves against these goals.

Overall, we accomplished our goals.  We sputtered somewhat offensively in the first half (13 turnovers, 27.3% from three-point line, only five offensive boards), and  defensively we struggled to keep the dribble drive offense of Western Oregon contained (we gave up too many open three’s and too many second-chance points). Still we managed to create some balanced scoring (three players with eight points and one with 10) and enough stops defensively for a 15-point half time lead.

As we headed into the second half, we were really pleased with the defensive adjustments that we made to contain WOU’s dribble drive.  In the first half the Wolves shot 5-of-13 from beyond the arc as they opened up our defense with penetration and kick.  In the second half, because we managed to contain and stay in front of people, WOU shot 0-of-10 from beyond the arc. 

On the offensive end - apart from the first four minutes of the half when we were playing anxious and rushed to close out the game sooner rather than later -  we finally settled in and executed with timing, spacing, and reading the defense.  Our 19-2 run was lethal against WOU, and keeping the pedal to the metal, we were able to create separation from our opponents.
 
Our numbers in the second half speak to this execution:  51.4% shooting, 50% shooting from beyond the arc, and nine offensive rebounds.  Again, we had very balanced scoring with five people in double figures; the posts scoring 42 and the perimeter 59. 

However, in accomplishing our overall goals, we also fell short on a number of keys that we know must be part of the equation as we prepare for our season opener on Saturday at San Jose State. 

WOU definitely got us on the offensive boards.  They were quicker to the ball than we were, and we must absolutely tighten up the ship in this area, if we are to avoid a “sinking” in San Jose.  (WOU will win a lot of games in their league this year if they battle with the heart and desire they had Monday night against us.  Well done Wolves!)

Another key for us this year is not only to share the basketball, but to TAKE CARE OF THE BASKETBALL!  Certainly as a team we are looking to run offensively and we are going to have some turnovers in our transition game that we can live with.  We call those turnovers of commission. 

What is very difficult to live with are turnovers of omission; the travels, the deflections, the interceptions, and the take aways that result from casual stances, unbalanced triple threats, and faulty footwork.

This week we will continue to work with our players in developing their  individual skills so to help our team avoid at least 10 of those 19 turnovers we had against WOU.  As always, it is a process and as the Wizard John Wooden always says, “FUNdamental basketball is the best basketball!

So that is where we will start this week, by reminding our players that FUNdamental basketball is fun to play, fun to watch and fun to coach!  Because four days from now in San Jose, that is where all the fun begins, for real!