GDT: Golden Eagles vs Jackrabbits 7pm Frost Arena Midco/ESPN+

[LetsGoRabbits]

I really thought we had found the rhythm in our offensive game in that 4th Q against UNI
apparently playing a slugfest vs USC in the pentagon threw us out of whack again

the effort on the boards in the first half was gross and disappointing after really holding our own with the gamecocks. i am pretty sure that is one of the things AJ lit them up about. after that, however, they really did pretty much EXACTLY what you want to do

we crushed them on the boards in the second half, i think won by almost 20 in one half
TOs were very respectable, especially for a game at that pace, only 13. that is a pretty acceptable number
and we did a great job of attacking inside and getting to the FT line

usually if you dominate the boards (check) control your TOs and win the TO battle (check) and get yourself on the FT line a lot (check) you win VERY comfortably

so really they did a lot of good, but this outside shoothing thing is getting to be a real gordian knot(((( throw in that a team who normally shoots the 3 even worse than we have been comes out and shoots near 50% for a lot of the game and you get yourself a battle even when you are doing almost everything you want to do

i feel like we are going to solve the 3 thing a bit, but i highly doubt we are gonna get everyone shooting it well enough to get anywhere near 40% as a team again

[LetsGoRabbits]

I still find it hard to figure out why both the men's and women's teams have gone from being at the top of three point % in the country a year ago to being below average this season. It's a little easier to explain the men after losing Baylor, who shot a high % and created open looks for others. But the women really puzzle me.

on top of that, this one happened at Frost. it is not hard for me to blame the last one on the pentagon and the style of the game and the opponent

but since getting home from WSU and MSU the girls had been looking better shooting in Frost. NOT TONIGHT

the only theory i can come up with, is that they are still struggling to really find and stay in a rhythm on offense. YES they have played 12 or 13 games or whatever it is, i know. but they have the 4 starters coming back from the WNIT team
none of them looks like they did in those 6 games and a couple of them are really struggling and seem to have almost completely lost confidence in their outside shooting

then you have 3 freshman (seems to be down to 2 in the main rotation at the moment) and Dru who are new, and you have Dru dealing with an injury, which might be causing her to have a different level of mobility on a day to day basis
so Dru and the team are figuring that out. it sure looks like she gets frustrated with it at times((( but she keeps battling. i give her credit for that
and Maddie V is basically a new player from last year
and now you put Paige back in the equation

tonight you had basically a 10 player rotation. 1 was in her first game in 10 months. 1 is playing with a significant injury. 1 more or less took the year off last year. and 2 were in high school last year

maybe some people think that is nothing but it is a significant amount of change and rhythm can be elusive. i still believe they are gonna get there