treyuca wrote:
It just going to be interesting/potentially very difficult if we have to match up defensively with a couple big girls on the inside. But, like you've both described, using smaller, quicker players can also be effective, especially if you have good help defense.
You certainly make good points.
There is the potential for matchup difficulties if we have to match up defensively with a couple big girls on the inside – but, in the guard-oriented Southland, that's not going to happen very often. Not to say it won't happen at all, but I don't see it being a huge problem. While we don't have a ton of inside depth, we've got plenty to match up with the other teams' starting front line and nobody in the league is going to be running quality bigs in two and three at a time off the bench.
Anyhow, our more pressing defensive matchup concern will be having guards who can slow down the other teams' guards, who more times than not will be their most effective scorers.
For something to digest ... the average height of the top 25 scorers in SLC play is 5-foot-9, or an inch taller than Laura Beth. There were only seven of those 25 (28 percent for you math majors) who were 6-foot or taller. One played on a team that won one game all year, another was third on her team in 3-pointers and faced the basket quite a bit, and another – Kia – was pretty much exclusively a perimeter player.
Only one team – UT Arlington – had two players taller than 6' in the Top 25 scoring.
We should return three of the league's Top 10 shot blockers, so that could be considered a good sign for the interior defense.
As for the rest of the defensive picture, we were tied for sixth in steals and were dead last in turnover ratio – telling me that, more than interior defense, we need to worry about maximizing our possessions by getting more turnovers and committing fewer.
And, though we were fourth in 3-pt. percentage defense, we allowed 31 more makes than anybody in the league. The league average, us excluded, was 80 3-pointers allowed in the 16 games. We allowed 129. So it could be that more sound, aggressive perimeter defense is what we need – and these signees would appear to be that type of player.
Now granted, we played almost exclusively zone all conference season, opening the door for more 3-point attempts, but there was a reason we did so. So really, even though they're shorter, these new kids may be exactly what we need, not just offensively but defensively as well.
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