Twister Sister Summary - Another thrashing at the hands of Baylor

acoustimac

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Jan 8, 2009
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I admit it. A couple of weeks ago I said the sisters were going to beat both Texas and Baylor in round 2. I really felt they had what it took to do it. I also believed that the "covid week" was partially to blame for the blowout losses they experienced. How I was wrong. In some ways I'm still scratching my head about why.

If all you had seen was the first quarter of this game you'd think wow...what a game! And...you'd be right. This thing started out with two teams feeling each other out, not playing perfect, but battling with the confidence two teams vying for a conference title were expected to exhibit. The one thing that was readily apparent out of the gates though was the sisters were not shooting particularly well. But, they would surely have another great second quarter and exert their muscle wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Nope. Not a single trace of it. What we saw was the last 3 1/2 minutes of quarter two was utter domination by the Baylor Bears as they broke a one point ISU lead into a 12 point half time lead. Baylor would blow this thing open and many of us were wondering...hoping if the team could come out and finally start making shots in the third. And imagine...the Bears had shot terribly from deep in the first half. It was done on the back of their super athlete NaLyssa Smith who scored 19 in the first half.

So did they change course in the second? Nope. Never happened. The second half was just a continued butt whooping by the Bears as the sisters struggled, again, from the field. It was groan after groan from an amazing crowd as wide open shots just clanked off the iron. In the first half ISU had actually out rebounded Baylor for most of the 20 minutes. In the second half while the rout was on Baylor absolutely owned the boards. So many times we had two or three women stand arms outreached for a rebound as Smith deftly jumped and pulled it away on the way to 20...yes TWENTY rebounds. It was one of the most miserable rebounding efforts I'd seen all season. Now, yes...some were just the luck of the bounce. But the contested ones? They typically didn't go to the ladies in white. In the end the better team won. I don't like admitting it, but in head-to-head matchups ISU is the third best team in the conference. Yes, I admit it. Texas and Baylor have our number. After this game I started to realize what that was. Aggressive defense. Sure. But defense didn't win this game for Baylor. Great shooting? Again, it was part of the equation. Excellent post play? Bingo. Texas and Baylor both have athletic posts that just outclass what we can put against them. Tonight, Smith was literally unstoppable inside of ten feet. As go those posts go Baylor and Texas. Tonight it was a punishing 87-62 throttling.

Observations
It was senior night. The highlight of that was seeing Fred hit a three pointer in the second half late in the game. What? How can I say that when we have one of the most amazing seniors in history on the court? Read on...

Ashley - I really felt for her tonight. I really did. She just couldn't find her shot. She went a miserable 4-19 from the field and 0-8 from deep. Her bread and butter was going 11-12 at the line. And...she...fouled...out. It was so hard seeing the tears on her face...the pure agony as she went to the bench. So very little went right for her on "her" night. But...it happened to the rest of the team as well.

Lexi - our staunch defender was going strong until she went down in a tie up and came up limping. The big mystery was that we wouldn't see her the rest of the half and during that time Baylor broke things open. When she came back in the second half her defense was still on display, but offensively with 9 points on 3-11 shooting. Ouch.

Ryan - The one I think is the best point guard in the country...struggled. 10 points, 6 assists (ok...so far so good) 4 turnovers. 0-1 from deep (you know its not good when she only shoots one) and hitting just 4-11 shots overall. See the trend here? The turnovers weren't all her fault. There were times when players who should be expecting a pass from her seemed stunned when the ball would come flying at them...and usually they were open for a shot.

The posts - the best way to describe what I saw tonight was like watching a race between shetland ponies and thoroughbred race horses. We don't have the race horses. Smith just took whoever guarded her to task all night and the Baylor interior defense just shut our posts down. This more than anything demonstrates the big gap between champion and 2nd or 3rd place in our conference.

I could go through everyone else, but it's all the same story. Can't hit a shot. Can't rebound. As Coach Fen has said before, basketball is a game about putting the ball through the hoop. If you don't, you lose. We didn't. We lost. Total shot selection was 20-56 overall (and several of those makes were at the end when it didn't matter) and a gut wrenching 4-22 from downtown. Again, it wasn't Baylor's defense. We had open look after open look from deep and no one could find the range. It was just an ugly demonstration of shooting skills from a group we all know can shoot. So why is it that against Texas and Baylor we can't make wide open shots? Part of it is rhythm. Part of it is the absence of any inside game to cause flow. But wow...this was ugly.

Free throws - before the game I was hoping for decent or at least fair officiating. We didn't get it. But we did get to the line 20 times making 18 of them. That's good. What's sad is we were called for 19 fouls. Some questionable but we all know that happens. But wow...did the officials really blow some calls and outright miss others. BUT...that didn't cost us the game.

Isn't it just strange that other teams that we handle easily can play Baylor and Texas quite close...and in some cases beat them? Somehow Baylor and Texas literally are our kryptonite. When we play them our shooters lose their touch, rebounders can't jump and defenders are a step slow. Very strange.

So, the dream of a conference championship has essentially gone up in smoke. Is there a possibility of a tie? Yes, but the likelihood of TTU beating Baylor in Whacko is not very high. Add to it that the sisters have to get over this hangover in a hurry or WVU will take us to task on Saturday. Anything can happen and it has so the one thing we need to remember is one loss now doesn't take anything away from this amazing and record setting season. There are some honors that probably won't swing our way. POY very likely will be Smith and COY will land elsewhere too. But this team can break the season record for regular season wins with a victory over WVU. They can go into the tourney as the #2 seed. A good showing can still land ISU as a #2 or #3 seed in the dance. That gives us two more home games. Being placed in the Wichita region would give us close access to the next two. There is a lot of good basketball to be played yet. It all comes down to something we've seen over and over again from this team - resilience.

I'm sad. Disappointed. I wanted a game like the first quarter all the way through. But, it didn't happen. So we move on and close the season out strong. We flock to Kansas to finally enjoy home court advantage for the conference tourney. Honestly, I'm hoping for a rematch with Baylor in the final. Sound like a glutton for punishment? Nope...I just have faith that with this team anything can happen. See you all in KC folks. I hope to meet you there. My "Power of the Pops" crew will all be there so look for us in our Pops sweatshirts (https://cyclones.com/news/2008/3/19/1414094.aspx). It's time to party.
 
I admit it. A couple of weeks ago I said the sisters were going to beat both Texas and Baylor in round 2. I really felt they had what it took to do it. I also believed that the "covid week" was partially to blame for the blowout losses they experienced. How I was wrong. In some ways I'm still scratching my head about why.

If all you had seen was the first quarter of this game you'd think wow...what a game! And...you'd be right. This thing started out with two teams feeling each other out, not playing perfect, but battling with the confidence two teams vying for a conference title were expected to exhibit. The one thing that was readily apparent out of the gates though was the sisters were not shooting particularly well. But, they would surely have another great second quarter and exert their muscle wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Nope. Not a single trace of it. What we saw was the last 3 1/2 minutes of quarter two was utter domination by the Baylor Bears as they broke a one point ISU lead into a 12 point half time lead. Baylor would blow this thing open and many of us were wondering...hoping if the team could come out and finally start making shots in the third. And imagine...the Bears had shot terribly from deep in the first half. It was done on the back of their super athlete NaLyssa Smith who scored 19 in the first half.

So did they change course in the second? Nope. Never happened. The second half was just a continued butt whooping by the Bears as the sisters struggled, again, from the field. It was groan after groan from an amazing crowd as wide open shots just clanked off the iron. In the first half ISU had actually out rebounded Baylor for most of the 20 minutes. In the second half while the rout was on Baylor absolutely owned the boards. So many times we had two or three women stand arms outreached for a rebound as Smith deftly jumped and pulled it away on the way to 20...yes TWENTY rebounds. It was one of the most miserable rebounding efforts I'd seen all season. Now, yes...some were just the luck of the bounce. But the contested ones? They typically didn't go to the ladies in white. In the end the better team won. I don't like admitting it, but in head-to-head matchups ISU is the third best team in the conference. Yes, I admit it. Texas and Baylor have our number. After this game I started to realize what that was. Aggressive defense. Sure. But defense didn't win this game for Baylor. Great shooting? Again, it was part of the equation. Excellent post play? Bingo. Texas and Baylor both have athletic posts that just outclass what we can put against them. Tonight, Smith was literally unstoppable inside of ten feet. As go those posts go Baylor and Texas. Tonight it was a punishing 87-62 throttling.

Observations
It was senior night. The highlight of that was seeing Fred hit a three pointer in the second half late in the game. What? How can I say that when we have one of the most amazing seniors in history on the court? Read on...

Ashley - I really felt for her tonight. I really did. She just couldn't find her shot. She went a miserable 4-19 from the field and 0-8 from deep. Her bread and butter was going 11-12 at the line. And...she...fouled...out. It was so hard seeing the tears on her face...the pure agony as she went to the bench. So very little went right for her on "her" night. But...it happened to the rest of the team as well.

Lexi - our staunch defender was going strong until she went down in a tie up and came up limping. The big mystery was that we wouldn't see her the rest of the half and during that time Baylor broke things open. When she came back in the second half her defense was still on display, but offensively with 9 points on 3-11 shooting. Ouch.

Ryan - The one I think is the best point guard in the country...struggled. 10 points, 6 assists (ok...so far so good) 4 turnovers. 0-1 from deep (you know its not good when she only shoots one) and hitting just 4-11 shots overall. See the trend here? The turnovers weren't all her fault. There were times when players who should be expecting a pass from her seemed stunned when the ball would come flying at them...and usually they were open for a shot.

The posts - the best way to describe what I saw tonight was like watching a race between shetland ponies and thoroughbred race horses. We don't have the race horses. Smith just took whoever guarded her to task all night and the Baylor interior defense just shut our posts down. This more than anything demonstrates the big gap between champion and 2nd or 3rd place in our conference.

I could go through everyone else, but it's all the same story. Can't hit a shot. Can't rebound. As Coach Fen has said before, basketball is a game about putting the ball through the hoop. If you don't, you lose. We didn't. We lost. Total shot selection was 20-56 overall (and several of those makes were at the end when it didn't matter) and a gut wrenching 4-22 from downtown. Again, it wasn't Baylor's defense. We had open look after open look from deep and no one could find the range. It was just an ugly demonstration of shooting skills from a group we all know can shoot. So why is it that against Texas and Baylor we can't make wide open shots? Part of it is rhythm. Part of it is the absence of any inside game to cause flow. But wow...this was ugly.

Free throws - before the game I was hoping for decent or at least fair officiating. We didn't get it. But we did get to the line 20 times making 18 of them. That's good. What's sad is we were called for 19 fouls. Some questionable but we all know that happens. But wow...did the officials really blow some calls and outright miss others. BUT...that didn't cost us the game.

Isn't it just strange that other teams that we handle easily can play Baylor and Texas quite close...and in some cases beat them? Somehow Baylor and Texas literally are our kryptonite. When we play them our shooters lose their touch, rebounders can't jump and defenders are a step slow. Very strange.

So, the dream of a conference championship has essentially gone up in smoke. Is there a possibility of a tie? Yes, but the likelihood of TTU beating Baylor in Whacko is not very high. Add to it that the sisters have to get over this hangover in a hurry or WVU will take us to task on Saturday. Anything can happen and it has so the one thing we need to remember is one loss now doesn't take anything away from this amazing and record setting season. There are some honors that probably won't swing our way. POY very likely will be Smith and COY will land elsewhere too. But this team can break the season record for regular season wins with a victory over WVU. They can go into the tourney as the #2 seed. A good showing can still land ISU as a #2 or #3 seed in the dance. That gives us two more home games. Being placed in the Wichita region would give us close access to the next two. There is a lot of good basketball to be played yet. It all comes down to something we've seen over and over again from this team - resilience.

I'm sad. Disappointed. I wanted a game like the first quarter all the way through. But, it didn't happen. So we move on and close the season out strong. We flock to Kansas to finally enjoy home court advantage for the conference tourney. Honestly, I'm hoping for a rematch with Baylor in the final. Sound like a glutton for punishment? Nope...I just have faith that with this team anything can happen. See you all in KC folks. I hope to meet you there. My "Power of the Pops" crew will all be there so look for us in our Pops sweatshirts (https://cyclones.com/news/2008/3/19/1414094.aspx). It's time to party.
Good write up as usual. Only thing I will say is it shouldn’t have taken you this long to realize the post play is and has always been the mismatch for when we play Baylor and Texas.

The COVID week gave us all false hope that it was just because we were missing Ashley. But there’s a difference between losing and getting clearly outclassed by a certain style of team.

Other teams we are better than (KU and OU) had a nice game plan against Baylor. ALWAYS going to come down to making shots and hoping the opposition is off that night. But I will double down like in the game thread that we don’t put our ladies in position to win these games. Bill alluded to this in his post-game.

It’s not easy, but we almost ALWAYS play Baylor or Texas’ style of game after the 1st Quarter. Going inside tonight and staying inside without using that to kick out to shooters off of good solid screens was puzzling. We are a great three-point shooting team and that’s how we are going to win or lose against a team like Baylor. Going toe to toe in the paint and driving the hoop is crazy and poor game planning plain and simple (Bill also alluded to this too).

Would love another crack at Texas or Baylor because it’s the only way they can keep practicing to get better. We can beat them. It just takes one good night of three point shooting.
 
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In the first quarter We were moving the ball, pushing the ball ahead in transition, and making Baylor’s defense work. We got away from that completely and decided to force shots in the paint, into double teams and run a fairly 1 dimensional offense. It’s like we still think we can hand the ball to Ash and just “let her go to work and hope the refs bail her out”. This has never worked the last 2 seasons and here absolutely exposed every time we play these physical teams. Why do we stubbornly keep doing it? And the sad part is we don’t have to. We have the athletes and elite shooters to make this easier. The only way we have a chance to beat teams like Baylor is to shoot the 3
and involve eveyone in the offense. Not the predictable stuff we saw for 3 quarters. I keep seeing people say we had a “poor shooting night”. SOME had a poor shooting night. I’d say we had more of a “poor passing, finding the open girl” night. Poor over-all offensive strategy.

Credit to Baylor their All American put on a show and as a team, they move the ball. Kept our defense guessing. We did the opposite.
 
In the first quarter We were moving the ball, pushing the ball ahead in transition, and making Baylor’s defense work. We got away from that completely and decided to force shots in the paint, into double teams and run a fairly 1 dimensional offense. It’s like we still think we can hand the ball to Ash and just “let her go to work and hope the refs bail her out”. This has never worked the last 2 seasons and here absolutely exposed every time we play these physical teams. Why do we stubbornly keep doing it? And the sad part is we don’t have to. We have the athletes and elite shooters to make this easier. The only way we have a chance to beat teams like Baylor is to shoot the 3
and involve eveyone in the offense. Not the predictable stuff we saw for 3 quarters. I keep seeing people say we had a “poor shooting night”. SOME had a poor shooting night. I’d say we had more of a “poor passing, finding the open girl” night. Poor over-all offensive strategy.

Credit to Baylor their All American put on a show and as a team, they move the ball. Kept our defense guessing. We did the opposite.
Also, Bea and Morgan are above average shooters. Especially from the elbow or 10-15 ft. Why are we not encouraging them and asking them to take that shot? They looked scared to shoot it unless they get some sort of green light from Bill. We have never had dominate in the paint posts but they do have strengths and we just don’t play to them. Bea making those elbow shots in first game against OU was the difference. We know Morgan can shoot. We also look like we’ve never coached the good hard pass out of the post (inside out). That should be a dominate skill set when you have the shooters we do. They are often as heads down as Ashley inside. No vision or sense to even look for who’s open.
 
"Isn't it just strange that other teams that we handle easily can play Baylor and Texas quite close...and in some cases beat them? Somehow Baylor and Texas literally figuratively are our kryptonite. When we play them our shooters lose their touch, rebounders can't jump and defenders are a step slow. Very strange."

Fixed it for you.

I don't think we needed to abandon going inside because getting some bigs in foul trouble would be part of a recipe for a win - and it did start to happen. But we were absolutely forcing it inside. Drive and kick is the key. The shooters needed to be more active and make the guards work harder to guard them.
 
Thanks for another great write-up. Although we've only been going to the women's games for like 20-25 yrs., I can't recall a more dominating player than Smith. She's a "man playing against boys." Sure, we don't have the dominant post, not many teams do, and few if any the magnitude of Smith. Also, too bad the Baylor team can't handle a win and success in "grown-up fashion with good sportsmanship." We likely could see them, again, in the Big 12 final.jm
 
I don't think Ashley has gotten as many calls around the basket this year. Ashley is often undersized, so she uses a wide array of moves under the basket that are somewhat unconventional. When making those moves, she often hits the floor due to some contact. In years past, she would get a high percentage of the calls with about any contact. This year not so much.

The combination of length on the inside and quickness on the outside that Baylor and Texas have seemed to really bother Emily and Lexi.

As mentioned above by other posters, we need another game plan against Baylor and Texas because this one is not working. In each of these games we have been forced to play the game the way the opponent wants.
 
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  • Agree
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While I love the push back to my commentary, I’m a little puzzled on a couple of things. What I saw last night was our team attempting to do what we always do….
1. driving inside and kicking to the open player. Last night the result was (a) players not expecting the ball and turning it over, (b) every single three point shooter on the team not being able to sink shots when open, and (c) players that went inside either wouldn’t get a foul call or were stuffed.
2. there was enough frustration that eventually the ladies seemed to forget what got them there and started doing things that were a bit Abby Normal.
3. there were were lots of great screens set last night, but wow did Baylor team speed to a great job of switching and covering. We didn’t When faced with the same thing.

Bottom line for this team….if they aren’t hitting threes they likely won’t win against a team built like Baylor.

and thanks for the "literally" "figuratively" correction. I literally meant it though!
 
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While I love the push back to my commentary, I’m a little puzzled on a couple of things. What I saw last night was our team attempting to do what we always do….
1. driving inside and kicking to the open player. Last night the result was (a) players not expecting the ball and turning it over, (b) every single three point shooter on the team not being able to sink shots when open, and (c) players that went inside either wouldn’t get a foul call or were stuffed.
2. there was enough frustration that eventually the ladies seemed to forget what got them there and started doing things that were a bit Abby Normal.
3. there were were lots of great screens set last night, but wow did Baylor team speed to a great job of switching and covering. We didn’t When faced with the same thing.

Bottom line for this team….if they aren’t hitting threes they likely won’t win against a team built like Baylor.

and thanks for the "literally" "figuratively" correction. I literally meant it though!
If they were literally Kryptonite they wouldn't be carbon based life. Is that your contention? ;)
 
A few pics from the game last night.
 

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While I love the push back to my commentary, I’m a little puzzled on a couple of things. What I saw last night was our team attempting to do what we always do….
1. driving inside and kicking to the open player. Last night the result was (a) players not expecting the ball and turning it over, (b) every single three point shooter on the team not being able to sink shots when open, and (c) players that went inside either wouldn’t get a foul call or were stuffed.
2. there was enough frustration that eventually the ladies seemed to forget what got them there and started doing things that were a bit Abby Normal.
3. there were were lots of great screens set last night, but wow did Baylor team speed to a great job of switching and covering. We didn’t When faced with the same thing.

Bottom line for this team….if they aren’t hitting threes they likely won’t win against a team built like Baylor.

and thanks for the "literally" "figuratively" correction. I literally meant it though!

One player was 1 for 1 on three-point attempts last night on a great cross- court pass from Ryan in the first quarter. Despite being open on 3-4 other occasions, no other passes made to her.
 
Good crowd…and loud. I remember one time when the student section was chanting something to the effect of “the refs suck” and I thought…this is going to be easily heard on tv.
 

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One player was 1 for 1 on three-point attempts last night on a great cross- court pass from Ryan in the first quarter. Despite being open on 3-4 other occasions, no other passes made to her.

Since you didn’t post who I did the digging. You’re referring to M&M. Without re-watching the game I can neither verify or refute your statement. It is entirely possible for a player to be open and (a) not possible to get the ball to her or (b) she wasn’t seen by the person with the ball at that moment. If true, it’s unfortunate as any help from outside would have been an improvement.
 
Lots of “open” 3s for Baylor when the Bickle girl is screening (illegally) Donarski. But they hit open shots and we couldn’t.
Yeah, I couldn't believe she never got called for an illegal screen when she would set the screen at the arc then drive the screened player clear down into the paint. That is such an obvious and easy call to make.
 
Lots of “open” 3s for Baylor when the Bickle girl is screening (illegally) Donarski. But they hit open shots and we couldn’t.

Baylor got away with so many moving screens last night it was ridiculous. I commented to my wife that their screener was acting like a bulldozer. Set the screen and then start moving the defender away from the shooter.
 
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Smith secured her #1 pick in the draft with a career game, and while we had some open 3s, Baylor made the sisters very uncomfortable on many of them (hence the rhythm comment by the OP) and they couldn't hit anything. Ball game.
 
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Smith secured her #1 pick in the draft with a career game, and while we had some open 3s, Baylor made the sisters very uncomfortable on many of them (hence the rhythm comment by the OP) and they couldn't hit anything. Ball game.

Smith is an amazing talent. I could have done without her one finger gesture, but wow…she has some skills and the physical profile to play for a long time.
 

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