I have faith in Holly and think this team is starting to gel. They are tough.
We are #6 in the country people.
SC the #1 team barely beat Mizzo last night They barely scored 50. Wonder if SC fans are calling for CDS head?
They have zero national titles. They have zero pedigree. When you hear people talk about how other teams "barely beat Missouri" or whatever, it shows that the expectations of many fans have dropped a bit after a stretch of several years when we haven't been very good and UConn has stolen our title as best program in women's basketball. Let me repeat that: UT was the best program in women's basketball for, what, a decade, 15 years? Now UConn is the best--has been for a few years--and we're kind of drifting around with a group of other teams in the second tier, eating UConn's dust, and of course have not even been to a Final Four in 7 years. I find that more than a bit frustrating.
Importantly, we are still a player when it comes to recruiting--but at the same time we've lost some mojo; we're not the recruiting powerhouse we once were; we have to compete a lot more now because we haven't been in the national title conversation for quite a long time. So Warlick either cranks it up now or we will have even more issues with recruiting and winning--as the competition is just getting tougher. Your pedigree will only carry you through a rough patch for so long; you stumble around for too long and the top recruits only know you as a team that used to be good, a long time ago. And then you don't get top recruits, and then we would be in trouble.
Also, this is a veteran team: 3 of our best 4 players this year are seniors. We NEED to make a statement this year, because we will likely regress next year, losing Harrison, Massengale and Burdick, even though we'll be adding DeShields, Russell and some freshman. UT has one of the best defensive teams in the country this year--all good. But the only way we will get back to the top is to keep playing good defense AND improve the offense, which has been consistently crappy, really, for a decade, if not longer, save for a couple of years where we were saved from our crappiness by the best player in the game. You can't win a national title with crappy, sloppy offense, I don't care how good your defense is--an idea that both Summitt and Warlick were very slow to grasp (and I'm not sure Warlick has grasped it yet, though I think it's beginning to dawn on her). And there is NO REASON at all that a team full of top-rated prospects should play crappy offense--it is unacceptable.
One of the reasons we've not been very good in recent years is that the defense fell off--we didn't have the athletes to play great defense--and when that happened we really struggled because we couldn't compensate for the crap offense, as we can this year in game's like last night. In the end, you need both--and Warlick needs to understand that. You aren't going to win a national title averaging 15 turnovers and 34 percent shooting
I also worry that our coaches are slow to develop players. Look at Graves: Excellent size, good athlete, but has barely developed at all on offense. It's doubly frustrating because we need better offensive play out of her this year without Russell inside. She has started taking a very occasional outside shot--and yet she has no inside moves--and never takes what should be relatively easy inside shots: Pop into the paint, catch and shoot. Maybe the coaches have worked with her and it's just not there--but she is always making offense harder than it needs to be, partly because she holds the ball too long (as she has been doing for 3 years) and partly because she wants to dribble when she doesn't need to. I watch her play offense and think she's gotten no good coaching. Maybe I'm wrong.
The Texas A&M performance was our best in years, and encouraging. Now Warlick needs to demand that we play well consistently--not one good game and then futz around for three before getting focused on playing well again. There is being in the top 10 or 15, and then there is being a title contender--there's a difference, and it starts and ends with coaches who demand--and get--consistently strong play, who are constantly pushing their players to get better as a team. On to Notre Dame, which should be a good gauge of where we are as a team. I think we can win the game but we'll have to play well on both ends to do it.
