Game Thread: Lady Vols v MTSU, Away, Thurs. Nov 20th, 7:30PM, ESPN+

[vols90]

The information we are going to receive in this game will be if the offense is really better. Nothing wrong with the team that playing better offense won't fix. Defense is doing a good job even if they only go into full gear when the game is close late.

Agree. I think the offense will help fuel their fire. When they fix that, I think we'll see the great team that we thought we'd have before the season started

 

[Volfan2012]

Two things seem to be hampering the system this year. Substitution has been a little weird like taking Cooper out with two minutes left in the NC St game. We really fall off when we have to many of certain players on the floor. The second is freedom to shoot were seeing to many 20 something or less three point shooters jack up shots early in possessions. 37 of 134 in four games needs to go up to about 50 of 134 in the next four if were going to shoot that many. I don't see how that happens with some of the players that are shooting so many of them.

Really ready for this game need to see if all this week of practice has done any good for the offense.

 

[lvocd]

What bothers ME most, Volfan2012, is how often players are taken out immediately after having done something positive like a big score or a steal or something that they could have built momentum on. It’s just bad timing, I know, but I think that is the thing I like least about our constant subbing. It kills players’ momentum way too often. If someone has JUST hit a shot during a game when painfully few shots are going in, you do NOT choose that exact moment to take THAT player out.

It takes minutes off my life every time this happens.

 

[chuckiepoo]

What bothers ME most, Volfan2012, is how often players are taken out immediately after having done something positive like a big score or a steal or something that they could have built momentum on. It’s just bad timing, I know, but I think that is the thing I like least about our constant subbing. It kills players’ momentum way too often. If someone has JUST hit a shot during a game when painfully few shots are going in, you do NOT choose that exact moment to take THAT player out.

It takes minutes off my life every time this happens.

Boyd was a great example of this maneuver against Belmont.

 

[lvocd]

Yes, Boyd coming out ‘bout killed me. There was also one where Pauldo drained a three to break a long drought, she smiled a HUGE “Okay, that felt GOOD!” smile…

… and then her group was subbed out.

OMG.

 

[volsagain]

Boyd was a great example of this maneuver against Belmont.

Boyd needs to be in the game when it's close in the 4th quarter. With her defense mainly but she knows the offense better than the new kids.

 

[Ladyvol777]

85-61 Lady Vol’s

 

[Purplehaze26]

LV. 92
Them. 59

 

[VolFanGBO]

lady vols 83
MTSU 78

 

[BruisedOrange]

What bothers ME most, Volfan2012, is how often players are taken out immediately after having done something positive like a big score or a steal or something that they could have built momentum on. It’s just bad timing, I know, but I think that is the thing I like least about our constant subbing. It kills players’ momentum way too often. If someone has JUST hit a shot during a game when painfully few shots are going in, you do NOT choose that exact moment to take THAT player out.

It takes minutes off my life every time this happens.

We can console ourselves that the players are exhausted and would not be able to sustain that momentum for another 40 seconds, either on defense or offense.

As players increase their aerobic fitness, we can be sure they will be on the court longer and more often if they are producing.

 

[Dak1219]

We can console ourselves that the players are exhausted and would not be able to sustain that momentum for another 40 seconds, either on defense or offense.

As players increase their aerobic fitness, we can be sure they will be on the court longer and more often if they are producing.

Currently, our opponents do not appear to be tired in games. If our players are exhausted after a minute and a half, we should be concerned.

 

[Lucy]

I got hammered by one particular poster when I mentioned this last year but here goes again. Our freshman class is fabulous but they are freshman! It will take more than a hot minute for them to get their footing (although Civil is electric). I’m looking for improvement in this game not perfection. It’s about trajectory.

 

[1morevol]

What bothers ME most, Volfan2012, is how often players are taken out immediately after having done something positive like a big score or a steal or something that they could have built momentum on. It’s just bad timing, I know, but I think that is the thing I like least about our constant subbing. It kills players’ momentum way too often. If someone has JUST hit a shot during a game when painfully few shots are going in, you do NOT choose that exact moment to take THAT player out.

It takes minutes off my life every time this happens.

Bothers me also. Shooting a basketball can be a streaky thing. Seems to me, sticking to the substitution pattern overrides any awareness that a player might be going on a roll.

 

[TheGoula]

Go Vols

 

[orangemadam]

Gotta do some channel surfing between LV's and Vols tonight.

Each team to win by 20+

 

[Volfan2012]

What bothers ME most, Volfan2012, is how often players are taken out immediately after having done something positive like a big score or a steal or something that they could have built momentum on. It’s just bad timing, I know, but I think that is the thing I like least about our constant subbing. It kills players’ momentum way too often. If someone has JUST hit a shot during a game when painfully few shots are going in, you do NOT choose that exact moment to take THAT player out.

It takes minutes off my life every time this happens.

Coach still has to prove that it works. Fairly stubborn that I don't think it does. I like the pressing and trapping as long as you are aware of the over the top pass and have that covered. Subbing is fine, but see no benefit of two minute or less subbing. I also don't see any benefit of equal minutes. Your top five or six need to play 30 minutes and the other players fill in other minutes available.

 

[Volfan2012]

I got hammered by one particular poster when I mentioned this last year but here goes again. Our freshman class is fabulous but they are freshman! It will take more than a hot minute for them to get their footing (although Civil is electric). I’m looking for improvement in this game not perfection. It’s about trajectory.

The ones that are ready are Civil and MIa Pauldo as they have been more productive on the floor than some of the upper class players. Prawl has been surprisingly not ready for this level as of yet. Mya has played well in spurts and not so well other minutes. Hurst looks to be at the end of the bench.

 

[KrazyVolFan]

The way I understand it is the subbing keeps fresh legs so you can press harder. 100 percent effort all the time. I can see this and saw how it worked last year but I also saw when it didn't and would be nice to have a better half court plan IMO. I'm gonna give it some time just like last year but I am concerned with the effectiveness of the press right now but waiting to see if we gel later in the year.

 

[RetroVol]

Would it be worthwhile to have a thread devoted to Coach Caldwell's system? I enjoy seeing these perspectives and have my own thoughts to share, but they seem to get accepted among threads. Would be interesting to see them so together and how it thinking changes as time goes by.

 

[BruisedOrange]

From the Tuesday press conference [my emphasis]...

Question: Throughout your coaching career, have you had a team that has been so new?
And then, based on that, how long did it take before they felt, like, connected?

CKC: I have. I have. This team very much reminds me of my last division two team in Glennville. I think we had 12 or 13 new players and it took a lot of time.
And so I am going back and I am comparing notes between that team. And we are right on pace for how upset we are, how uncomfortable we are, how we are kind of in this dark space where we just need to to push through it, get over the hump and... and again, when the ball goes in, a lot of things are going to change.
--------------

Because CKC allows her teams to play free in games, we've seen that there's also a lag between how they practice and how they play. Old gametime instincts seem to be the last to disappear. But It's all about who we are 4 months from now.

Every fan has the right and choice to fret, doomsay, or to stay in the moment and enjoy the progress. I figure we can only get to March one game at a time anyway.

 

[lvocd]

The way I understand it is the subbing keeps fresh legs so you can press harder. 100 percent effort all the time. I can see this and saw how it worked last year but I also saw when it didn't and would be nice to have a better half court plan IMO. I'm gonna give it some time just like last year but I am concerned with the effectiveness of the press right now but waiting to see if we gel later in the year.

I understand the press thing and highly enjoy those times when it works. Watching our players get steals that result in quick scores, or force the opponent into a turnover, or a 10-second call, is So. Much. Fun.

But like you obviously do, it doesn’t take long to see when all the exhausting effort isn’t keeping an opponent from fairly easily getting the ball across and getting a wide-open layup. I swear, if a couple of our opponents hadn’t missed so many wide-open layups we might have at least two losses right now, and a third much-tighter game.

Like I said earlier, once it’s clear the opponent isn’t all that bothered by the press, it really only serves to wear US out and gift THEM with one after another opportunity to have helpful numbers under their own basket (either they’ve got 2 on our one, or 3 on 2) that they wouldn’t have if we’d gotten back and everyone picked up on someone.

I’m with you. I’d like to see us have a better plan when the only plan ain’t workin’. A plan that doesn’t allow far less talented teams to hang around with us for most of the game. A plan that doesn’t exhaust us for too-little return on our energy investment.

Full disclosure: I woke up this morning and immediately felt (WAY TOO SOON!) that annual dread that the season is already flying by and that it’ll be over before I know it. We’re only four games in and I’ve already felt it! Ugh.

(Me, up on ol’ Brokebackcourt Mountain): “I sometimes wish I knew how to quit you, Lady Vols.”

 

[BruisedOrange]

Would it be worthwhile to have a thread devoted to Coach Caldwell's system? I enjoy seeing these perspectives and have my own thoughts to share, but they seem to get accepted among threads. Would be interesting to see them so together and how it thinking changes as time goes by.

The educators among us will enthusiastically say, "Yes!" But experience says people see and hear what they want or expect to hear, regardless of what the coach just said.

Plus, behind an avatar, we can all claim to be smarter than any coach who's made a career of it and getting paid 6 and 7 figures for what they know and have accomplished.

But for the sake of new fans, it would be a welcomed labor of love to find and consolidate in one thread all the old videos where she has described what and how she coaches. Then the rest of us could respond with our often wildly different interpretations or visualizations of what she has said.
----

Kinda makes a person appreciate even more the miracle at Pentecost, with each person hearing the same thing in their own lingo. Years of edumacation on volnation confirm that only God can do that!

 

[Volfan2012]

LV. 92
Them. 59

This is the one I want to see even though I did not pick us to in by this much.

 

[Voltopia]

Bothers me also. Shooting a basketball can be a streaky thing. Seems to me, sticking to the substitution pattern overrides any awareness that a player might be going on a roll.

I get the impression - impression anyway - that her philosophy is that streaks shouldn't matter and players shouldn't rely on them. You go in, play 105%, you come out. Be ready to score when you're in. Be ready to defend when you're in. Don't take 10 minutes to "get ready." Rather than getting 10 minutes at a time, you get 2 minutes at a time, five times, so make the most of them. It's almost as if she wants to break them of that need.

I have no earthly idea if I'm right or wrong, I just get that impression. Also not going to speak to its effectiveness. It seemed plenty effective last year at times. At times, anyway. But Tennessee also had some very handy three point shooting to help balloon the moments when they tilted other teams.

 

[alexvol]

LV's 83 - MTSU 75