Vanderveer and McGraw are NOT alpha coaches--that is wrong. Geno, yes; those two, not at all. They are /smart/ coaches--not a word I'd use when describing HW AND this staff--the staff factors into it. I think intelligence is the first quality I'd look for in a coach, and then the other qualities. Let's not pretend that the players don't bear a lot of responsibility for this debacle. Last year we had players who played well; one could argue that most of them did. Who was the coach? Burdick had a great year; Harrison was good, and Massengale had a pretty strong year--they all put the damn ball in the basket and didn't seem too put off by HW not being an "alpha" coach. I think a lot of this is on our coaches--but damn sure quite a bit of it is on the players too, in my view.
RE Cooper: She has played FAR too much this year--and her poor play has ZERO to do with whether or not HW is an alpha or not. HW has made a serious mistake playing her so much.
I did not see the game last night--but according to the post-game press conference, after we'd cut the deficit to three points in the 4th quarter, Cooper took two bad shots that cost us any chance to win the game. Cooper likes to take the ball to the basket, which is a nice skill but doesn't work too well against zones. Let me say this plainly: She has shown herself to be a poor player against zone defenses. We have faced ZONE defenses ALL YEAR. She doesn't have a pretty jump shot, and in fact she has the WORST shooting percentage on the team--and yet she has taken FAR more shots than any of our guards. That's not smart. She also has the WORST assist-to-turnover ratio among our guards. And yet she's been averaging almost 24 minutes a game. Why? Somebody tell me how she is helping us to win games? She is causing us to lose games--as she did last night. I'm not trying to knock her individually--she is young and will get better, but you don't keep giving big minutes to someone who is causing you to lose games!
Some say Carter and Reynolds and Middleton have not been very good either. Point made--but their play has been less negative: they don't have as many turnovers, they don't miss quite as much. Let's say you have an 8 player rotation and all 8 of them are somewhere between mediocre and weak, and all are getting roughly the same minutes. If you, as a coach, stop playing the player with the worst metrics, reduce her PT significantly, your team should get a little better. Not a lot better but incrementally better, because you've removed your worst player from the game. Addition by subtraction. We need every bit of incremental help we can get.
Jumper confuses talent with production. I don't give a damn how talented your are or how talented you seem, if your numbers are consistently bad you shouldn't be playing much, if at all. Cooper has been consistently bad offensively all year--and she's not a very good defender either. She had bad numbers almost every game-and yet is still playing upwards of 25 minutes a night! I repeat, that is stupid. Cooper will get better, I hope, with experience--but she should be the last guard we are playing against zone defenses. This has nothing to do with whether HW is "alpha" or not but simply making smart personnel decisions.
Like Cooper, DeShields has played poorly most of the year, too. But unlike Cooper, she should be playing more, not less. We can win without Cooper. We cannot win without DD playing well, which is why we've been losing all year.
