Instead of blaming herself for the deficiencies of this team, Summitt's been throwing the players under the bus all year. She knows the team a lot better than I do--of course!--but I don't get all this complaining from her and others about a supposed lack of motivation and effort. Who exactly is she referring to?
I saw the game last night, and nearly all the girls played their tails off. Geez, Stricklin and Bjorklund gave it everything they had--and probably played about all but 2 minutes of the game. Johnson worked hard, as did Bass and Cain when they were in the game. Who are the slackers she is referring to? The fact is, this team is young and big and kind of slow and, in the end, not very talented. Cain got hurt. Both Stricklin and Bjorklund are playing out of position because Summitt--again--doesn't have a point guard. Johnson is athletic but has ZERO offensive game.
Summitt complains about the defense. Well, when your team lacks quickness--THE essential element in basketball--you're gonna have problems stopping people. Brewer and Cain are very big and very slow, Bjorklund has skills but she is clearly a half-step slow to be a big-time player; Stricklin is and will be a player--but she is fairly big and was trying to defend the other team's point guard. She should be playing small forward.
Hey, the Vols will be better next year if PS finds a pg, if the bigs (ever) recover from their knee injuries--and if PS ever learns how to coach TEAM offense, which won't happen. In the second half, there was hardly anybody on the Vols who even took a shot other than Bjorklund and Stricklin. I saw a bunch of players who tried hard but got outplayed.
