Lucky to escape after going up by 6 with less than a minute. Ball was like a hot potato in our hands that last minute. The team showed a lot of fight in this one and it’s nice that they got rewarded.Utah is a good team, this was a good win. Down 10 more than half way through the third quarter I was sure we were losing. Congrats to the players for not being me.
Again, I have only seen 1 game this season, but the issue is it is so easy to get good look 3s against us. That out of bounds play when Utah trailed by 3 with about 15 seconds left was a prime example. The shot was basically a practice shot as our defenders picked right out of the play and was nowhere near the shooter when she put it up. She missed the 3 but we were weak on the rebound and get tied up. The next 3 point shot, with less than 10 seconds we commit the cardinal sin of fouling on a bomb of a 3. We didn’t defend them well last year and it still seems we don’t,Something I noticed last year that seems to be continuing this year is we're getting crushed by three pointers. In both 2021 and 2022 we attempted about the same number of 3s as our opponents. Our shooting percentage on 3s was several points lower so making them was a problem. Then last season we attempted nearly 200 fewer 3s than our opponents for the season (works out to 6-7 per game). We actually closed the gap in shooting percentage on 3s to about one point worse, but that still works out to 2.5 more made 3s for our opponents per game. So far this season our opponents have attempted more than twice as many 3s as us while shooting more than ten points better (the Lehigh game was an outlier so that kind of disparity won't continue). Now just attempting them is a problem. Based on last year's stats for returning players or my impressions so far of the new players we do have a number of players who shoot 3s well enough that they should have the green light. Is this a coaching decision? It's going to be tough to win like this, but it was nice to see them pull one out last night.
Yeah, last year was real bad when it comes to defending the 3-pointer. Rankings are out of 360 teams in D1.Again, I have only seen 1 game this season, but the issue is it is so easy to get good look 3s against us. That out of bounds play when Utah trailed by 3 with about 15 seconds left was a prime example. The shot was basically a practice shot as our defenders picked right out of the play and was nowhere near the shooter when she put it up. She missed the 3 but we were weak on the rebound and get tied up. The next 3 point shot, with less than 10 seconds we commit the cardinal sin of fouling on a bomb of a 3. We didn’t defend them well last year and it still seems we don’t,
Year | Defensive 3-point rate | Defensive 3-point % |
2021 | 32.4 (166) | 31.3% (164) |
2022 | 33.7 (225) | 34.5% (326) |
2023 | 32.4 (183) | 30.9% (156) |
2024 | 34.9 (256) | 35.8% (348) |