This was a tough road loss. No loss is easy, but the Lady Hokies just couldn’t deal with JMU’s rebounding. Tech couldn’t contend with a smothering defense, combined with continued intermittent Hokie offensive woes.
This One Stings.
I was not able to watch the game, I ended up having to watch the play-by-play on the JMU scroller, but sometimes that separation from things clarifies issues. Watching the stats and the play-by-play roll out you get a stripped down nearly emotionless view of the game. Like I said, though,
nearly. That’s because you can see the play directly against the event and time stream.
What played out was disappointing. It wasn’t helpful to not see the players before the game. It’s good to see their individual demeanors and the group interaction. Sometimes that can be very instructive. You don’t get that with away games, and that happens in shovels full when you are reviewing a game through statistics and often janky play notes.
This time it actually highlighted something that has been brewing with the team for the last few games, at least. The Lady Hokies have an offensive problem building. Yes, there were three players who scored in double figures; Carleigh Wenzel, Carys Baker, and Mackie Nelson, but the remainder of the players, who had minutes on the court, barely got shots off. When they were they weren’t connecting at a high enough percentage. Fifty-six points isn’t going to win many games.
A deeper dive into the stats also brought the specter of “put it up and run away” sort of activity that is concerning. The Hokies only managed 7 offensive rebounds for the entire game. Their defensive rebounding reflected much of the same thing. JMU was crashing the boards and out muscling the Hokies underneath on the Lady Dukes’ shot attempts. JMU out rebounded the Hokies 47-27, and by 6, 13-7 in the ORBs.
Tech’s shooting percentages were just too low to be competitive with the low levels of shot production, and almost no put-back activity going on. Coach Duffy and the team need to spend some serious time trying to sort out the issues. Tech has too few long-range shooters to stretch out the defense. That allows the opponents to keep players under the basket and in position to grab defensive rebounds. Tech shot less than 33% from the floor, and the bulk of the attempts came from Carleigh and Carys. Mackie actually put up 9 attempts and Kilah Freelon 8. We know that Mackie doesn’t shoot much and mostly from inside on layups, but Kilah generally puts up far more from the paint.
The end result was a very disappointing loss, and not just in the numbers. The statistics say that the Hokies just didn’t play a very good game on offense. They held JMU to 65 points, but just couldn’t seem to get anything going.
The starkest example was the end of the game, and Tech had finally passed the Dukes 55-53 when Carys dropped in a much needed three-pointer with 3:36 on the clock and only scored one additional point on a 50/50 free-throw series by Carleigh. Three and a half minutes are several lifetimes in basketball. The door slammed on the next half of the exchange and the last minute, and 30 seconds were spent with the useless minor foul tactic in hopes of delaying the inevitable.
The team has a “whole lot to talk about” and certainly something has to be done to get their shooting percentages up to tournament invitation levels. They also need to work on their rebounding. That seems to go hand-in-hand with the frustrations of missing shots and instead of crashing the boards to get put-backs, they retreat into an early defense.
There isn’t much time left before the ACC season opens and the new year brings an entirely different level of competition on to the court.
Important Stats
In general, the Hokies just didn’t shoot much, and in particular they weren’t hitting well when they did put the ball up.
Carleigh Wenzel, Carys Baker, and Mackie Nelson
Carleigh led the team with 20 points. She was 6 of 16 attempts, though. She had 2 Steals, and 2 rebounds.
Carys was 4-14 though she went 3-7 from beyond the arc. She also had 3 rebounds (low for her) and a block and a steal.
Mackie probably put the best percentage game of the team on this one. She put in 3-7 (missed 2 from outside) from inside and was a perfect 4-4 from the charity stripe for a total of 10 points. Nelson also pushed 4 assists out. Mackie also pulled down 6 defensive boards, and a team high 4 steals on defense.
Significant Contributions
Kilah Freelon had 8 points which is really unusual for her she did pull down 7 rebounds which was a team high and hit all of her free throws, but missing from underneath and the low number of attempts means that the ball was just not getting into her and into the bucket from the paint.
Mel Daley (2), Samyha Suffren (4), and Leila Wells (1) contributed, but put up very few shot attempts in total. Kayl Petersen only played 11 minutes and grabbed two rebounds, but her lack of playing time was worrisome.
Time to put the loss behind them, get into the whys and wherefores, and get back to work before the Christmas-New Year’s Holiday break.
Next Up
The team travels to the Virgin Islands for a November tournament. They open against BYU at 5:30 EST on November 27th.
