swok34
Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 267 Location: Soonertown, Oklahoma
Back to top |
|
beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004 Posts: 11050 Location: Lost in D.C.
Back to top |
Posted: 04/18/05 2:41 pm ::: |
Reply |
|
Just dropping by from the ESPN board, but here are some thoughts about RU, offense, Ajavon and Vaughn:
1. Ajavon's problem isn't that she doesn't have enought assists (she led the team with 121, or 3.4/game, and had 4.2/game in BEast play, 4th in the league), but that she has too many turnovers (she also led the team in this category). The TO problem largely is because she throws a lot of, shall we say, low-percentage passes. This should improve next year, and I would guess both that TOs will go down and that assists will go up.
2. RU's scoring is related as much to the team's defensive style of play as to offensive problems. There are fewer possessions in an RU game than in most other games, so naturally the scoring is lower. Even in 1999-2000, RU scored 70 or more points only 7 times in the regular season, including once in overtime (and lost one of those games, to boot). That said, I think that the offense does need to improve and to get away from the static periods when they forget how to run the half court. Strangely enough, I think they run the half court better when they're getting turnovers, almost as if they get energized by them.
3. If Vaughn can play significant minutes (25+/game), then I think she'll have a big impact on RU's offense because that will allow Essence Carson and Michelle Campbell to play their natural positions (the 3 and the 4, respectively), which will make them more valuable offensively. Carson played the 4 all year, sacrificing her offensive game in the process, but still averaging better than 8 ppg as a frosh.
I'm comfortable with RU in the top 10 for next year, certainly, but I'm not sure I like having the team ranked quite so high, as it already was hard enough to sneak up on people this year.
|
|