Ducks Are Coming, 4-0

The Lady Pilots withstood a scrappy Air Force team without Alex Gannis, their power forward and leading rebounder. Nakeisha Brown was lighting it up from the three point line, sometimes with her foot on the line, but whatever; she was instrumental in the second half run that put Air Force away. Nakeisha has good anticipation, she reminds me of an outfielder getting a good jump on the ball by taking steps or leaning the right direction.

Freshman Cassandra Brown looks like a player. Listed at 6'2", she is lean, quick and can shoot. The first half ended with Cassandra making a nice spin move to her right, putting her defender on her back, and laying the ball up left handed. The other freshman, Alexis Byrd, also looks like she will be a significant contributor. Teclemariam is a steady force at the point, making very few mistakes and distributing the ball to shooters and into the post. The cadets did little to fluster Teclemariam with their press at the end of the game. Day had an off game shooting wise, but has quick hands and is in the passing lane often.

Collectively, this team played the passing lane quite well, stealing many ill considered Air Force passes. They were outrebounded but made up the difference with an opportunistic defense.

The game was worth taking in if for no other reason to hear the Air Force coach protest nearly every call made against her team, with some pretty lame explanations as to why there was no foul. She was pretty vociferous when she thought a foul should have been called as well. She also seems to be on her players more than most. Even with the benefit of quasi military cadet discipline, I wonder how long that coach will be able to keep the ear of her team.

The Air Force was a scrappy team, like Portland, though without the same level of talent.
An entertaining game and an enjoyable victory.

My assumption is the Pilots will need Gannis to have an inside presence against the Ducks. I am not aware of why she sat out but let's hope she is available. Angel, our center, went down near the end of the game, with either a knee or an ankle, could not tell which: she put no weight on her leg coming off the court. My guess is she will be limited if she plays, but probably is out.

Go Pilots.

Tough loss to the Ducks. The Pilots got out to a big lead at the end of the first half, but the Ducks really stepped up their pressure in the second half. The Pilots had a lot of trouble with the press.

Kassi and Emma Nelson called the game on the internet and did a great job. Emma sounded like she has done this before.

A_Fan wrote:The Pilots had a lot of trouble with the press.

YES. Yes they did.

The whole game was really kind of a mess with the 45+ combined TOs. You can tell both teams like to play at a quick pace.

This wasn't Paul Westhead's first time in the Chiles Center, of course. Fans of a certain age will recall he coached LMU in the 90s when they would put up 120 a game.

pilot womens teams often have trouble with the press, even when they have a good point guard, as they do this year. don't know the reason, perhaps they are not school too well in how to break a press ?

It was really bad. It seemed like the pilots just would not send someone towards our basket for a long pass and easy layup (or at least taking a defender with them). And when they did break the press and have a 2 on 1 the driver would almost always go all the way to the rim, ignoring the fact that the defender was on them and the other pilot had an easy layup.

Overall the Ducks were very aggressive and it seemed to get us really flustered.

Gee, I guess it couldn't be the coaching. Sollars has been out of it for years. Its time for him to go.

Hmmm, I seem to remember the Pilots finishing 2nd in the league two years ago and Coach Sollars was WCC coach of the year. Was he out of it then?

Sollars seemed to be very much involved in what was going on. He was piping mad about the officiating. Got a T in the first half where we ended up having 6 players with 2 fouls. He is not as loud as some other Coaches so I could not tell what he was telling his players to do most of the time.

I don't have any insight as to how he wanted the team to deal with the pressure, but sometimes you just have to experience it. Also sometimes the "don't try to get into a shootout" gets forgotten by the players when they get info the flow of the game (taking shots way too early in the clock, etc). I did see my "other team" give up 149 to his LMU team in the NCAAs.