The women traveled last night to Providence and had the first practice this morning. The vibe looked amazing. I feel pretty confident about tomorrow’s semifinal. Hopefully we have a comfortable advantage at the half that lets us give some rest to our starters to be at our 100% on Saturday. The only small fear that I have is that we haven’t played Penn since Jan 25th, and they have improved significantly, so they might surprise us with something we haven’t seen.
At the same time, I think we haven’t seen the 100% of this team yet. Meg just said in the Morningside Hoops podcast that we actually won the scrimmage against UConn in the preseason (?!?!) (the same game where Mia Broom got injured), which has been a Top 6 team all season long and one of the main candidates to win the NCAA tournament. I really want to see this team play in the NCAA tournament and get revenge for last year against Vanderbilt
Do you think we’re better with Avlijas in a boot, on the bench, or in the starting lineup?
I havent been overly impressed with her play but I’m keeping an open mind.
Otherwise, I hope Coach G plays the entire team. Depth can be a strength. We have a good bench and the best way to make it better is by giving them regular minutes.
It’s a hard question to answer. Offensively, our best minutes have been without her in the court. But it’s true that sometimes she has been good in keeping the offense pace flowing when we got a bit stuck. On the other had, she gives us a lot defensively. I think when we have a good guard in front, having both Kitty and her on the floor makes the opposite team guards struggle a lot, resulting in more steals, traps and overall a better full-court press.
So she might be really important in a potential final against Harvard. I’m not so sure of how important can be to have her available against Penn (more than just having a larger rotation), or for a potential final against Princeton. As far as I know she was part of the full training this morning, participating as she would if she was healthy, so I think is safe to assume she is fully available for the weekend
Not a pretty first half, but our defense has been amazing. Rafiu being on point seems crucial for the rest of the game, as there seems to be no one from Penn that can stop her