Who would you replace her with?
[Speaking in conspiratorial tones] "Jeff Walz would be the LV head coach except the bluehaired mafia intervened by ..oh, no they are here to silence me help, help he.. AAAARGH" [End scene]
Aside from Elvee/Darth's predictable performance art (The
New York Times, writes "damn, haven't we seen this same [expletive deleted] before?)........
In a head to head coaching match, Kellie made defensive adjustments that Mulkey could not effectively counter, and, furthermore, KJH compensated exceptionally well for the absence of the team's leader in points, rebounds, and assist. (Get well soon, Jordan Horston!)
In the first quarter, LSU did slice and dice us on the perimeter (Jordan would have helped a lot there) and they were red hot. Once Kellie made the decision to keep shifting between a man-to-man and the 2 -3 zone (which means her team is well drilled in defense sets), it was a different game. The LVs held LSU to 7% shooting in the 3rd quarter. The LVs even won the game's TO battle with 15 versus LSU's 19. Our new look press, with Kaiya, Miles, and Jordan W. looked fierce!
But, the fatal problem was that during that absolutely stellar defensive 3rd quarter the LVs only cut the 16 point lead to 10. On the one side, LSU played good defense as well so that was a conributing factor. But the LVs missed a staggering number of open shots, some from almost point blank range (29% shooting in that quarter). The "missing open shots" pattern continued in the 4th quarter but the LVs managed to generate more baskets from TOs and offensive rebounds (and the 4th was the team's best shooting quarter at 44%).
On the whole it is hard to win games shooting 31% overall (not to mention missing 7 FTs-- 10 for 17 = a substandard 58%)
Rae shot 4 for 18, Dye was 5-15 and Puckett was 2-9. Most of these misses were "good look" shots that you would expect them to make. And Jordan Walker was 1 for 4 from behind the line and all those shots were uncontested.
The LVs really should have won this game based on their defensive effort (and success in disrupting LSU's offense) but you have to put the little round ball in the dang hoop to get the W.
Shooting woes have been the season's recurrent theme and this shortfall is magnified with Jordan being out.
I am Kellie supporter and think she is doing a stellar job (as pointed out by other posters, she has a much less experienced team to work with than Mulkey) but responsibliity for night in and night out poor shooting (fairly or not) falls on the coaches' shoulders.
Honestly, we are not likely to see a magical transformation where this team (this season) becomes the "splash brothers." But going forward, Kellie has to find a solution to these shooting woes or else her teams will not become legit final four contenders.