Should be a good game!
Florida leads the league in personal fouls so that could be a plus or a minus for us. On the road in the SEC that has me worried. With our improved FT shooting it could be good though. I expect a low scoring, scrappy affair. I’m going Lady Vols 62-54.
Florida matches up with us better than some teams but I do not think they have anyone who can guard Horston. Merritt is a good player but I don’t think her perimeter defense is good enough to keep Jordy in front. Look for her to have another big night. On the other end, we match up well with Merritt. She likes to shoot the 3 but our 4 players in Dye and Puckett have no problem keeping up with those players. She definitely prefers to face up which is a bonus for us IMO. She shoots a good % but is not likely to take you off the bounce. At 6’3” she doesn’t have a very tight handle. If she puts the ball down our guards can knock it loose easily.
Florida changed up their defenses some against LSU switching from man to zone. I expect we will see a fair bit of zone from them because they cannot matchup with Tamari well.
Florida relies on getting the majority of their scoring in transition or the secondary break. They are not a good half-court offensive team. Getting back and getting our defense set will be imperative. Ball control will also be very important for us. They try to jump the passing lanes on almost every possession. If our perimeter players will jump to the pass they will foul us a ton. It’ll look like a tackle when they make contact. A little flop or two early in the game to draw attention to it wouldn’t hurt us either.
I believe we will need Miles to play more minutes than she has been recently. Smith is their offense and after watching several games I believe the key to shutting them down is making it very difficult for her to catch the ball. Her defender needs to pick her up in the backcourt and force her to get rid of it. Walker will need Miles’ help keeping the pressure on for 40. Smith tends to score at the rim off the initial push beating her defender down the court. Once she’s been forced to give it up we need to make it extremely difficult for her to get the ball back. Their offense has to have the ball in her hands or it comes to a screeching halt. They will turn the ball over if we make it tough for her on the catch and force other players to handle.
Broughton has really come on the last few games and is a huge reason for their recent success. She’s a speedy guard with a good BBall IQ. Her role expanded when Briggs left the team. She is averaging 7 points on the season but is averaging almost 15 in her last 6 games. She gets out in the passing lanes and turns teams over. To me, she’s a player that should not score more than 10 points against us. She doesn’t like to handle the ball in their offense and will turn it over if she has to handle too much. Would like to see us force her to handle the ball in the halfcourt while we make it difficult for Smith to get it back.
Neither of their big girls are 3 point threats which will be a nice reprieve for Tamari compared to the last few games. Neither Dut nor Toonders have hit a 3 on the season. Neither can score against Tamari in the paint and they do not look for them much. I’m betting they try to go to them some early to see if they can tag a foul or two on TK. We should be able to turn them over trying to get the ball inside though, just not their game and they aren’t used to doing it.
Rimdahl is a dead eye shooter if you give her the time but is not athletic enough to score against our defense if we force her to put it on the floor. She can take players off the bounce but will be totally lost once she gets by as there is no way she can score at the rim against our interior defenders. Does not have much, if any, mid range game.
