Caitlin Clark x West Virginia

[@camilasilvaalves6319]

Nobody will care anyway, I´m just using this space to rant what I got from both games: 1) Iowa´s roster is fragile, meaning to have a convincing win they need everyone working on their roles perfectly. Basically, they have 2 players who depend on Clark´s passes to be effective on offense, they can not put the ball on the floor and create for themselves: Marshall And Stuelke. Marshal did not shoot well and Stuelke is not a threat outside 5feet. But second problem: they are key pieces on defense, so who´s on the bench Lisa could put to have an offensive/defensive impact? Nobody. 2) Only Affolter made the right decisions to looked off Clark with a purpose, taking the ball to the rim. In many plays the others kept the ball instead of giving right away to Clark start a fast break (the only times she had nobody on her face), and when they finally gave to her it was too late, the pace was slow and she always had tall defenders blocking her path. 3) You put all of this together, and Clark´s only option is the hardest: fadeaway 3. That´s why I need her to work on her mid range shots, the only play Lisa Bluder has is the "scissor cut", very predictible to defend if you pay attention, and notice most PNR are on her left side of the floor. If she could trust her midrange more, she would be a lot more dangerous navigating the screen and pull up for the mid range j. 4) Everybody on Iowa is stressed, they are soft and only Affolter is willing to match the physicality other teams bring. 5) Virginia Tech had a play all season to screen on the FT line and Amoore passing to someone shoot the 3 out of the hand off. I think Iowa needs this play as well with either Marshall or Martin.

[@camilasilvaalves6319]

Caitlin needs to work on her ball handling a little bit because the defense was on her hip the entire night so she looked very slow trying to drive to the rim and used the off arm a lot. She has to know this is in the scouting report and players will flop if she extends her arm. Many players hesitated to take the wide open shots and made heavy contested passes to the post instead. Also it drives me crazy how Clark just can´t knock down a mid range jumper anymore :(

[@stevefranklin2769]

The mid range jumper is a very very low percentage shot. The few that excel at it is not the norm. Caitlin isn't a deity. She's human. She is however, badass.

[@camilasilvaalves6319]

She needs this shot back asap, or else she´s gonna be a target for chasedown blocks all the time here and in the league. Like I said, she´s having trouble with the tight defense on her because she´s the only ball handler out there, without this shot she does not have a lot of options in the PnR because everyone is doing a great job on the scouting report against them. Notice here 0:48 she did a lot of wrap around passes to Hannah during the season, they took it away. Martin did not had a single backdoor cut either, again, great defense effort from WV 1:22, she normally would get one of those sick bounce passes in transition, defender stuck with her she missed the window to pass to Kylie and Martin travelled after :( @@stevefranklin2769​