I noticed that there has been no posts in a long time here re the Lady Hokies basketball team. so, I thought I'd throw in my $.02. On paper the Lady Hokies have some decent talent and their OOC for 2015-16 resulted in a 13-1 start to include going into P5 Tennessee and Penn State and coming away with big wins. The 43 points scored by Tennessee marked the lowest single-game total in program history for Tennessee. With the Hokies ranked in the top 15 nationally in 3-point scoring defense, it looked as if they might have a decent year. Now I understand that the in-conference schedule is always tougher and that injuries and slumps occur. But after that 13-1 start, the Hokies have gone 2-11 and have averaged around 17 turnovers per game and have lost by an average margin of almost 15 points per game. Once the ACC schedule kicked in, either through slump or tighter D, the Hokies' big guns of Vanessa Panoussis and Hannah Young fell from 32% and 39% respectively in 3-pt average to 22% and 30%. Again, maybe tougher D in conference play. But once that happened Coach Wolfe never, until recently, found anybody or any lineup to make up the scoring difference on a consistent basis. The team seemed to lose their offensive identity and just seemed out of sync for the majority of most games. Their two wins against Clemson (by 30) and Virginia (at JPJ by 20) were the only bright spots of their ACC schedule.
The Virginia game saw the breakout of Sidney Cook with 23 pts and 14 boards. And, in 3 out of the last 4 games since, she scored 17, 20 and 17 and currently leads the team in rebounds. Maybe Coach will continue to incorporate more offense directed her way. Of the other players, Hicks is a decent point guard taking the onus off of Panoussis but that hasn't helped VP regain her offensive numbers as she had before. Hicks has little or no outside scoring ability (yet) and the bigs of Magarity, Campbell and Powell mostly rebound and do not contribute much to the offense as I've not seen a whole lot of plays designed for them inside. In the Syracuse game (who are nationally ranked in creating full court pressure turnover results), it seemed as if they never practiced for the full court pressure at all before the game and they looked horrendous trying to get the ball into half court and ended up with 29 turnovers. While they only lost to NC by 4, it took them scoring 46 points in the second half for that close result.
Again, I'm not a coach or analyst but IMHO, Coach Wolff has allowed the team to lose their sense of identity, hasn't come up with a consistent effective lineup, doesn't make any significant adjustments during the games and most of all has lost the team. They have just looked awful for the most part. They are on par with an early exit come ACC post-season unless the combination of Cook, Young and Panoussis come thru collectively and the bigs at least break even on the boards. I want to see the enthusiasm and tough play never-quit attitude of Buzz and the Boys come over to the women's team. Coach Wolff just seems to be too much laissez-faire for me.
Comments
Do you think our women lost confidence in January? Because our January schedule post-BC was pretty tough. In a 7 game stretch we had to play at Cuse, at UL, at ND, Miami and at FSU. When you have to play the 5 big dogs of the ACC (4 on the road) in one month and keep getting blown out, I imagine your 13-1 confidence wanes.
After that stretch, we lost some games that VT probably would have won if they played like they played in the non-conference. Why did we only score 34 at home vs GT? Why did we lose to Pitt and Duke at home? Why did we lose to the worst Carolina team since the late 80s?
YES.
YES!
It's totally possible that the early ACC games against those teams completely destroyed their confidence. But isn't that the Coach's job to re-instill that? They've just mostly been out of sync with little flow to their game. And, IMHO the team took on the laid-back public persona of the Coach. I see little fire coming out of their butts (figuratively).
Then they need to go to Taco Bell with Wyatt,
I know a coach can only do but so much, but I would like to see Whit install a proven women's coach and see if we can recruit well enough to get the fannies back in the seats.
I think the decline is on Wolf. Remember when the men got blown and Buzz had a long meeting after the game and irritated all the sports writers. He did what was necessary for the good of the team and they responded. Wolf does not seem to be able to keep the ladies motivated.
Personally, I would be extremely surprised if we didn't have a different woman's bball coach next year. From what I have heard many past high ranking people with the ad office in the past are against him.
The current average RPI of our OOC slate is 207.77
The current average RPI of the ACC is 74.38
The level of competition game in and game out is astronomically better. The ACC slate has them playing 4 games against the top 20 RPI. OOC had 1 game 20-30 in Tennessee, while ACC has 2 games against Miami. The worst RPI in the ACC is Clemson at 251. The majority of the back half all rate about the 120 area with Wake at 113, VT at 117, BC at 119, Pitt at 120, UNC at 124.
The OOC slate had 2 games against teams over 300 and 6 games 200-300 with Radford just escaping at 196 and George Mason at 183.
As to what changed, some of that is touched on above. Panoussis came off the tracks in a big way and with her went a ton of key baskets compared to early on in the season. She is down 3.5 points and 1.8 assists per game from OOC to ACC play. This team is much like the mens team in that Panoussis is their version of Seth Allen, so as she goes so goes the team usually. In their three conference wins, she had 10, 19 and zero points against UVA. In their 11 losses she has only broken double digits three times. In OOC slate she scored in double figures in eight of their 13 games.
Hannah Young has come on as of late with double digit scoring in her last five games but she was dreadful early on in the ACC slate. She scored 5 or less points in six of their first nine ACC games.
Cook has been the most steady, scoring somewhere in the eight to nine point range for most of the ACC slate until her recent ramp up to the high double figures the last few games.
You do have to remember that this team was just as dreadful last season as the men's and hasnt necessarily seen the talent influx that that team has gotten, albeit there are still some gems especially in Chanette Hicks. She has been in double figures 10 games as a freshmen which is fairly impressive for a point guard, especially for someone that has consistently averaged around five assists per game this year, high of 8 and 3 or more in all games but 3 this season.
The other drop off has been from Redshirt Freshmen Regan Magarity. I am not sure if its lingering issues with her injury from last season or something else but she has missed five games of the ACC slate and three of the OOC slate, and for someone that averaged over 14 points a game as a freshmen before getting injured, she has only managed 7.7 points this year so the Hokies arent getting the production they imagined from her so far this season.
Magarity and Panoussis are who I am sure Coach Wolff imagined running most of his offense through this season so having to get creative and find other options against one of the toughest conference schedules is pretty difficult. While I agree that I would like to see a bit more fire from Wolff on the sideline it may just not be his thing or he may realize that it doesnt work well with the team he has assembled. I do agree however that to lose four of your first six ACC games all by double digits, and several in absolute blowout fashion, really put a dent in the momentum the team built up early in the season. It also doesnt help that Wolff is limited by his bench quite a bit like Buzz has been. Of a 15 Lady squad, he has only been able to play 7 consistently and an 8th occassionally. Way too many DNP's across the roster. Other than the last five games of the ACC schedule, this team was not really competitive. It was either blowout wins by 25 over BC and 30 over Clemson or blowout losses like 39 to Notre Dame or 21 to Syracuse. Even being competitive though has only gotten them the win over UVA. They did take Miami to overtime in their last game but then proceeded to fold in the extra session and lose by 11. Tough team to watch however you look at it.
Rob earning that flair, great post.
This was pretty much along the lines that I was coming to say. While the win against Tennessee looks good on paper, they had a ton of injuries and we basically caught them at the right time. The rest of the schedule was fairly weak and they really should have gone undefeated in nonconference with the wins against Tennessee and Penn St. Games against GT, UNC, PITT and Duke were ones they needed to win to really have a shot at having a decent year in the ACC. UNC and Duke are both down this year and GT and Pitt just aren't that good(which kind of says something). Vanessa has been struggling in ACC play for whatever reason and is frustrated by that.
Looking towards next year, this was obviously the year they needed to do something. Right now you have the only ACC caliber wing player and two starting post players that are graduating with no one coming in or currently on the roster to replace them. Dennis will probably need to dip into the JUCO pool again to find a big to help out with minutes. Hicks, Panousis, Hill, Cook and Magarity is probably the starting lineup, but not much proven depth behind that. With two guards coming in next year guard will be fine and it would push Hill and Camp out to wing with Gilmer, but none of them have the shooting ability of Young. Nahodil and Croker just don't seem to be anything other than bodies for practice and Koshuta still has work to do with conditioning. With Magarity being injury prone, Dennis will definitely need to get some reinforcements in one way or another during the next signing period.
at this point if he truly has players on scholarship that are just bodies for practice, than he needs to take a page out of Buzz' playbook and gently or not so see them out, having two additional scholarships to add a couple bigs could be huge for this team, especially as you pointed out the lack of depth right now behind Young. I knew there were a bunch not playing, just didnt realize they were essentially never going to play. If they are walk ons than thats fine, Buzz has Galloway and Donlon but if they are scholarship, they need to transition to walk on or transition somewhere else.
We have some underutilized talent on the bench, but like most coaches we are rolling with a 7-8 player rotation. Can't fault Wolff for that, it's a pretty typical strategy. Can fault him for a ton of other stuff that fans don't really see on game day that is limiting the ceiling of the program.
He needs to be let go ASAP so we can get a real women's coach hired. I don't know if Weaver hired him as a temporary stabilizer or as a long-term solution but he is not cut out to be a women's coach. Getting us to .500 thanks to a terrible OOC schedule is about as far as he can take this team. In fact, if he is retained the program is going to take a huge step back next year. #sauces
His contract only has one more year on it and I can't see Babcock giving him an extension & long enough leash to start over from scratch. That means he gets the axe at the end of the season. Or at least I hope it does.
That is one of the conundrums this team faces. It not like men's basketball where there is a ton of talent to get, most of the top talent goes to the top programs. Look at Duke and UNC, they are usually solid programs, but are having mediocre years. Considering where Dennis started with this team, they have come a long way. Dennis is a great guy and a pretty good coach, I've just always said he would be better as a men's coach.
As far as players on this team leaving, I'm not sure who or if any of them would leave. They certainly wouldn't transition to walk-on (See Larryqua Hall for this example). Nahodil is going to be a senior so I doubt she would leave considering she hasn't yet and is friends with everyone on the team. I don't see Croker leaving, but she could if she wants to be closer to home or something. Camp is maybe another, but I think she knows her role on the team and is content with it.
First winning season in 9 years, apparently.
Listened to the game on HokiesExtra and it got so painful early on. I almost turned it off about a half dozen and/or six times but stuck it out and then my girl Sidney Cook lit the fuse, the D kicked in and they took over the game. It shows that while Panoussis continues to slump they needed someone else to step up and in this game Cook & Hicks provided that spark.
I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the women's team, I've been to quite a few games in the past few years but only one early this season, so perhaps my take on this isn't quite right but here goes...
My gripe with Wolff has always been that his teams seem to have no offensive flow or identity. I remember a few seasons ago watching the ladies play and they would run the same offensive play over and over again. Now you could argue that he did this b/c the players were young or he didn't have the players he wanted, but for the team to be running ONLY one play on offense in late December is very pitiful, and there isn't any excuse for it. His teams seem to be able to play very well on the defensive side of the ball, but they can't score. I think it might be time Whit went searching for a new women's coach to pump some new, fresh blood and energy into the program, but that's just my $0.02.
I agree 100%. The very same observations I've had. They are highly ranked nationally and maybe #1 in the ACC for defense. They've got that down pat for the most part. However, he's not progressed them inside at all. If someone drives to the basket, invariably they don't know how to defend that and commit the fouls. It sure would be nice to find a Buzz-type. I'm not saying we would ever contend but you have to progress from the beginning of the season until the end and they haven't.
Tonight's poor performance, particularly on offense, just reinforces for me that Wolff needs to go. Running a high-school flex offense with limited or no motion, no off-ball screens, and a soft perimeter passing offense is NOT making use of his talent. The defense is solid and generates transition baskets, but, it's not enough. The team was just NOT ready to play tonight and that is all on the coaching staff, period!!!
We all know Weaver, RIP, really messed up when he didn't give Bonnie any support and she left. We need a proven women's coach. Time for a change!
This team ended last year on a positive going into the ACC post-season and surprising the world with two wins before being eliminated. Getting McGarity back after her season ending injury last year and getting the real good freshman Hicks should have in itself made them better than one and out in the ACC tournament this year. McGarity, before she was hurt last year, was averaging 14 points and 10.6 rebounds. She had 17 rebounds against Norfolk State, the most by any freshman in Tech history and had 25 points in the season opener against George Mason, the most ever by a Tech freshman in her debut. I know injuries this year played a part but she was largely ineffective this year because of Wolff's style. Yes, he didn't make use of his talent. It worked in the OOC because of the opposition being what it was. Yes, the Tennessee and the Penn State wins were impressive but it was an anomaly IMO. When Panoussis and Young were effective, it masked the inefficient offense otherwise.
They also had a Freshman, Brielle Blaire, rated number 72 high school senior in the nation by ESPN, transfer out. Blaire said she was unhappy with Tech's system, not the amount of her playing time. "It wasn't a good fit — the style of play," Blaire said. "I'm just not used to playing like that. It's just really, really, really structured."
The game last night - they weren't ready and it was very very pitiful against a 2-14 ACC Boston College team. I agree with mic4tech - Time for a change!!
So basically Whit has to extend Wolff's contract or terminate it? If that is the case, then he is probably as good as gone.
I started the day yesterday thinking the women's team was improving, just not nearly as fast as the mens, but just because Buzz>Wolff does not mean Wolff is bad. Then I watched part of the BC game on TV, which is the first I've seen of this years team. Wolff should not be retained.
Agree with the prevailing sentiment for all of the reasons stated. Whit, looks like you're up again, how about another home run?
I think a Slam Dunk would be more appropriate. TJMT
Completely saw this another way
via GIPHY
I can see that, but it is women's basketball, after all, so I went with the home run hire expression we used for Buzz and Fuente.
Geno Auriemma or bust!!!
/s
Speaking of Bonnie, she was available in the off season and ended up at UC Santa Barbara, where she is 11-18, 8-7. Painful to remember that she finished her career here with a 158-62 record with a post season in each year she was here. Five NCAA's and two NIT's in seven years. What a botch job by Weaver.