Has Lady Hokies Basketball Regressed?

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.