The Litter Box

Thursday night’s season opener for the Chico State women’s basketball team, a too-close-for-comfort victory over Alaska-Fairbanks, was a spur-of-the-moment assignment, and therefore I have no photos for you. But hey, supposedly I can paint you a picture with words, being a writer and all. Here goes in my own opener of the season for Wildcat Report Cards:

UPS
Felt good to type that again, even if you thought you were going to read about a delivery service. It means “positives,” you scumbags. I’m not changing it, I’ve decided. Just now. But let’s get to ‘em.

Center of attention.
Oh, Renee Goldoff, how you can inspire. If you’re looking at just numbers alone (18 points, 12 rebounds, 8-of-10 FTs), it’s impressive enough, but there are two that you might not know the story behind. One steal, one block. That steal, essentially a strong safety ball-hawk in the final minutes — while the Wildcats were still trailing — sparked the comeback, and the block all but sealed it.

Yes, she has the “look-at-my-palms, they’re up here by my shoulders” style of running down the floor, but even against a Nanooks (awesome) team that bumped her constantly in the post, she was grittier than a Frank Miller movie. Somewhere around the 14-minute mark in the second half, she just decided she was going to the basket. More important than the points were her attitude: We’re going to do the things to win now. NOW. It rubbed off.

Agent Smith.
Natasha Smith wasn’t in the starting lineup, proving my silly assumptions wrong, and all she did was lead everybody in scoring with 22 points. As usual, her biggest contribution was her hustle, and quite a few of her points came from it. She just goes to the basket, gets the ball and does something with it. She’s still a little raw, and I thought she pressed a little bit defensively (no steals and three fouls is shocking for her), but her energy and ability to fill it up helped keep Chico State in the game.

1-0.
It looks a lot better than 0-1, doesn’t it? By most accounts, that’s probably what the Wildcats’ record should be. If not for the late surge and some sudden aneurisms by Alaska-Fairbanks (a charge, the ill-advised pass attempt through Goldoff, a travel on its last possession), we could very well be talking about what a disappointment the opener was. To get a win when a team is far from its best is always nice.

DOWNS
That thing they call "flow."
The Wildcats rarely had it. Thirteen turnovers isn’t as unsightly as 20, which is what the Nanooks had, but it’s still not the way to win a basketball game. They didn’t come off screens sharply or even make sharp cuts, and I think that is part of getting used to where they should be on the floor. For awhile, they were playing tentatively, and that should change. For now, though, it’s an early-season worry that will likely be addressed.

Not quite in the zone.
It was pretty clear on several effective swing passes by Alaska-Fairbanks that there is some work to be done defensively as far as post rotation in the zone defense goes. I’d say the hedging was probably too conservative — more of that tentativeness — and the rotation down low was about two steps slow. Anticipation is another thing that you hope improves with more time; keep in mind there’s a bunch of new personnel in new roles on this club. Which leads us to...

Identity crisis.
Well, crisis is a bit strong. But there were specifically some places I would have liked to see some more “Look at me and what I’m doing!”-type stuff. The first thing that come to mind is Synchro Bull, who wasn’t bad in her first game, but also looked determined not to shoot the ball unless she absolutely had to. Once that moment came — an expiring shot-clock heave that earned the Wildcats another possession — she let it fly a couple times.
Play at the wing was somewhat nondescript; the combination of Molly Collins, Taylor Lydon and Annelise Miller combined for four points on 2-of-8 shooting. How the 3 (or whatever Brian Fogel is calling it these days in his system) is integrated into the offense wasn’t apparent after one game.

That just about puts a lid on it. I tried to charm my way out of the Park Ave. Palace again to get to Acker on Saturday, but the forecast isn’t good.