WC Lady Cards District Title

The following is really my advice to coaches in the class 4 playoffs.

First, if you're a coach and you see that the WC girls are your next opponent, I'm sorry. If you don't have superior athletes up and down your roster, you're probably going to get beaten - and quite possibly soundly. WC goes about 9 or 10 deep and they all play about the same way.

Second, the worst thing you can do is speed the game up by pressing them. What you're dealing with is a group of girls (mostly sophomores) that have been playing together for years now and play at a speed that few girls teams can. They are fast and they know how to run the floor better than some guys teams do. They can move the ball around the perimeter quickly enough to expose the holes in your defense. So, for goodness sake, don't beat yourself by pressing them. I'm not sure they shot more than a half-dozen shots that weren't layups last night. Every time Nevada pressed them they'd beat them for a layup. Every time Nevada would step out to guard on the perimeter someone would cut to the basket for a layup.

So if you're in the difficult spot of having to play these girls, here's my advice (and I'm no expert). Spend all of your practice time working on handling the ball against full-court pressure. Don't worry about your offense, you're not going to play any half-court offense anyway. You're going to get pressed from the word go and if you can't handle it, you're done.

On defense, drop back into a zone and don't ever leave the lane. I mean it. Don't step out to guard on the perimeter. Why? Because the moment you step out of the paint you're going to give up a layup. If you stay inside you will force them to beat you shooting the ball - which they'll probably do, but it's your best chance.

Good luck. Did I mention they're mostly sophomores?

By the way, they rolled over Nevada last night. At one point they were up by 38, it was never close.