2007 Freedom Lady Patriot Super Saturday

I think fundamentally sound would describe MountainBall best.

 

That is interesting. Why do you think there is such a difference in style?
Is it coaching styles, depth, talent, intelligence, team unity, etc... I wonder why officiating different in mountainball?

I believe each coach plays to the assets of their team. There must be some reason the styles are different.

 

Here's the things I've noticed over the years about ball in Charlotte compared to the ball played up here in the mountains...

1. There's more of a team effort involved in mountainball. West Charlotte in 2002-2003 is a perfect example. I remember their offense consisting of spreading everybody out and hoping that the point guard would end up isolating the defender up high and therefor using her athletic ability to drive to the basket. Only problem for West Charlotte was that when another defender would shift over and block the open lane, the guard either forced up a bad shot or committed a turnover by throwing the ball away.

2. Coaching...While Charlotte has produced some better coaching in recent years, overall I still think they don't have as good a coaching as the teams up here. 2001 comes into mind here. McDowell travelled to Waddell High for a sectional final to play an "over-hyped" Myers Park team that consisted on 3 High D1 recruits. At that time McDowell had a little freshmen point guard named Anna Atkinson. I remember the opening tipoff, MP got possession and instead of attacking the basket, they just settled for starting their half court offense. Only problem was that former McDowell coach Mike Sliver threw a monkey-wrench into the Myers Park plan by putting the Lady Titans in a 2-3 zone. The look on the players eyes was priceless...they had no clue what offense to run against a zone defense.

3. Patience... Or from what I have seen over the years a lack there of. Too many of the games I've seen where the Charlotte teams think that the first available shot is the best shot. Where as up here you move the ball around to find the better and easier shot. LaQuita Owens (Independence) scored 26 points in a playoff game up here at McDowell four years ago. The thing was, she took 28 shots to get ther points and 10 of her 26 actually came from the foul line. So in reality it took her 28 shots to score 16 points. Meanwhile McDowell won that game 101-77 because they dominated the boards and was able to run in transition.


Charlotte has the talent, there's no question about that. It's just the fact that they don't have enough folks down there to mold them into even better players.