Wilson credits recent wave of success to zone defense

By BRAD KEITH
TheFlashToday.com

STEPHENVILLE (January 21, 2018) — Misty Willson caught herself committing one of the grave sins of coaching. Fortunately for her Tarleton State women’s basketball team, she caught herself early and rectified the problem.

Tarleton State was sitting at 3-4 overall and 1-2 in Lone Star Conference games when the bus pulled out of Lawton, Oklahoma following a loss to Cameron that came on the heels of a setback at Midwestern State two days prior in Wichita Falls. They look to avenge those losses this week when first Cameron then MSU make their annual trips to Wisdom Gym for games at 5:30 p.m. Thursday and 2 p.m. Saturday.

“I was frustrated because we were scoring enough points to win, but we still weren’t getting the result we wanted, so I had to take a closer look at what we were doing defensively,” says Wilson as she looks back on the Tarleton season through December 27, the day Cameron prevailed at Aggie Gym.

“Everyone was panicking about our offense, but I knew we were going to produce offensively because we have girls who can really score,” she said. “I was panicking about our defense.”

Wilson quickly realized the answer could be found with some simple self-reflection.

“I had to decide if we were really a man-to-man team defensively or if I was just trying to make us a man team because it’s what I was comfortable coaching,” she said. “I took a long look at it and realized we’re better fit to be a zone team. I was just being stubborn because I had never really coached a zone.”

Of course, understanding her team’s need for more zone defense was not enough. She also had to train her players to execute the finer points of the zone defense in real time against a conference opponent.

“I had to learn how to teach the zone before I could expect the girls to be very good in it, so I started doing a lot of research. I watched a lot of (Syracuse men’s coach and one of the best known proponents of the zone defense) Jim Boeheim stuff and using some other resources.”

She didn’t get tricky, going with the ever-popular 2-3 zone employed regularly across the sport.

The turnaround really began two games before the current run of eight wins in nine games. On December 7, Tarleton thumped Western New Mexico and two days later lost in overtime to Eastern New Mexico, the reigning conference champ. Already the TexAnns were playing better, even though they were 4-5 overall and just 1-3 in the LSC.

Since that time, the results speak for themselves. They broke conference play and picked up a key regional road win over Arkansas-Fort Smith, then returned from Christmas break to destroy Arlington Baptist before another regional win, this time at home over Southeastern Oklahoma State.

The following performance, in which Tarleton dominated basically from start to finish against a good Angelo State team, was when the zone really started to shine. They defeated Texas A&M-Kingsville two days later then fell to Texas A&M-Commerce, but it was more about cold shooting than anything defensively. Since then, Tarleton has won three straight league games on the road – at Texas Woman’s, West Texas A&M where last Thursday they ended the eighth ranked Lady Buffs’ 16-game home win streak, and at UT-Permian Basin, which is much improved from a year ago.

Tarleton allowed 68.7 points per game in its first four conference outings and has yielded just 54.8 in its last six. It’s no coincidence the record has improved to 12-6 and the TexAnns are within 2.5 games of first-place A&M-Commerce halfway through the LSC season.

“The zone puts us closer to shooters, makes it less difficult to contest shots, and I’ve even seen where we get into our offense more effectively because we’re coming out of the same spot each time instead of having to come from wherever our man takes us,” Wilson explains. “It’s really freed us up to get more in to the flow of our game.”

The lone loss since the Western New Mexico win on December 7 came at A&M-Commerce on January 9. It was 68-62 and Tarleton shot a paltry 32 percent from the field including only 23 percent from the arc.

“That was just a tough night shooting the ball. A&M-Commerce has a very good team, that’s why they are leading the league right now. We aren’t going to beat them or anybody, really, if we shoot the ball like that.”

Fortunately, that’s been the exception not the norm. Turnovers – 25 of them including 14 before halftime – caused struggles at UT-Permian Basin Saturday, but the zone was in tip-top shape and Tarleton pulled away in the fourth to win 58-45.

“I think it’s hard going from a place like First United Bank Center two days earlier to UTPB’s gym (the Falcon Dome). There’s naturally a little bit of a let down there,” Wilson said. “And it was our second straight week of home games. We drove five hours or more for one, then we drove three or four hours to play again two days later, that starts to wear on you some.”

Safely back in Stephenville after winning three of four games out of town, Wilson is glad to have some home cooking this week, especially as her team focuses on avenging two prior losses.

“That’s one good thing about who we lost to, because Midwestern, Cameron and later A&M-Commerce all have to come here still. They have to come play us in Wisdom Gym,” she said. “Already in shoot-around (Monday morning) it was just nice to see a lot of shots in a row going in, and the girls getting to go to class, which they didn’t do much of in the first week of the semester last week. It’s always better when you’re at home.”

And for this Tarleton team, it’s better to be in the zone.

“It’s working so we’re going to stick with it until we see a good reason to change,” she said. “I was stubborn in sticking with man as long as I did, so those early losses, they’re on me.”

 

WILSON LISTED OTHER KEYS TO HER TEAM’S RESURGENCE:

1. Chemistry: “That’s something that just comes with time,” Wilson said. “Early on I think each individual girl was trying to do more than she needed to do. But here lately we’ve been playing very selfless basketball and letting the game come to us more naturally. We’re always better when we play together, not as individuals.”
2. The Boss: McKinley Bostad has been taking over late in games. She scored 11 in the fourth quarter of one, 13 in the final three minutes of regulation and overitme of another. The versatile junior hit the game-winning free throws at WTAMU Thursday night, and took the ball and slowed the offense at just the right time late in the fourth quarter Saturday at UTPB, prompting Wilson to say, “We knew what we were getting with McKinley and it’s really starting to show now. She’s the ultimate competitor. She wants to take the big shot at the end and she doesn’t mind taking the blame if it doesn’t go. And she has such a high IQ for the game that our other players trust her in those situations.
3. Scoring Options: “I always knew we were going to find a way to produce offensively because we have four girls who can go out and score a lot of points any given time in T (Tiara Tatum), Mack (Hailey), McKinley and Katie (Webster),” said Wilson,  who added concerning the tandem of Bostad and Hailey, “When they’re really working well together that puts a lot of pressure on a defense. McKinley plays the post for us some, and then when she is able to move out to the guard spot, the defense has to be ready because she can hurt you if she’s open for a split second, she can beat you on the dribble and she also a lot of times is our leader in assists. You can’t really crowd Mack down low when McKinley is also doing her thing outside.

THE BOSS LEADS THE CHARGE:

Bostad is one of the best shooters in the LSC, hitting 43 percent from 3 and 84 percent from the foul stripe. She has averaged 15.7 points over the past 11 games after averaging 9.4 through the initial 7. She has reached double figures in 10 of the past 11 , and scored nine in the other. Bostad began her college career at Arkansas and also played at Texas State before transferring to Tarleton. She was a two-time all-state player at Kennedale High School and was named 2013-14 Texas Girls Coaches Association 1A-3A Athlete of the Year.

 

TEXANN TEAM STATS:

Overall Team Statistics

Statistic	Tarleton State	Opponents
SCORING
Total Points	1196	1071
Points Per Game	66.4	59.5
Scoring Margin	6.9	—
SHOOTING
FG: Made-Attempted	409-1020	394-968
FG: Percentage	.401	.407
FG: Per Game	22.7	21.9
3PT: Made-Attempted	119-344	89-315
3PT: Percentage	.346	.283
3PT: Per Game	6.6	4.9
FT: Made-Attempted	259-349	194-284
FT: Percentage	.742	.683
FT: Per Game	14.4	10.8
REBOUNDING
Total	578	687
Per Game	32.1	38.2
Margin	-6.1	—
ASSISTS
Total	255	217
Per Game	14.2	12.1
TURNOVERS
Total	295	395
Per Game	16.4	21.9
Margin	5.5	—
Assist/Turnover Ratio	0.9	0.5
Points Off Turnovers	20.7	14.8
STEALS
Total	183	131
Per Game	10.2	7.3
BLOCKS
Total	2.7	2.7

 

TEXANN INDIVIUDAL STATS: