Y'all should watch again, they weren't just beasting Serena in the post, except for when HVL switched onto her, but Mittie ran several unique different sets to isolate her and try to mitigate help coming. You can see this the best on the last three that Poindexter hit, that was designed to give TCU a choice, they decided to double and Poindexter hit what was the game winning dagger. TCU had every reason to be worried about Serena passing out of doubles, if you go back and look at previous games, she's looking to do that more often than not, but the last two or three games she's been so unstoppable in the post, primarily because we have three dead eye shooters on the perimeter, and teams don't want to leave them. Even Gis, whose minutes last night drove me bat crap, has been 7-18 the last 7 games, that's 39%.
Another Serena post iso that I loved was one in the fourth quarter, the double did come from Prince and Serena went to Prince to get the shot off. She missed it but I think it goes to what her mentality was last night.
The best part about this new found pressing style and isolating Serena is that these two things can continue after Ayoka returns. The post iso will be a little more complicated, but they can just pull Ayoka to the opposite high post. They actually compliment each other very well in a double post because Serena prefers to work on the left side and Ayoka prefers the left.
In the third quarter, K-State ran sets on 13 possessions (not counting transition possessions, etc.). Of those, KSU ran iso on 6 possessions. Of those, 5 were Sundell (the other was Sanchez). TCU made zero attempt to double on all 6 possessions regardless of who was guarding Sundell. KSU scored on 5 of those possessions (4 for Sundell).
In the fourth quarter, not counting the final minute when the game was over, KSU ran sets on 12 possessions. Of those, KSU ran iso 8 times (8 of the last 9 possessions). Of those, 7 were Sundell (1 was Poindexter). Of those isos that were in the paint, TCU made zero attempts to double team. One was outside of the paint and Sundell passed it out to Poindexter for a made 3 after the double came. The other was a flukey play were Sanchez nearly turned the ball over, Sundell picked it up in the lane, started to iso and because Prince hadn’t followed Sanchez out to the corner, she did run toward Sundell before Sundell kicked it out to Sanchez for a made corner 3-pointer (doesn’t count as an intentional double team in my book).
So, to recap, in the second half:
25 KSU possessions with sets
14 isos (all within the last 20 possessions when sets were run)
0 double teams on isos in the paint (unless you count the flukey unintentional double team)
1 double team on iso outside of the paint
12 made baskets (9 by Sundell)
In all of these cases, it didn't matter who was guarding Sundell - the tactic was the same. In nearly every case, Sundell either posted up in the paint or posted just outside the paint (to your point - mostly on the left side/lower block) and then backed down her defender (leaving ample time to double). Yes, Mittie ran some different actions to get her into those iso spots, but I don't think we're talking Tex Winter stuff there.
If you want to give credit to TCU for being in a tough spot, that's certainly fine. Given that KSU entered the game after being on fire against KU, defending the 3 makes sense.
I think the point being made was that KSU essentially kept doing the same thing over and over and TCU didn't change their approach, switch things up, etc. after they were getting destroyed and that the decision by TCU was probably a bad choice.
I do agree on the prospects for the offense was Lee's back - we'll be awfully tough to defend with this dedication to running these sets.
