Brock vs UPEI
A breakdown of game two of the 2020 USPORTS women's national semi-final
The following is a breakdown of the National Semi Final game between the UPEI Panthers and the Brock Badgers from the Women’s 2020 USPORTS Final 8 Basketball Championship Tournament. Unless otherwise stated, all offensive and defensive rankings use the “Game of Runs” calculations - which is ORtg/DRtg (points scored/allowed per 100 possessions) adjusted for conference averages.
UPEI (17-3, AUS Champion) vs Brock (17-5, OUA Champion)
Brock came into the game amidst one of the great playoff runs in recent memory. The Badgers emerged out of the OUA with wins over Windsor (5th in NetRtg) in the conference quarters, at Western (14th in NetRtg) in a wild semi-final game in a hostile environment, and at Ryerson (2nd in NetRtg) as big-time underdogs behind a monster Samantha Keltos performance (42 Pts, 12 Rebs, 8-9 from three) to take the conference title.
On the other side, UPEI quietly put together a solid season toiling away in the AUS. The Panthers emerged from the Maritimes by blowing out Acadia (7th in NetRtg) in the conference title game, the only other real nationals contender from out east.
Buoyed on offense by their two-headed monster of Jenna Mae Ellsworth (AUS MVP and USPORTS Player of the Year) and Reese Baxendale (AUS First Team All Star), the Panthers actually hung their hat on their defense to win them basketball games. Seventh in defensive rank nationally, that ranking jumps all the way up to second when only counting games against above-500 teams.
They are a tenacious unit who managed to hold the potent Ryerson offense to a 84.5 ORtg - including a two-points-in-the-first-18-possessions-of-the-fourth-quarter clampdown – on their way to an exciting come-from-behind victory in the national quarters to make the semis.
Two good teams peaking at the right time.
Here’s a breakdown of the game.
1st Quarter
A great start by UPEI, notably on the defensive end. And as they did all year, their initial offensive plan is to try and get an easy bucket in transition.
Here’s an example that led to the Panthers first two points of the game.
Ellsworth does this a lot in the tape I’ve watched. She’s got great instincts and without hesitation takes off if she’s confident a teammate is about to secure the defensive rebound. The screenshot shows that she was off and running before her team even had the ball and the Brock players even realized what was happening.
And what a pass by Baxendale. There is great chemistry between these two. While they have a lot of skill overlap offensively, they do not play a “your turn then my turn” style (think early Wade-Lebron era Heat). Rather they complement each other and share nicely with one another, enhancing what the other is doing (think late Wade-Lebron era Heat).
There are great passers throughout this Panthers team. Confession time: in all the film I’ve watched in the last year, men’s and women’s, UPEI’s Karla Yepez might be my favourite non-star player to watch. She’s a wizard with the ball and an unreal distributor. When things are clicking, she makes their offense sing. She’s a cross between Nikola Jokic and Marc Gasol with her feel for the game from the centre position. I mean, look at this pass off the out of bound set.
It’s a beautifully designed set that exploits the natural positioning of the defenders on a sideline out of bounds…but it only works if you have a big who can execute the timing and loft of that final pass from the elbow. It’s a high-level play that few at the USPORTS level can make, let alone a big. Beautiful.
Anatomy of a play
Upon initial look, this feels like an instinctual play from Ellsworth to see a driving lane and just go for it.
But upon closer inspection this does - to my eyes - appear to be a drive by design, again facilitated by the brilliance of Yepez. (If I’m not careful this might quickly turn into a Yepez fan newsletter/website, but there are a bunch of subtle things she does on this set to facilitate the drive here.)
It starts with the setup, a simple exchange with a back-screen from Yepez to get Ellsworth the ball at the top of the key.
Here’s where the subtly and deception begins. In your typical set, this would be a pick and roll to get Ellsworth to go to her right hand with a head of steam. But Yepez only pretends to screen and instead sort of lingers just behind Ellsworth’s defender.
She then proceeds to direct the left side wing players to exchange (either as a reminder or because she sees something) and simultaneously “flip” the screen to go to the other of the defender, all in one motion.
Did you catch all that? The Yepez flip causes her defender to take a small step away from Ellsworth’s right hand, opening the driving lane (a player with Ellsworth’s first step can almost always get by the first defender). And the action on the left side occupies the bottom weakside defender just enough to make her a step slow to the rotation.
Ellsworth disguises her intentions well, hesitating just enough to let all this subtle action play out before taking an engine-revving dribble and pouncing on her drive opportunity. The helpside defender arrives just in time to commit a foul that leads to an and-1.
It’s another brilliantly designed set that leverages the skills of the players involved. Or it’s great instincts from smart players. Or it’s both. Whatever it is, it leads to beautiful basketball.
All of this great stuff happened in the first few minutes of the game and helped UPEI jump out to a lead. But the Brock Badgers are a tough unit and were playing just as well.
In fact, the first quarter was a well played high-paced game by both teams. Some beautiful back and forth basketball.
Here’s an example of two teams playing well.
Brock moves the ball really well through their progressions on offense here. Six passes and five drive attempts including some legit attempts at the hoop.
UPEI’s defense is just better. Great positioning, sound one-on-one play. A lesser defensive team would have broken down against this ball movement.
Brock, for their part, was patient, only at the end up against the clock do they have to force something.
UPEI, defensively, are not super athletic or super long, but make up for it with sound principles and disciplined positioning. Contain, contain, contain seems to be their main goal. Keep the person in front of you at all costs. When in doubt, collapse in the paint.
Then here’s a sequence from a few possessions later in the quarter:
The two possessions are nearly identical. Great defense, great ball movement (five passes and five drives), except this one ended with an open jumper that Keltos knocked down.
The patience that backfired on Brock on the other possession led to an open jumper on this one.
Through one quarter, these were two seemingly evenly matched teams. Both getting good shots on offense, but not because of bad defense. The score reflected this through one quarter.
2nd Quarter
Some sloppy play to start the stanza with some nice moments mixed in. Neither team seemed ready to take the game.
Brock started feeding Keltos to good effect in the post, and she tossed in a few lefty and righty hooks, as her superior size was giving the Panthers some problems. She capped off a mini run with a three-pointer leading to a UPEI timeout.
The make pushed the lead to seven and it felt like one of those “ooh, this feels like danger time, we better figure something out” timeouts from UPEI.
Here’s what they ran out of the timeout.
When the MVP of the country drives to the hoop, they draw attention, as no less than four Brock players collapsed on the driver.
A nice little ATO set, with the up-screen to give Ellsworth the momentum to head to the hoop, leading to an over-allocation of resources by Brock, and the good find for an open look from the outside.
On the other side of the ball, the chemistry of the Brock unit on the offensive end cannot be undersold. Their core move the ball around on a string and built a strong synergy - the type that only comes after playing together for a very long time. Check the Keltos pass here at the end of this 1-4 low set that leads to a nice reverse layup finish by Jessica Morris (one of the unsung heroes that made Brock great).
That’s a cut and pass that only teams that have played together a while can make. It’s a read that’s not really part of the set design, but rather a recognition by Morris that her defender has lost track of her. Instinctively she cuts to the hoop and gets a quality (though difficult) look.
It’s beautiful to watch and the type of thing you need to get good looks off a quality defense that breaks down as seldomly as UPEI’s.
Neither team gave an inch..and it was anyone’s ball game going into the second half.
3rd quarter
Brock came out with a clear defensive plan to shut down UPEI’s Ellsworth and Baxendale and make the rest of the UPEI squad beat them. On certain possessions in the rest of the contest they are completely ignoring certain players to protect the hoop:
Throughout the rest of the contest Brock made a concerted effort to keep penetration out of the paint at all costs, willing to sacrifice outside looks to do so.
Points were hard to come by for UPEI the rest of the game, and it took creativity to shake Ellsworth free. Here’s a fun out of bounds set that leverages her strengths.
Couple of things to note:
1) look how far back the inbounder Lauren Fleming (#7) is standing from the court to get the proper angle.
2) The spacing of the UPEI players in this set is such that it seems purely to be a read for Ellsworth to burst to the hoop. She knows she only needs an inch to get the leverage she needs and Fleming is ready to fire it her way as soon as that window opens. I’ve rewatched the set a bunch of times and I can’t tell if it was by design or simply a read between Ellsworth and Fleming to break off the set for the opportunity. Either way – remarkable.
Both teams are playing great defense in this game but there is some big-time shot making by both sides, especially by the Badgers. Many of their makes were contested or attempted from outside of their comfort areas. Brock felt like it was inching away in the quarter, but a tough Baxendale three as the clock expired kept UPEI attached going into the fourth.
4th Quarter
Knowing the outcome of the game going into this analysis, I kept waiting for the Brock run and it hadn’t yet happened.
UPEI opened the quarter with a couple of decent looks that just rattled out. Those momentum killer misses.
Then Melissa Tatti took over.
Brock’s star point guard spearheaded a 12-0 run for the Badgers, scoring or assisting on all of the points (8 points, 2 three-pointers, 2 assists).
The run was capped off with this brilliant pickpocket followed by an absurd assist with an offhand bullet for a layup.
She had just hit 3 straight shots before this sequence, so any penetration was cause for Panther panic. You can see in the film that the UPEI defender leans for one second the wrong way to react to the drive and that was the only window Tatti needed.
Tatti’s brilliance aside, it was the Brock defense that locked in during the final part of this game. During one 14 possession span over the last few minutes of the third and the opening minutes of the fourth, UPEI scored only three points - the aforementioned Baxendale three. That’s it.
The defensive game plan was working. UPEI’s big two were not getting good looks and the well had dried up from the supporting cast.
Following the run, Brock stopped scoring also, but they chewed up clock effectively. A couple of offensive rebounds gave them lengthy, extended possessions which sped up the clock and reduced the amount of opportunities for UPEI.
And all of a sudden the game was over. Brock had advanced to the National Final.