Jenny Yopp wants her team to get its aggressiveness back and, in the process, slow down the fast-paced Northern Iowa offense as her Illinois State team takes on the Panthers Thursday in a Missouri Valley Conference basketball game in the West Gym at Cedar Falls.
In Katie Miller (19.8 points per game) and Amy Swisher (14.5), Northern Iowa coach Tony DiCecco has the highest-scoring duo in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Katie Miller and Amy Swisher account for nearly half of their points, said Yopp. Northern Iowas transition offense is tough. We need to slow them down and match up with Miller and Swisher quickly. They are both very dangerous scorers.
Both teams are looking for their first conference win. The Birds, 2-8 overall, 0-1 in the Valley, dropped their home opener last week to Indiana State. Northern Iowa dropped both ends of a road trip to Drake and Creighton.
It will be interesting to see how we respond to that, said DiCecco. It will be important for us to regroup. Once we get to our bench, were counting on first-year freshmen so well be tested. We have to match Illinois States energy and shoot better than we did (at Creighton and Drake). We only shot 30 percent and you have to do a lot of things exceptionally well to win shooting 30 percent.
DiCecco illustrated his belief that the Redbirds are improved by drawing an analogy to legendary Boston Celtics coach Arnold Red Auerbach, who used to light up a cigar at the end of every victory.
They do some very good things and have played well; they just havent been able to get the cigar on the other end, said DiCecco. Our concern is that they have kids who can break you down offensively. The question for us is whether we are disciplined enough to take things away from (Illinois States offense), and how well we respond to last weekend.
Yopp believes focusing on aggressiveness will be a key for her team.
Northern Iowa is a good, physical team and weve had some good battles with them, said Yopp. We werent as aggressive against Indiana State as we had been in the previous three or four games and that was disappointing. But I think our players now understand that we need to be aggressive and battle one day at a time, one game at a time, one play at a time.
The Redbird offense, which had increased its output in three straight games before the 70-51 loss to Indiana State, will have to take its cue from the defense, according to Yopp.
We respond offensively to what we do defensively, said Yopp. We know well face a tough man-to-man defense from Northern Iowa and well have to be aggressive against that.
Taren OBriens 10.0 points per game leads the Redbirds, who have four more players averaging between 7.0 and 8.0 per game, including sophomore Erin Keeney (7.0), who has averaged 15 points per game over her last two contests.
The Redbirds continue on the road to play a 5 p.m. Saturday game at Bradley.
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