Not only did Lamke score 20, she heaved the pre-game introduction tee shirt into the second deck. It's a first I believe.
I've noticed that she's almost always aiming for the second deck, at least in those high attendance games with people sitting up there. She definitely doesn't "throw like a girl." After all, I think in high school track she threw javelin and shot put.
Maybe she should be the go-to shooter for full-court buzzer beater shots.
I'd like to see her get more touches, especially at the high post. For one thing, she's an 80% free throw shooter from there, so she can probably hit 65% jump shots from the top of the key. Perhaps more importantly, the give-and-give-back play from there works exceptionally well with Kenisha Bell. There was a good example of that in the Badger game. And Keke is a dead-eye from13 feet. I think Bell could be more efficient running it through Lamke and perhaps getting it back. Of course, Bell needs to go off the dribble quite a bit too, both to mix it up, and also cuz she's one of the best at that.
In a game like last nite, where Lamke is "on," Annalese is scoring almost 3 points per shot attempt. That's equivalent to a three-point shooter who's shooting at a 95% clip - and even Pitts can't shoot the trey that well.
In comparison, when Bell has a bit of an off shooting night like last night, she's shooting about one-out-of-three on mostly twos, so scoring about 2/3 point per shot attempt. What would you rather have, 3 points per shot attempt, or 0.667 points per shot attempt? So quite often, Lamke's efficiency is offset by Bell's inefficiency.
Now to be more fair in this back-of-the-envelope analysis, we should factor in two more things. First, Bello's offensive rebounding plus putbacks or dishes out to the three point line tend to clean up a lot of Bell misses. Second, many Bell "misses" are actually fouls that result in Bell free throws (which is why it's important for Bell to continue her gradual improvement in free-throw rate). Adding these factors bumps Bell's efficiency higher than the nominal box score indicates.
Even so, I like the trend I'm seeing of playing through Lamke or Bello in the high or low post, with the guards possibly getting it back in a more open or driving position to shoot at a higher efficiency.
