The disparity of shots tell their own story in Sunday's 1-1 draw between the Chicago Red Stars and the hosting North Carolina Courage.

Yet fans who are familiar with this Courage team shouldn’t be all that surprised by a large shot disparity. The inability to finish a gluttony of chances has been a hallmark of Paul Riley's team since it moved to Cary from Rochester, New York after the 2016 season.

But even by Courage standards, 42 shots in one game is an eyebrow-raising number, and scoring only a single goal makes the contrast even greater. So what's going on?

One fan tweeted at me after the game, "The stats don’t tell the whole story." Normally that’s true, but when you dive into the details of the 42 shots, you end up with no clear answers and even more questions.

Courage players had at least six point-blank and undefended chances to direct the ball to one side or another of Naeher and the rest of the Chicago defense. And those are just the grade-A chances that were recorded as shots.

Exactly half of the 42 recorded shots were second-chance opportunities as a result of blocks or Chicago defenders simply failing to adequately clear their lines. 11 of the 42 shots were taken beyond the 18. The Red Stars defense blocked 11 shots, including 4 goal line saves.

This range of quality and the variety of chances doesn't allow Riley to somehow “change something.” There's no directive along the lines of "take fewer long range shots" or "stop forcing through balls" that he can give to his team.

There's also no one Courage player taking a majority of the shots, nor is there any one player taking large amounts of ill-advised or poorly-taken shots. Mewis led the team in shots with 7, with 2 shots on goal and 3 blocked. Dunn, Zerboni, and Williams all had 6 shots with 2 or 3 on goal for each.

The distribution of shots between the front line and midfield is about what you would expect in a 4-4-2 formation.

Lynn Williams has become a poster child of sorts for NC's finishing problems. While the entire team has been struggling, the finishing bug has definitely hit her the hardest. However, when you watch her play live you'd never suspect it affected her. All season long she has been assertive, creative for herself and her teammates, and has shown a willingness to take shots… I have long lost count how many posts or crossbars she has struck.

Despite this, part of me does think Paul Riley should bench Williams to help break her out of this funk. Riley has shown a willingness in the past to do just that (Debinha), but what good will this do when the entire team seems afflicted by the same lack of critical execution?

One could probably spend a week combing through the numbers and still fail to find any kind of pattern that could be addressed by Paul Riley. The North Carolina Courage, as a team, are simply failing to execute in the final third.

And yet they’re still in first place.

North Carolina fans need to just hope that Riley can find a way to solve such an unusual problem before the playoffs roll around.