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15 Responses to Replay: Wednesday’s UConn Women’s Basketball Chat
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“They are not ready, not now and maybe not ever, to win these kinds of big-time pressure games. Notre Dame made that point a stark reality a while back, and on Monday night, Baylor drove that point home with a resounding slap to the backside.
When it comes to beating the average and the above-average teams, the UConn Huskies are one of the best. But recently, when UConn has stood toe-to-toe against the best of the best in women’s college basketball, such as the defending NCAA runner-up Irish and the defending national champion Bears, the Huskies find themselves being outworked, outhustled and out-desired.
And against the elite, it’s become painfully evident that UConn doesn’t have enough scoring from the perimeter. They don’t have enough scoring in the low post, either. They don’t have enough rebounding. They have too many lapses on defense. They have too many holes and not enough fingers to plug all the leaks.
And now, with the regular season approaching crunch time and the postseason less than a month away, can the Huskies find what’s been missing and put the pieces together to challenge for the NCAA title?
Not even Geno Auriemma is sure of that.”
Chris Elsberry
Baylor presents what at the moment is a unique problem: Britney Griner. ND does not present the same problem and the result does not have to be the same. In the case of Baylor, you are forced to collapse on Griner with two or more players. You saw it time and again in that game. That’s how everyone plays Baylor and they’ve been dealing with it for years. The answer is very simple: Griner simply looks for the open man beside the basket and passes to her. She’s so tall that you can’t get a held ball on her and she can see over you to spot the open player. It’s basic. You can try to play her one on one but then you run the risk of that player collecting fouls fairly rapidly. So you sub out your post and expand the number of fouls to give: well that’s fine except that you can’t run your own offense through all these “sub-posts.” In other words, neither Stokes, nor Buck, nor Stewart are close to Dolson offensively. And UConn runs their offense through her.
Added Auriemma: “That’s the only way we can go where we want to go come March … collectively, we have to get smarter and we have to get better.”
But after watching Caroline Doty give her teammates 17 minutes of zeros, after watching Stewart play like a deer caught in the headlights and do absolutely nothing, after watching Hartley and Faris vanish for long periods of time and even watching Dolson almost refuse to take the ball into the paint against Griner, the question has to be asked: Do the Huskies have the mindset to out-tough everyone? Especially when the NCAA tournament rolls around?
I wonder …
“Maybe we’re just not good enough,” Auriemma said. “Baylor has the best center in the country and they may have the best (point) guard in the country. When I looked at my team (after the game), and I asked them, `Do we have the best center in the country? Do we have the best guard in the country? Do we have the best small forward in the country?’ So, we can’t win these games individually, we have to win them collectively and tonight, collectively, we weren’t good enough.”
Chris Elsberry
A major factor was 18 turnovers by UConn. Three players responsible for 11 turnovers. Can’t do that against a
good team and win.
I’ve admired Coach Auriemma for his accomplishments: his coaching ability, recruiting, charitable contributions, building the program. However, I can’t understand why this year he has a penchant for “throwing his team under the bus”. First they are not good enough, then not smart enough, then he says one thing to them and means another. The team is 24-2, against the top schedule in the country. They have the talent and coaching to be the big east and national champion, and appear to be a great group of women. Is it psychological, how Coach is approaching this team…?
U QUESTION “GOD”?????
turn the cap lock off retard!!!!!!
who would be your first pick for wnba griner or diggins
Not even open for discussion between those two: Griner without any question. Unless you’re building the All-Twitter Pain-in-the Ass team and then you’d have to take Diggins.
Come on you got to be kidding!! GRINER of course..unless you just want more tweets. And if Sims was coming out this year she would be ahead of Diggins as well.
FREDDYKOOL: GREAT CHAT TODAY, WE LOST WE LOST SO WHAT. THE RIVER STILL FLOWS,THE BREEZE STILL BLOWS,AND GENO KNOWS!!
i stated in my first blog this year that uconn would not get to finals because of 2 reasons—-DOTY and FARRIS.took a lot of heat,but hw does it look now?i think BAYOR exposed uconn for what they are——–soft
If I had to make a choice, I would rather lose to ND and Baylor early than lose to them late. UConn has to play a near-perfect game to win, but they can do it. And they do have the smarts individually, they just have to be on a single wave length for 40 minutes. To maintain a tight defense, man-to-man or zone, they need eight focused players to show up at the same time. And the open perimeter players have to have the confidence to let them fly. And the shooting averages of Doty, Jefferson, and Faris should improve, or they need to draw the defense and pass. Jefferson can go among the trees, but she has to come out the other side or hit a big or open teammate outside because her only layups are from the front of a break or a defensive breakdown. And right now Stewart is better posting up or hitting the shorter jumper or getting chippy putbacks. I’m not giving up on this courageous team. They have to get tougher, and the Baylor team may have delivered a message they needed to hear.
John, you are wrong about Dolson gives as good as she gets. Did you see Stef grab Griner for no reason? Did Griner hit her head on the court? Did you see Stef throw Griner to the floor? Was it physical? Yes it was. However, it is absolutely ridiculous to say the physicality was even. There’s a difference between physical and over the line. Griner went over the line – twice.
Geno, This is the team that you recruited. Bria is not a point. Against the best she can’t compete. Dolson is good on the offensive end but only tall on the defensive end. Doty is only a shadow of what she once was and kelly is a hard working player that would benefit from the less is more rule. Against the good teams they still don’t guard her and on defense her size is exploited. You continue to loose the big games with the four guard line up. No adjustment based on results. It didn’t work against ND or Baylor and I will bet if you see Stanford again the results will be different. Lewis played as good a game as any Huskey in recent memory yet you found fault in her performance. Why? Maya injoyed the company of Tina Charles.
KML is the only thing close to an All American you have.
Take a lesson from the Patriots head coach. He wins lots of games just like you. But when they loose a big game he always starts with I should have coached them better. And he never knocks his players. Stop looking backwards at your trophys and get back to what you were the best at. Coaching your team each game to win. What ever it takes.