‘Everybody eats’

[Bald Husky]

She looks so bad ass here!

She's not looking at the ball or feet, just into the girls eyes. Could be scary for them.

 

[Notyetready]

I will order the "Everybody Eats" shirt, but I'm going to have to think of a shorter explanation when people ask me what it means.

They share the ball because everybody needs to eat is what Nika said. Team basketball.

 

[ShmiCO]

I don't wear a lot of t shirts, but I'd love Everybody Eats on a ball cap.

 

[Beemer]

She's not looking at the ball or feet, just into the girls eyes. Could be scary for them.

If I was the girl I'd just hand Nika the ball. Safer that way.

 

[Mdoggie]

Got mine

 

[HuskyNan]

Norman Rockwell had a premonition when he painted this in 1953

View attachment 74208

LOVE that poster, always have.

 

[Zinethar]

NIL = no international love

I forgot about that. Too bad for Nika and Dorka. I will still love my "Everybody Eats" T-shirt and wear it for the tourney (if it gets here in time!

 

[BlueSkyGLW]

Hope Nika gets a percentage

She needs someone to take care of her NIL opportunities (indirectly?)! The team (the ladies) should file proprietary rights to "Everybody Eats!"

 

[TCC Kid]

I have zero problem with Connolly's opening paragraph because that is what I saw as well. I think it was more a subconscious thing than anything else, they lacked confidence in themselves & each other. Now we are seeing that by having to play without Paige they have developed confidence in themselves and one another. They had no choice, really.

Paige's injury may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise for her teammates.

That is not a "maybe" that is a guarantee. All the injuries, transfers (too bad they would have gotten the PT they desired) injuries opened PT for Freshmen, usually bench sitters, that got to prove they belong on this UConn team. Stars if you will? Caroline, just high and wide and made a place for herself. She saw an opportunity and made the most of it. NOW that is a GENO type player. Geno said often and sometimes loudly from the bench--go in, make something happen, a basket, a steal, a rebound, a pick, SOMETHING. Caroline, AZZI, MUHL, made something happen all year.

 

[TCC Kid]

Just go one of each

Hey, Where is my: NIKA FOR PRESIDENT SHIRT. I'd buy 100. That is one great lady.

 

[TCC Kid]

Norman Rockwell had a premonition when he painted this in 1953

View attachment 74208

No, he just saw my daughter being herself. If she ever saw NIKA then, she'd try to be Nika.

 

[EdSaid]

If I was the girl I'd just hand Nika the ball. Safer that way.

I'm going to call that the post of the day. Boom

 

[EdSaid]

LOVE that poster, always have.

About 20 years ago I gave my oldest niece that print in a frame for Christmas (Today she is an emergency room nurse.). It hung in her bedroom for a while until it was blasted by a soccer ball, sending glass everywhere. Me, the good uncle, got blamed for the mess even though I was 1000 miles away.

Moral of the story: If the print fits....

 

[hoophuskee]

an OK article that starts off with total BS!

why must connolly conjure up a hokey, totally misleading thesis that "the Huskies were a team in name only. On the court, it was essentially Bueckers and four other onlookers" at the start of the season. It makes for a neato narrative, a nice structure to build his story around ... the problem, though, is it wasn't anywhere near true. It's the sort of crap that does a disservice to the real journalism.

yeah, paige was the star of the TEAM. Of course she would be -- winner of multiple national player of the year awards the year before. The team would have been dysfunctional , seriously flawed, if it didn't take advantage of this.

i think everyone was aware of the danger connolly declared was true ... that other players would sit back and "let paige do it." No damning evidence, though. just a fear. ... Yet connolly fixes the history to make his story neater. No other reason.

it fact, back in nov. & dec., the team was in flux. There were 14 players -- four of them entirely new and one with only a couple of months experience with the team as an early admission freshman. We don't know what the chemistry was then (2 players soon transferred). The seniors didn't appear to be great on-court leaders; paige would be a likely candidate to fill the need. Although we didn't know it then, dorka, nika, azzi and aubrey (maybe others too -- evina?) weren't in good physical shape. These and other factors could have made the team at the time even more reliant on paige to steer the ship. But connolly would rather establish the narrative that uconn was 'a team in name only' content to ride paige's coattails to glory.

if i were connected to the program -- a player, a parent, coach or auxiliary -- i'd be a bit po'd by this gratuitous, sloppy 'historical' aside. Neat as it is as a story.

I agree 100% what you're saying. As an example, one of the things Geno said early on was he has to work on how to get Azzi the ball. Azzi is not like a one-on-one player. So it takes time to work that. And if Dorka is hurt (which apparently she was) and AE was in a funk, then it's less time to work on getting Azzi consistently involved etc as an example.

With all this said, I just want to say I am soooooo super-thrilled for the seniors. I'd like to think they come for something special to experience. Obviously championships. But the other is at some point nearly every class either experiences championships, and ofc Final Fours but also "domination." Other than the Meg Walker class. every other for the longest time of 15-20 years has experienced it for at least 1 season (or titles).

While this is a short window - what they are experiencing or must be experiencing is what it's like to play at such an extremely high level of quality of play. That's what the history of Husky basketball has been like. And they are doing it without an All-American. I have no idea if the cohesion on 1 night will falter. These are still not professional players. But these past few weeks - just wow!!!!

I'm not buying for 1 second that this team wouldn’t have been ever more sensational if they had a normal healthy type of season. They would have been awesome. But as of right now, I'm hopeful they are so damn proud of what they've accomplished/performed to through the injuries- thus far.