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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5227970, member: 12088"] Thanks, Sensei, as always. I also expect this game will be a blowout. And you’re right that the difference in the level of competition between the BE and the Sun Belt conferences will show, early and often. Ark St will not make their scoring average of 73 points. Nor will they hold UConn to 65 points. But they have some skills that will translate to this game. I’m thinking of their 3 pt shooting and their scrappy ball hawking defense. They may not get 10 steals, but I expect they’ll win a lot 50/50 balls. And though they may not hit a lot of 3s because of our defense, they are good at getting perimeter shots off and some of those are bound to fall. They are primarily a little, speedy squad with some taller, slower rotation players. I suspect the coach made an assessment of what she had, rather like Geno would, and decided to play mainly small ball. And this decision seems to have gotten them to the tournament. I admire that about her. Of course, Geno’s small ball lineup is already significantly bigger and not any slower than theirs, and a good deal more disciplined at both ends of the court. But a little, speedy team is difficult to keep down for 40 mins. This is why I would be surprised if they aren’t able to make a couple of runs at some point in the game. And as others have said elsewhere, they are likely to give up a lot of easy baskets on back cuts. This is the main reason the game won’t be close, even if our perimeter shooting goes cold. This would also be a good game for Jana and Ice to work on their post up skills and, in Jana’s case, to stop bringing the ball down for the little players to get at it. And Geno has said he’d like to see her develop an elbow jumper. We may see a bit of that too. I can’t help comparing this team to Jackson St from last season’s tournament. They were also a quick team that played scrappy defense against weaker conference opponents, and they were 3 pt gunners. The main difference was that they had a lot of tall lanky players. At times against our lineups, they had a height advantage at every position. They were good shot blockers and rebounders. But as good as their defense was, it wasn’t nearly disciplined enough, and Paige picked them apart with lots of back cuts and midrange jumpers, and we hit a few 3s too. Most of all, we forced a lot more turnovers from them than they were used to. This will happen a lot to Ark St too. Jackson St came to Storrs thinking they could win. That’s one sign of a great coach. Ark St will probably step onto the court thinking they can win too. I will admire them and their coach for that. [/QUOTE]

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