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Message: [QUOTE="JoePgh, post: 2416105, member: 1131"] The Cassandra voices on this thread seem not to be aware of a few basic statistical facts about Sunday’s game. The most important one was that for the first 7:20 of the third quarter (the period of time when the “first 7” played without the end-of-the-bench players), UConn outscored Stanford by 18-11. That got the score to 67-25 with 2:40 left in the 3rd quarter — a 42-point lead. After that, the scoreboard really didn’t matter. It’s true that even those first 7 minutes of the third quarter, particularly on defense, were not as pretty as the first half — how could they be? Considering who the opponent was, the first half ranks with the great halves in recent UConn history, certainly comparable to the first half against DePaul or South Florida last year. In the third quarter, UConn did have some defensive lapses and gave up some backdoor plays. I assume that relates to whatever defensive adjustment Geno decided to make at halftime, and the fact that they didn’t implement it as he envisioned. That will get fixed. UConn “lost” the third quarter by one point, which means that in the last 2:40 Stanford cut 8 points off the lead. But considering that the lead was then 42 points, is that really worth being concerned about? UConn lost the 4th quarter by 9 points with the bench players getting most of the time. That means that by the end of the game, they had given back 10 points of the 35 point halftime lead. That hardly seems like a good reason for the kind of handwringing that has been offered by some of the posters on this thread. [/QUOTE]

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