Generally I stay off the boards for a day or so after a UCONN loss (which thankfully happens rarely). But first and foremost, Geno does not coach to win every game of the year. He coaches to get the team prepared for the NCAA's.
Sitting Liv - he's done it with many players. Most recently, during the Stewie era, he sat Breanna and Morgan for an entire game. Message received. While I never root for a loss, the game pointed out a couple glaring problems with the team. Post play, on both ends of the floor, and the fact that from a scoring perspective, it was basically 3 on 5 for pretty much the entire game.
Sitting Olivia? Hopefully message received. We will see how she responds. She's a sophomore. Was playing so well this season that she ended up on the Naismith watch list. And it's not like our schedule was cupcake city. But she was ineffective this game. Kyla is a wonderful story, and would be a starter on many WCBB teams, but against top 10 competition, she will struggle. Nothing wrong with that. Still love her and her effort.
Anna and Aubrey - meh. But they are freshmen. Anna couldn't really get open and Aubrey was overwhelmed. But again, freshmen.
For the perspective part. No one expected UCONN to go undefeated this season. This is our "rebuilding year". Look at who we have coming in next season - lots of post help, and both Olivia and Aubrey will be a year older. The best thing about freshmen? They eventually become sophomores. Also, UCONN played Baylor tight for about 33 minutes. But that's why games are 40 minutes. We fell apart in the 4th quarter. Lots of teachable moments. Let's hope Aubrey, Olivia, and Anna learn big time from this game and see how they do the rest of the season.
Congrats to Baylor for playing a better 40 minutes. I get that people are frustrated and disappointed by the loss. We are all fans so that's to be expected. I expect us to drop to about #4-5, which is where I think we belong anyway at this time. We still have games against SC, Oregon, Tennessee, and the US National team. Not to mention USF and UCF - the 2 teams in our conference who will give us a tussle (they won't win, but they will challenge us). Lots of chances for the team to challenge themselves against solid to great competition and see where we stand. For the record I don't expect the Tennessee game to be close, but there are still a top 25'ish team.
Lastly, let's not step over the ledge. End of dynasty? End of era? Beginning of the end? Geno's fault? Pack in the season? Just look to next year and give up? No thanks. We are so lucky to be UCONN fans. The problem with this team is the recruiting the last 3 years. Geno missed out on too many post players and didn't have enough of a back up plan. That has been corrected BIG TIME...
Oh, and there's still at LOT of basketball to be played this year...!!
