A New Dawn? | The Boneyard

A New Dawn?

Monte said:
I never saw Dawn so quiet and mild-mannered as she coached a game. I think she could see the defeat coming quite early.
Geno: I never saw him smile so much, while a game was in progress.

Nice crowd.
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I bet you wouldn't say that if you were behind her bench. My meager lip reading skills could still pick out some choice and perhaps gymnastically original swear words and phrases.
 
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Dawn is Dawn and subdued or mild mannered will never last long. She's enough of a coach to know 4 minutes into that game it was essentially over. She suffered a beat down with her team, so she's pretty low, but there is no new Dawn.
 
Florida Fan said:
Dawn got on them at half time. I was impressed by their second-half efforts. I think they will use the loss to their advantage.
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After what happened against Missouri. I thought that hurt them also. Either way I picked Uconn by 23 or more.
 
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Monte said:
I never saw Dawn so quiet and mild-mannered as she coached a game. I think she could see the defeat coming quite early.
Geno: I never saw him smile so much, while a game was in progress.

Nice crowd.
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Can't imagine what a coach could find to be upset about in the second quarter. The execution was perfect and UConn was draining everything.
 
I was surprised how calm she was also and not calling a timeout several times in the first half was a mistake. I think she was just stunned by what was happening to her team. Also after the Missouri game she has to show some discipline because she is the future Olympic coach and needs to show she can represent us well.
 
I just posted this in the game thread before seeing this thread:

Why did Dawn wait so long to call a timeout in the 2nd quarter? The game was put away in the 2nd quarter and Dawn used her first timeout when her team was down by 28 points.

The 2nd quarter began with UConn up 24-16. UConn then went on a 17-2 run while Dawn waited for the official timeout (deadball after 5:00) which didn't happen until there was only 4:09 left in the half and UConn up 41-18. She then called her first timeout with 1:51 left in the 2nd quarter with UConn up 51-23. I'm not sure the bleeding could have been stopped but something needed to be tried much earlier in the 2nd quarter.
 
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GoUconn7961 said:
I have never been overly impressed with her as a coach. I'll be interested to see how she handles the Olympic team.
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Dawn is a very good coach who will continue to learn and get better. Geno is a much better coach today than he was 10 or 15 years ago.

A few observations. As I mentioned above, I thought Dawn coached passively last night, letting that 2nd quarter get away from her and her team. She needed to try to stop the bleeding much sooner.

The Missouri game and its aftermath was very unfortunate but overall I thought Dawn handled it as well as one could. I'm sure it affected her emotionally; perhaps she was a bit drained last night.

Finally, and I'm going to harken back to my favorite topic -- Cooper's waiver petition -- I do think Dawn's public comments did not serve her team well. At some point you need to circle the wagons and send a message to your team that this is who we are and it's going to be good enough. Her ongoing public comments about Cooper sent an entirely different message to her team. Now, Cooper isn't eligible and she has to tell her team this is who we are and it's good enough. Teams and players hear those mixed messages.
 
I think her “mellowness” last night was the result of a convolution of many forces occurring:
1. The Mizzou game and its aftermath were very draining
2. The Cooper situation and the high yet false hope she initiated has a reality of a short bench and the energy she expended in “fight mode” is taxing
3. She and Geno have a friendship and she respects the game and him too much to “go off” on any perceived slights by Refs, players or other coaches, which in this case Geno would not have done anyway.
4. She “gets” the mid season OOC challenge and stated as much in her press conference. Her focus is the SEC and MSU Monday. This game will make her better for that.

I understand a rivalry but to disparage her by saying she can’t coach is idiotic. Look at what she did at Temple and the unbelievable environment she created at SC all with only 2 top 10 recruits. She is well deserving of her status. I only wish she would comfort herself a tad better when highly frustrated.
I respect her as much as Tara and Muffet and she should be a beacon for all minority women for what can be achieved. I would gladly shake her hand and tip my cap to her.

Now go beat MSU on Monday!
 
bags27 said:
no doubt, but I saw a lack of real focus and effort on USC's part as well. Sometimes they were just waving at UConn's 3 point shooters.
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There was some snowballing going on, for sure.
 
Gamecockfan77 said:
Can't imagine what a coach could find to be upset about in the second quarter. The execution was perfect and UConn was draining everything.
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Yep.

Yesterday I happened upon a clip of Geno interviewing Sue Bird in which they discussed the 2000 Championship game in Philly against Tennessee. Bird said something to the effect that sometimes you, as a team, are simply in a place where everything's clicking and you can do no wrong.

Her description describes that second quarter pretty well.
 
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DefenseBB said:
I think her “mellowness” last night was the result of a convolution of many forces occurring:
1. The Mizzou game and its aftermath were very draining
2. The Cooper situation and the high yet false hope she initiated has a reality of a short bench and the energy she expended in “fight mode” is taxing
3. She and Geno have a friendship and she respects the game and him too much to “go off” on any perceived slights by Refs, players or other coaches, which in this case Geno would not have done anyway.
4. She “gets” the mid season OOC challenge and stated as much in her press conference. Her focus is the SEC and MSU Monday. This game will make her better for that.

I understand a rivalry but to disparage her by saying she can’t coach is idiotic. Look at what she did at Temple and the unbelievable environment she created at SC all with only 2 top 10 recruits. She is well deserving of her status. I only wish she would comfort herself a tad better when highly frustrated.
I respect her as much as Tara and Muffet and she should be a beacon for all minority women for what can be achieved. I would gladly shake her hand and tip my cap to her.

Now go beat MSU on Monday!
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5. The SC AD suggested she tone down until the Mizzou controversy is settled one way or another?
 
Florida Fan said:
Dawn got on them at half time. I was impressed by their second-half efforts. I think they will use the loss to their advantage.
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I suspect Dawn had put in a strategy that early on was clearly not going to work with Kia draining 3's, KLS getting layups, etc. Credit her for keeping her troops engaged and playing hard the second half. Some good young players that we will need to contend with in future.
 
UConnCat said:
The Missouri game and its aftermath was very unfortunate but overall I thought Dawn handled it as well as one could. I'm sure it affected her emotionally; perhaps she was a bit drained last night.
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I saw the Missouri game on TV and it surely was a different atmosphere.
There has been a great deal of defense of Dawn's character (poor thing); somewhat less of her tactics... from Geno to your post above.

I'm not convinced (without evidence) that allegations of the Missouri folks are
completely groundless; I just don't feel they would have complained so publicly and vehemently if nothing had happened. What we saw on TV was hostile enough. Her statement encouraging her fans to act any way they feel like it (not exactly what she said but a reasonable paraphrase) was hardly impressive.

With all the talk of the 2nd quarter beatdown, UConn showed itself to be far superior quite early in the 1st quarter; they just hadn't amassed the large point differential. That by itself might have taken the attendees out of the game (I suppose)

But I remain suspicious of the huge difference in the audience's reactions to events during the two games and can certainly suspect that in the former, there was some over-hyping of the crowd's emotions (creating a mob like atmosphere), while in the last night's, she would dare not try such a trick in front of Geno, especially having been called out, earlier in the week and realizing the problems that she was capable of bringing on herself.

I certainly don't acquaint her passivity with a "drained" individual.

Bah, humbug!
 
cbraarj said:
She didnt call one time out in first half! How can you not especially that 2nd quarter?
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That's easy. She didn't want to prolong the agony. Let's hurry up and get this over with!!! The more time outs she calls, the longer that wuppin was going to last. She been around basketball enough to know when she's up against an opponent that you can't beat that night, no matter what. UConn was ripping her team a new one. All the time outs in the world was not going to change that. What was she going to tell them? She had been preparing all week for UConn. Everything she had, she gave to them in practice. Obviously it wasn't enough. Down by 30+ in the 2nd quarter, :eek: let it ride. Let's get this thing over and get out of here. :confused:
 
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