And so it begins: USA Today says the St. Francis blowout is bad for the sport

[oldude]

I thought UConn should have called off the press early in the 1st quarter. 4 of the starters played over 20 minutes. The fact that UConn could have won by 130 points is not a plus, it points to the absurdity of this game.

What you and the reporter for the USA Today both miss is that Geno and the Huskies need to accomplish something in these early round games, regardless of the score.

After losing to MS St last year, when the Bulldogs walked the ball up the court the entire game, Geno blamed himself for not doing anything to speed up the tempo. This year, UConn has been utilizing various presses and traps all season.

I suspect that the plan yesterday was to see if the Huskies could maintain their effectiveness if they pressed the entire qtr. As others pointed out, Geno pulled the press after one qtr.

For the entire 2nd half, Geno had the team walk the ball up the court, even when there were opportunities to fast break. This had nothing to do with trying to take it easy on St Francis. UConn needed to work on their half-court offense, which they did.

In the 4th qtr, Geno cleared the bench, but the Huskies continued to walk the ball up the court, working on their half-court offense, doing an exemplary job.

In some ways, this game was played like a preseason game vs a DII team, where Geno has his team working on things that will be important during the big games against ranked programs that start early in November.

The next two weekends UConn will have some huge games against the best teams in WBB. Geno is doing everything he can to insure that the Huskies are ready for that challenge.

 

[CocoHusky]

They can't do that due to Title IX. If the men have a 64 team Tourney then the women must have one also. I'm surprised that there hasn't been a lawsuit against the NCAA because the men's now has play in games and the women do not.

@HuskyNan beat me with her response. This is a commom misperception, Title IX has no role in post season play. Title IX simply requires that you have an equitable number of athletic scholarships available for both men and women across all sports.

 

[eebmg]

Why we’re at it we should mention a few others who were bad for their particular discipline:


Einstein was bad for Quantum Physics

Interesting choice. Einstein after some early seminal work on the Quantum principles (i.e the light photon-1905) and some further work on the Quantum description of specific heats (1909) , explaining spontaneous emission of atomic radiation(1916) and some interesting features of quantum systems (Bose-Einstein Condensates 1924) , he could not bring himself to accept the Modern Quantum Mechanics of Schrodinger / Heisenberg / Dirac 1925-1926. Many in the physics community could not understand why he shut his mind to the newer developments. He had also become quite stubborn about Unified field theories.

Still, I get and agree with your point.

 

[oldude]

Interesting choice. Einstein after some early seminal work on the Quantum principles (i.e the light photon-1905) and some further work on the Quantum description of specific heats (1909) , explaining spontaneous emission of atomic radiation(1916) and some interesting features of quantum systems (Bose-Einstein Condensates 1924) , he could not bring himself to accept the Modern Quantum Mechanics of Schrodinger / Heisenberg / Dirac 1925-1926. Many in the physics community could not understand why he shut his mind to the newer developments. He had also become quite stubborn about Unified field theories.

Still, I get and agree with your point.

Obviously, my knowledge of quantum physics is extremely limited. Thank you for your clarification.

 

[eebmg]

Obviously, my knowledge of quantum physics is extremely limited. Thank you for your clarification.

It is nice when you can teach to an audience that want's to learn. Probably helps if no tests are involved.

 

[LouS]

Agreed, Bags. But what we have here is yet another male sportswriter who has difficulty accepting or acknowledging that women can, over the long term, compete and achieve at a very high level. How dare a group of women dominate a sport? I wonder if he would write the same rubbish about Alabama’s football team. Or the Duke men’s basketball team.

Funny how all of this male-driven “bad for the game” nonsense in the sports press started as soon as Geno passed Wooden.

Its unfortunate but "you are right." I love the women's game, especially Uconn's because its REAL basketball to me. If you UNDERSTAND the game and forget the score it was shear poetry as someone said earlier. Uconn has talent, no question, BUT they play real team basketball better then all other teams male or female. Thank you Gene and Chris....

 

[cohenzone]

Why we’re at it we should mention a few others who were bad for their particular discipline:

Fred Astaire was bad for dancing
Pavorotti was bad for singing
Einstein was bad for Quantum Physics
etc. etc.

Yup. But I wish Einstein hadn’t figured out atomic energy

 

[oldude]

Yup. But I wish Einstein hadn’t figured out atomic energy

Yes, but Einstein’s work was largely confined to the theoretical side of things. The guy who applied that theory to the most dangerous instrument of destruction ever devised by mankind was J Robert Oppenheimer.

 

[Phil]

There is a solution to the blowout problem which doesn't have the unfairness of limiting the field to 32 teams.

Keep the field at 64 teams, and institute a double bye system. (Just like the old Big East Conferncen Tournament)

It takes seven rounds by can be completed without major changes to the season calendar.

The top 16 teams (seed 1-4) get two byes, and the next 16 (seeds 5-8) get a single bye.

The initial round pits seeds 9 against 16, 10 against 15 etc.

The initial round games would be much more competitive, with many closer games and many potential upsets.

 

[eebmg]

Yup. But I wish Einstein hadn’t figured out atomic energy

Here I go again.

Well, Einstein did work out the famous Energy Equivalence Principle E=mc^2 and knew the general implications of mass to energy conversion such as
radioactivity and the fusion processes which power the sun but he really did not think it feasible in the pre-world war 2 days that atomic weapons were technically feasible. He was a true pacifist and was not involved in War work except as an introduction to the US Government to accept the possibility and to assist in creating a coherent research program for atomic weapons in light of the potential Nazi threat that they would develop atomic weapons first.

The true wizards of Atomic Fission Weapons were Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi with a strong technological assist from the Los Alamos effort led by Oppenheimer while the father of Nuclear Fusion and the Hydrogen Bombs belongs to Edward Teller.

Oops. Did not see olddude's response.

 

[cohenzone]

Yes, but Einstein’s work was largely confined to the theoretical side of things. The guy who applied that theory to the most dangerous instrument of destruction ever devised by mankind was J Robert Oppenheimer.

Sort of like Naismith invented basketball, Wooden weaponized it and Geno figured out how to deliver it in 40 minutes to any spot on the planet.

 

[cohenzone]

Here I go again.

Well, Einstein did work out the famous Energy Equivalence Principle E=mc^2 and knew the general implications of mass to energy conversion such as
radioactivity and the fusion processes which power the sun but he really did not think it feasible in the pre-world war 2 days that atomic weapons were technically feasible. He was a true pacifist and was not involved in War work except as an introduction to the US Government to accept the possibility and to assist in creating a coherent research program for atomic weapons in light of the potential Nazi threat that they would develop atomic weapons first.

The true wizards of Atomic Fission Weapons were Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi with a strong technological assist from the Los Alamos effort led by Oppenheimer while the father of Nuclear Fusion and the Hydrogen Bombs belongs to Edward Teller.

Oops. Did not see olddude's response.

See my last reply to Olddudr. In my analogy, Naismith is Einstein and the others are the ones who took the theory and took it to places Naismith hadn’t.

 

[eebmg]

See my last reply to Olddudr. In my analogy, Naismith is Einstein and the others are the ones who took the theory and took it to places Naismith hadn’t.

I get it and I agree with your example .

I just like to give credit (or blame) to the major players involved in historical context.

 

[MD#12Fan]

Every single NEC team is not tourney ready. Go look at who is in that conference. I mean any team from that conference would get destroyed by a top 25 team. It's really a question of why does every conference deserve an auto bid ?

Good point! So, as basketball fans, let's embrace the incredible experience it is for those players to play in the NCAA tournament. They get to travel to a larger arena, stay in a nicer hotel, eat a better steak dinner, and play an elite team, all things they will never forget for the rest of their lives. It's not about UConn.
(That being said- St. Francis' coach should have embraced those things and not had his girls look like fools out there. There is such a thing as a moral victory.)

 

[SVCBeercats]

What women's sport is a success on a par with men's sports? I wonder if the author has ever written about how all the Koreans are bad for the LPGA? Fact is all women sports skirt the edge of failure. Is the WNBA a roaring success or a money loser propped up by NBA money? Heck, if lingerie football can't be financially successful, no women's sport stands a chance. And the women in lingerie football are not paid! So it does not matter if UCONN is good or bad for women's basketball. It is a moot point.

 

[cohenzone]

Good point! So, as basketball fans, let's embrace the incredible experience it is for those players to play in the NCAA tournament. They get to travel to a larger arena, stay in a nicer hotel, eat a better steak dinner, and play an elite team, all things they will never forget for the rest of their lives. It's not about UConn.
(That being said- St. Francis' coach should have embraced those things and not had his girls look like fools out there. There is such a thing as a moral victory.)

I think that if a conference is considered D1, and the rules say the champ or their conference tourney champ automatically qualifies, then on paper they belong. Whether or not D1 is too broadly defined is a whole other thing.

The trouble yesterday was that the SF coach made a decision bound to make his kids look worse. They apparently have one player who is their best scorer and I don’t think thry tried to run anything to set her up (wouldn’t have worked, but still). It was sort of like going to a movie and getting an unexpected Roadrunner cartoon where Wylie Coyote keeps running into the mountainside that a moment before had magically had a tunnel for Roadrunner that was now gone. Wylie still keeps slamming into the mountain. The cartoon might be kind of funny but it’s still a cartoon. UConn scored 55 points in 10 minutes. And then 39 in the next 10. Because those SF kids kept slamming into the mountain.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

USA Today Panders to their audience. It's a sound business model for them. Sells papers. Little Old Connecticut vs. 49 states, PR, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, Europe, China, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, ..... It's why their All American Teams suck and its why they shill this line.

 

[UConnNick]

UConn has won 6 of the last 10 titles. Alabama has won 5 of the last 10 titles. Not a huge difference yet almost no one has ever claimed Alabama and Nick Saban are bad for football. Why?

Because it is possible to beat them. They routinely lose at least one regular season game. UCONN had a 111-game win streak, won four of the past five NCs, and beats teams by ridiculous margins. Whether that's good or bad for the sport is open for debate, depending on your perspective.

The problem is there's not enough talent to go around in WCBB like there is in other sports. What little there is gets concentrated among the top five teams and all the rest have no chance. Blaming that all on UCONN is simplistic. There are lots of reasons for that which have nothing to do with UCONN. Our stature just makes us a convenient scapegoat if you're looking to assess blame for the lack of parity. It also makes for good copy and clicks because controversy sells.

 

[lne001]

If the same number of 7 year old girls played basketball as 7 year old boys and the quality of youth coach was identical, we wouldn't have such a large differential.

One of the things I have wondered is how often a week do young girls play pick up games like young boys do. I pass outdoor courts and there are often guys playing, have never seen girls.

If the only basketball you play is on official teams with coaches then you are not nearly putting in enough effort. I know there are girls who do this as religiously as guys, I just don't think there are enough.

 

[UConnNick]

Every single NEC team is not tourney ready. Go look at who is in that conference. I mean any team from that conference would get destroyed by a top 25 team. It's really a question of why does every conference deserve an auto bid ?

Careful, you're making the argument for splitting the NCAA into two top divisions, call them A and double A if you want. Right now UCONN is on the wrong side of that divide. The P5 conferences may very well opt to do this at some point. If we remain in the AAC when it happens, we're going to be playing a lesser level of competition. No more ND, Louisville, Baylor, SC and Miss. St. We'll be playing the Saint Francises of WCBB.

 

[Centerstream]

Careful, you're making the argument for splitting the NCAA into two top divisions, call them A and double A if you want. Right now UCONN is on the wrong side of that divide. The P5 conferences may very well opt to do this at some point. If we remain in the AAC when it happens, we're going to be playing a lesser level of competition. No more ND, Louisville, Baylor, SC and Miss. St. We'll be playing the Saint Francises of WCBB.

What you are referring to exists in football, FCS and FBS, yet teams from each division compete against each other.

 

[PhanTom]

USA Today is bad for those still buying newspapers! I can answer this OP with 4 letters, some I refrain from using, but I will post these: UMBC! Most teams playing UCONN come in with a strategy they feel if it works to perfection, and a little bad luck for the Huskies, they could actually win the game. St. Francis did that, it didn't work! Their players and fans came here willingly, tried their hardest, and give them credit for scoring a bunch of points. They will never forget the experience, and neither will history. I was there, paid my money, have paid my dues to UCONN, and Loved nearly every minute of that game. BTW USA Today, how many folks now talking/writing about that game would be doing that tidat if not for the way it played out!

 

[LouS]

I just completed the article in USA Today and the comments. The article and the comments were written by a bunch of do-gooders who have NO IDEA of sports competition and basketball in particular. They don't know a thing about Geno and Chris and the principles they teach and live by. SFU knew what they were getting into and welcomed the opportunity to play Uconn and be in the national spotlight. As suggested by thesis do-gooders letting up on SFU and letting them score so the score disparity wouldn't have been so large would have been an INSULT to SFU, the game of basketball and sport itself.

 

[UConnNick]

Good point! So, as basketball fans, let's embrace the incredible experience it is for those players to play in the NCAA tournament. They get to travel to a larger arena, stay in a nicer hotel, eat a better steak dinner, and play an elite team, all things they will never forget for the rest of their lives. It's not about UConn.
(That being said- St. Francis' coach should have embraced those things and not had his girls look like fools out there. There is such a thing as a moral victory.)

I understand your point about the competition itself, but don't think it's all glitz and glamour for the lower seeded teams like Saint Francis.

A friend of mine played D-I BB for TX Southern. They played Duke one year in the NCAA's as a 16 seed. Duke stayed in a top notch downtown Tampa hotel as a 1 seed. TX Southern stayed at a Rodeway Inn. Saint Francis may have been staying at Motel 6.

There's a definite pecking order to the seeding process, in many more ways than one.

 

[CL82]

One of the things I have wondered is how often a week do young girls play pick up games like young boys do. I pass outdoor courts and there are often guys playing, have never seen girls.

If the only basketball you play is on official teams with coaches then you are not nearly putting in enough effort. I know there are girls who do this as religiously as guys, I just don't think there are enough.

It definitely happens but it is a different era, with team practice, games, AAU team(s), private trainers and other commitments burning a lot of time. Same is true for the boys as well.

Keep in mind that the guys at the court may not be the same kids on the school teams. My daughter and her friends/teammates would join pick up games from time to time and typically win very comfortably. They follow a pattern. First is the "well I guess you play if you want <chuckle, chuckle>, then comes half-hearted guarding, then embarrassment followed by more committed guarding, disguised as half-hearted play, then all out hard play, and then embarrassed defeat.

 

[MSGRET]

I’m not sure that interpretation is correct. Title IX says that schools accepting govt funds need to spend equally on boys and girls. It’s not a sports law, it’s an equality in education law. There is nothing about tournament games or basketball specifically in Title IX

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving any type of federal financial aid. The NCAA has been forced by the Federal Government on the sports side because it is considered to be an
activity in which they do receive Federal Aid.

 

[eebmg]

I just completed the article in USA Today and the comments. The article and the comments were written by a bunch of do-gooders who have NO IDEA of sports competition and basketball in particular. They don't know a thing about Geno and Chris and the principles they teach and live by. SFU knew what they were getting into and welcomed the opportunity to play Uconn and be in the national spotlight. As suggested by thesis do-gooders letting up on SFU and letting them score so the score disparity wouldn't have been so large would have been an INSULT to SFU, the game of basketball and sport itself.

I agree that the article is insulting to the game of WCBB and the spirit of competition but I am torn because USA Today in general often goes after and highlights many sports stories that other outlets do not touch including HS athletics and less than popular college sports. So, I prefer to go after the authors but not the medium. JMHO. Keep in mind that opinion pieces do not necessarily go through any deep editorial process and the opinions of a given writer may not be indicative of the periodical in general.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Yes, but Einstein’s work was largely confined to the theoretical side of things. The guy who applied that theory to the most dangerous instrument of destruction ever devised by mankind was J Robert Oppenheimer.

A friend of my dad worked on the Manhattan Project. I should have asked him about his feelings on it.

 

[CL82]

A friend of my dad worked on the Manhattan Project. I should have asked him about his feelings on it.

I know an engineer from it. His thought process is that "it was interesting work."

 

[MD#12Fan]

I think that if a conference is considered D1, and the rules say the champ or their conference tourney champ automatically qualifies, then on paper they belong. Whether or not D1 is too broadly defined is a whole other thing.

The trouble yesterday was that the SF coach made a decision bound to make his kids look worse. They apparently have one player who is their best scorer and I don’t think thry tried to run anything to set her up (wouldn’t have worked, but still). It was sort of like going to a movie and getting an unexpected Roadrunner cartoon where Wylie Coyote keeps running into the mountainside that a moment before had magically had a tunnel for Roadrunner that was now gone. Wylie still keeps slamming into the mountain. The cartoon might be kind of funny but it’s still a cartoon. UConn scored 55 points in 10 minutes. And then 39 in the next 10. Because those SF kids kept slamming into the mountain.

Agree! I'm just saying don't blame UConn for their incompetence. Throw a bunch of filet mignons into a tiger cage and what happens.