Arizona Postgame Thread

[GG]

Great year. Arizona deserved to win. Looking forward to some three point shooters next year. We need more of a presence inside. You cannot win a game missing so many easy shots.

 

[Matt '99]

Great coach but pretty bad look here

 

[hoopsfan22]

Paige will never match Stewie. No one ever will really.

 

[Penn]

Congratulations to the team for the wonderful season they had. Yes, we all wished it had ended differently but that is life. Thank you for the many memorable moments this year. The future is bright and I look forward to following UCONN WBB next year.

 

[Flyegirl]

Congrats on a great season ladies! Your season made the covid winter much easier. I think this team truly enjoyed playing together and I saw lots of smiles all season. I had fun watching them, and I was happy they made it to the final four. Thanks for the fun ladies!

 

[NEforceUConn]

Great coach but pretty bad look here

Unless your Nelson Rockefeller.

 

[BostonBay]

Team is 0 for 4 in last 4 FF games. Main reason is lack of post , size & physical play. It got a little better this year with AE, but not good enough. Geno is finally starting to recruit these types of players, but it takes time. As for tonight, just a horrible game from the opening tip. No cadence on either side of the ball. Team seemed very unprepared for the team speed & toughness of AZ & that's what ultimately dictated the game. As for ONO, I'm sorry but you you cant go 0 for 7 in the area of the game we were supposed to have an advantage. She is who she is at this point I guess. As for Geno, he needs to take a lot of blame. You dont be 14 point favorites & let tempo & scheme dictate the ENTIRE game. Team was just not ready. Paige, AE had great years & CW took a step up. But, just not good enough to win #12.

 

[cbraarj]

Olivia doesn't deserve the playing time she receives. If Amari is as good as advertised then Liv needs to sit just like Paige did in 2000. Everyone talks about height so what do you think now. Gabby as a Jr. would have tore her up! They shot like 15 percent on layups. They got beat by the things that hurt them all year. No real post game by your center. Brink would have made Liv look like the freshman.

 

[UcMiami]

In a pregame Geno said with a pressing defensive team you either hit shots or you have a long night. They had a long night.

I think they got enough stops to win on defense, they just shot godawful!

I had memories of the last FF in San Antonio - at least we scored more points in the first half this time!

 

[Bajan Best]

Geat Job by Arizona tonight, they deserved the W...

Our team will hopefully watch the next game and learn how to effectively dominate smaller post defenses, this has been an issue for us all year if we are being honest..

Secondly, in the 2nd half, they were times when we forced the ball out of AM hands early in the shot clock and then just let her catch it back. What's the point in using all that energy to then just let her get it back to break our defense down? Have to be able to deny a p[layer like that touches, though a very difficult task due to her quickness

Bottom line They had more success doing to Paige, what we failed to do to her... and that's pretty much the difference in the outcome of this game.. Better luck next year.. I hope we are angry enough to change our post presence in the offseason, I'm not sure that the addition of Amari will be any different but we'll see..

 

[Rb335]

ONO is such an enigma to me. I don’t think the road to a championship runs through her in the post. I expect Bueckers to be incredible next year, and CW is a more than capable off guard. But until we get Edwards a legit counterpart, it’s hard to have an inside outside game. Fudd will address our outside shooting issue, but who is going to address our inside game. Edwards will be a great 4, but we need to find that great 5. From the film I’ve seen of Amari, I don’t know if that’s her. But it could be.

 

[enigmatic]

Not the outcome we wanted but all in all I'm happy that we got to play a tournament this year. Can't wait to see what contributions our incoming freshmen will give to the team. Let's try again next season ladies!!

 

[Huskyfan63]

Arizona was tough on defense and scared Olivia so much she couldn’t make a layup

Far from just Olivia I might add

 

[Geesworld]

I get the feeling we didn't do much preparation for this game wondering if our girls were on a high from the Baylor Game. Young team seemed unfocused.
Next season I would love to see us add a few offensive wrinkles. Let the bigs get rythm and use more athletic lineups to create temple. Give other teams something to think about schematically and not just rely on scouting our superior talent. Good teams make adjustments and it's time for off season adjustments.

Can't wait till next season.
Let's Gooooo UCONN! ????????

 

[jaydee602]

Paige will never match Stewie. No one ever will really.

Paige could have used Stewies' supporting cast tonight.

 

[uconnfan68]

Arizona was better and braver and UConn did not do well under the pressure.

Yeah, true, but this game looked like an official’s payback for a non-call with Baylor. Can’t wait to see how long ESPN shows the 5th foul on Williams, and at least 2 more.

 

[Sanka541]

CW just came out and said they maybe thought it would be easy and got flustered by how the start went

 

[BrianUC]

Paige will never match Stewie. No one ever will really.

Hard to compare. Stewart's teammates in her freshman FF4 contributed a lot more than those of Paige and Maya.

 

[NOI33]

Olivia doesn't deserve the playing time she receives. If Amari is as good as advertised then Liv needs to sit just like Paige did in 2000. Everyone talks about height so what do you think now. Gabby as a Jr. would have tore her up! They shot like 15 percent on layups. They got beat by the things that hurt them all year. No real post game by your center. Brink would have made Liv look like the freshman.

Honestly, it's just an overall lack of efficient post moves and footwork for ONO. If you watch SC's Boston on offence, she is extremely wise and patient when feeling out the defence. She has so many moves in her bag at such a young age. Other than ONO's fadeaway (very inconsistent) and her scoop shot, I can't list anything that sets her above other post players. Her shot-blocking is amazing, but that's not enough considering the number of minutes she gets. She needs to be a dependable scorer, period.

 

[jaydee602]

I am a lifelong UCONN fan who transplanted to Scottsdale. I watched almost every Arizona game this year. During the season, I was hoping that they wouldn't be in our bracket because of McDonald & their defense. But they faltered at the end & Stanford owned them twice. So I wasn't worried about tonight's game. Mea culpa!!

 

[blackbird]

Paige will never match Stewie. No one ever will really.

Stewie came onto a team that was championship caliber without her, her class was ridiculous, and then as Dolson and Hartley left, Collier and Katie Lou came in..with no real rivals from any team outside of her freshman season.

Seems like Geno is stacking again, so perhaps Azzi gets four...or maybe Paige stays for a fifth year..

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Remiss of me not to thank our united young warriors for a fine season. I salute you.

 

[my2cents]

I am over these so called streaks.
This team didn't lose 4 in a row, its a young team and these young kids got to final 4 and get very little credit because they are Uconn.
A Pac 12 team will win the national title for the first time since 1992......let's see thats 29 years. We get grief because we haven't one since 2016...not a league, just us.
ND has lost 28 games in two years, how is that for a streak.......
These kids gave us great season, thats all I care about.

 

[GiladKatzDeli]

I think the games cancelled due to COVID came back to hurt us a bit here. We needed a bit more experience playing in big games. That said, we make our layups, we'd have won tonight and the narrative would've been totally different - we'd all be praising this team for being able to gut out a win against a good team even though we didn't have our A game.

 

[oldhusky]

That was ugly. Several thoughts, first it is disturbing how often we have shaky starts. Don't know why but it has happened quite a few times. The difference is usually we figure it out after a while, but this game we could never generate good looks until a couple when Nika was in. When we did get inside we couldn't finish layups.

Liv can score effectively against lesser and smaller centers and piles up good offensive numbers against them, but is incredibly ineffective against good defenders, particularly if they are physical with size. It is what it is, not much reason to think that will change. She defends and rebounds against the very good teams, but tends to come up empty scoring.

We have talked frequently this year about how this team passes well but shoots poorly despite their season FG %. Arizona took most of the assist opportunities away, and then we struggle when we don't get many easy shots. As a team we need to show we can score the tough baskets when the defense eliminates the easy ones. We certainly didn't do that tonight.