Arkansas Postgame Thread

[BBallF]

I saw CW make 1 shot. A putback of her own missed layup. I think it’s rather obvious she has lost some confidence. If PB takes every shot of hers - we win. She needs to get in the gym. Just my opinion. Now I’m going to check the box and her shooting percentages. She is (currently) - brick city.

Agree. I don't think the gym is the answer however. She takes the most shots on the team no matter what and some of them are just forced and was 7-12 from 2 point range but 0-5 from 3 point range. The obvious answer- let Evina and Paige shoot the 3s and let CW drive and pull up. The consecutive misses in the second half really hurt us.

 

[Brad Palmer]

A weird game in a weird season (sport-wide). Arkansas shot way, way above their normal percentages, and I don't agree with the discrepancy of foul calls based on the way the two teams were playing. All that added up to a "mere" 3 point win, though.

I am still glad UConn took this game. They actually exorcised at least one of the usual demons (not shooting well), they kept it competitive as a team...and yet there are still lessons that individual players will hopefully learn here. Not to name names, but there was some boneheaded and/or disjointed stuff from certain players. Massively, epically boneheaded and/or disjointed in a few cases. Losing while committing said boneheaded stuff will hopefully make the lesson stick.

Arkansas shot 51% from the floor (season average 44%) but only 55% from the line (75% season average) so not crazy out of the ordinary. But they did shoot 56% on 3's (season average 37%), which obviously was huge..

 

[jaydee602]

Big East refs

UConn committed fouls that weren’t called, too.

Those were Big East refs?? I didn't recognize them & I thought ESPN said they were from the SEC. My mistake!

 

[npignatjr]

The refs did not cost us the game & Arkansas only made two more foul shots than UCONN. But they let Dungee commit several pushoffs. Not sure she gets away with that in most games. I thought the officiating was uneven the whole game.

What did happen on 2 of the most egregious push offs was U Conn was called for fouls and she shot FTs

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Listen to E in the postgame. My kind of no BS leader.

 

[LETTERL]

Idc what any other BY'er says Geno needs to bench Liv and play Edwards. Aaliyah is so foul prone but hell give Mir those minutes. She was very effective. Liv smh she has soooo much potential, will it ever show ?!

I thought, watching this game, that Edwards seemed to play much more physical basketball than ONO. Of course, ONO was saddled with foul trouble and just never seemed to get going.

 

[SVCBeercats]

OK! Mr. Pessimism has left the building. Mr. Optimism here! UCONN has won 5 NCAA championships with at least one loss and as many as 4 losses, twice..

 

[eebmg]

Yes, Neighbors was a good guy but I think we proved how "inviting" our team could be on the court.

 

[BBallF]

It might help if she didn't keep bringing the ball down when she gets a rebound. They swarmed her and fouled her too but took it away from her nearly every time.

She also starts every move when her back is to the basket by pausing first and then dribbling, thereby allowing the double team to come. I don't understand why she doesn't receive the ball, keep it high, wait for the double and then kick it out. If she does that and we make some 3s, the double teams will stop. Very poor effort by her when all we needed was a modest effort ( maybe 8 points and 6 boards) to win.

 

[Rb335]

Christyn was playing (and scoring) well and then (as she has several times this season) decided she should be a three point shooter, promptly missed four and then fell apart. I think she should never shoot more than four threes unless she makes at least two of her first four! She is not and probably will never be a great shooter! However, she could be a very good scorer. Why not play to your strengths?

I completely agree. Her strength is going to the basket and the midrange. But she is so passive sometimes. Floats around the 3 point line, jacks up shots from long distance, and consistently shoots a pretty poor percentage. Today she started well, then effectively chocked when the game was close. As a former top recruit and junior, she should be the leader. Yet Paige played with 10x the sense of urgency. I just feel our freshman have more to offer long term than what our upperclassmen can offer right now.

 

[BBallF]

Big East refs

UConn committed fouls that weren’t called, too.

That's right. They are supposed to call all the fouls though, n'est pas?

 

[uconnever]

ONO needs to decide if she wants to take that next step or not because I truly believe she is the difference between us being a championship team or not. Even still, if we play them again we win by at least 15, they couldn’t miss tonight. That I’m sure of

 

[CTBballfan243]

Dreadful defense. I've never seen a UConn team that is just average, defensively, but this one is. It's unfortunate, but ONO plays soft against big teams. Edwards will be great as soon as she figures out how to not foul like that. The high point was Nika, in terms of exceeding expectations. Evina was good. Not great, but good.
Paige is allowed to disappear for whole chunks of time. It seems that her teammates figure out how to find her maybe halfway through the third quarter of these games, and then she responds. There is something weird going on there. Don't know what.
CW continues to light up the game on early offense and be invisible on defense, most of the time. And her failure to call time at the end was puzzling. Mir made mistakes, but was really active and looked good on many plays.
I cannot imagine what Geno's practices will look like. Defense. More defense. More defense. That'd be about right.

Paige “allowed to disappear for whole chunks of time” you must have watched a different game. UConn ran into a hot shooting team. It’s not that complicated, really.

 

[SLY63]

Lot's of comments, so nothing new but some random thoughts:

Arkansas earned this win. I can't remember the last time I saw a team shoot such a high % against us. Would be interesting to see when this last happened. Dungee is a monster. Quick release. WNBA drive. She killed us all 4 quarters. Ramirez really showed up for Arkansas.

I thought Arkansas wanted it more, rebounded better than expected and ripped the ball out of our hands a number of times. Also, losing the TO battle hurt us too.

On our side:

• Paige is great. Need her to take over earlier (see Dungee above).
• EW played great. Incredibly efficient.
• CW was inconsistent. Wish she realized she should have called a TO at the end
• AE, still like her game, but I think she need to play smarter with regard to "empty" fouls
• ONO really struggles against athletic posts. Scores at will against Big East competition, but I'm getting nervous that she can't be counted on against top opponents.
• AG struggled tonight. I thought she would clean up on the boards.
• Nika was bright spot. Showing good trajectory
• MM brought great energy

 

[BBallF]

I completely agree. Her strength is going to the basket and the midrange. But she is so passive sometimes. Floats around the 3 point line, jacks up shots from long distance, and consistently shoots a pretty poor percentage. Today she started well, then effectively chocked when the game was close. As a former top recruit and junior, she should be the leader. Yet Paige played with 10x the sense of urgency. I just feel our freshman have more to offer long term than what our upperclassmen can offer right now.

With the exception of Evina. She had a quiet 19 points but I think she should be shooting and driving and pulling up much more. She is an acknowledged leader also and that is very important.

 

[CTisballers]

Arkansas played the game of their life. Whatever they put up went in tonight. The second half tells me that Paige needs to be more aggressive in the first half. Shoot more like Geno say Also the freshman let us know they our going to be a problem in the future.Williams can’t ever put a full game of being good together and ONO hasn’t shown she can be dominant against the better teams it seems. I think this was a good lost rather then bad. Love how they fought to come back

 

[bballnut90]

#14 Stanford from the 2014-2015 season says hello. It doesn't really take away from your point though.

They were #6 at the time of the game even though they dropped as the season unfolded.

 

[ME Husky Fan]

I think a mix of good and bad tonight but you can't deny Arkansas and the talent they have. Is it good enough to get to the FF, no way. A couple of kids shot lights out and they were pumped, justifiably so, but the swagger turned into some bush league behavior throughout. That sort of thing comes back to haunt you, but again you can't knock their excitement in beating someone of UCONN's stature. CW early but then she fell flat. Paige - nothing early but her attempt to bring them back single-handily fell short. You have to give the bench a B+ and that's something to leverage if Ono continues to be out-muscled and out-hustled.

 

[ucbart]

This game was lost in the first 3 minutes. We could've lost the Tennessee game in the first 3 minutes as well, but Tennessee wasn't raining in 3's.

Yes, Anna would've been a defensive liability tonight, but she is just a much smarter offensive player and a facilitator as well, unlike Aubrey. Teams are going to dare Aubrey to shoot jumpers, and so far, she has taken them a lot of them. Now, I don't mind her shooting, but every single one of them are way too early in the shot clock. If Anna is open, a. she is a much better shooter than AG and b. she is smart enough to not take the shot early and facilitate some offense when she has the ball.

 

[bballnut90]

Arkansas lives and dies by the 3s. Tonight they were on and it would have been difficult for any team to beat them. Dungee is in shape this year and IMHO would be my number one pick if I were a WNBA GM. UConn is a very good team and is a FF pick for me.

They got hot because they had wide open looks from UCONN's zone defense. I get it if they were worried about Dungee attacking at will (which she did when they switched to man), but I'd MUCH rather force them to attack from the get go rather than let them get hot from deep and then switch to man after they have confidence and are playing well.

 

[HuskyNan]

Those were Big East refs?? I didn't recognize them & I thought ESPN said they were from the SEC. My mistake!

I looked it up. It used to be visiting teams brought refs from their home conference to away games but it appears that now there is a pool of independent refs; they aren’t assigned to one particular conference

 

[CTisballers]

What did happen on 2 of the most egregious push offs was U Conn was called for fouls and she shot FTs

Your right. That foul on Mir was a horrible call and if that wasn’t called that was the 3 points Uconn needed for them not to have

 

[bballnut90]

When was the last time UCONN gave up 90 points in regulation? The only game I can think of is the ND Final Four from 2001.

 

[jaydee602]

I looked it up. It used to be visiting teams brought refs from their home conference to away games but it appears that now there is a pool of independent refs; they aren’t assigned to one particular conference

Good info! I figured that COVID would cause these games to be officiated by local refs instead of having officials travel during the pandemic. Thanks, Nan!!

 

[CocoHusky]

ONO needs to decide if she wants to take that next step or not because I truly believe she is the difference between us being a championship team or not. Even still, if we play them again we win by at least 15, they couldn’t miss tonight. That I’m sure of

Me thinks Liv has already made that decision. Paige Bueckers was playing with a superior post player in HS lat year when compared to the player Liv was tonight and recently in big games.