Arkansas Postgame Thread

[Martin]

I really thought Aubrey was our best defender and was not sure why she did not play most of the 2nd half. I would never question our amazing coaches, but was wondering why we were playing so much 2 / 3 zone against a great shooting team.

Our amazing coaches are not above criticism.

 

[Martin]

The coach has to get the ref's attention. For all we know Geno and CD were at the other end of the court jumping up and down calling TIMEOUT, and the refs didn't look their way. Christyn needs to know the game situation and immediately signal for a timeout, preferably before her feet land on the floor with the rebound.

Her Chris Webber moment. Sort of.

 

[Rb335]

I agree. The problem is that CW is continually taking the most shots on the team and is shooting 28% from behind the arc whereas Paige is shooting 56% and Evina is shooting 45% from the 3. CW has taken almost twice as many 3s as Paige. If you want to change course, that has to stop. The first 2 options should be Paige and Evina. They are both high efficiency scorers and excellent free throw shooters.

Agreed! CW needs to focus on getting to the rim and hitting from the midrange. At this point, it’s fair to say she just isn’t a good three point shooter. There is no reason someone who shoots 28% should be taking close to 6 attempts per game. It’s becoming wasted possessions.

 

[jaydee602]

In the postgame, Geno said that they had set up a play where they would run a fast break if they rebounded a miss with 5+ seconds left, but to call timeout if there was less time on the clock. Christyn got caught in the middle because the shot went up at close to 5 seconds. At that point, the coaches took too long to bail her out.

 

[Glenn]

If you look at final AP rankings, since the 2007-8 seasons UConn has only lost 3 games to teams outside the top 10.
In 2012, they lost 57-56 to St. John's at home. SJ ended up ranked 15 and a 3 seed in the NCAAs.
In 2014/15, we lost to Stanford away. The Trees ended up the year ranked 14, and a 4 seed.
And now to Arkansas.
To me this feels like 2012--a good UConn team that is young. That team ended up with 3 players on the wall, but at the time they were freshmen and sophomores.

 

[Zinethar]

After reading everything here I still have a couple things that have not been said. I watched the post game studio comments and Both Andy and Sue remarked on how Dungee created her foul shots by always initiating contact and often getting the foul call wrongly. They mentioned at least 2 terrible fouls she did that were called against UConn.

I don't know what rules Geno has given the players vs calling timeouts. Some coaches tell the team that timeouts are for coaches use. It seems that during the last timeout he should have told them to call one as soon as they got the ball. If he did say that then it was CW's fault. If not they share the fault. Evina or Paige could have used more time to get a more set 3 at the end of the game.

During one time out I saw Saylor standing next to AE. I swear she looked taller than AE! Just FYI = she certainly is as tall as advertised.

As for the discussion on the possession clock at the end. ESPN showed a stop action video that clearly showed the ball in the shooters hand with 0 showing on the clock. Should have been an easy call at the monitor. Not as obvious in real time.

Did anyone else see Geno lose it after the Dungee drive where she chopped Mir in the throat and Mir got called for the foul? CD had to drag him away before he got a technical!

On a funnier note I am watching the Houston/Tulane men's game and the announcers just went nuts because one of the Houston players has his shorts tucked under like some of the women sometimes do.

 

[Striper69]

Some thoughts on the Arkansas game:

• UConn shoots 59% in the first half and heads to the locker room with a 2-pt lead. At that point I knew UConn was in trouble. Arkansas is one tough team to play against, and Dungee belongs in the pros, although I’m not crazy about that flying chicken-wing of hers.
• Every time UConn threw the ball into the post, Arkansas swarmed all over it, generally neutralizing UConn’s size advantage.
• Pleased with Nika’s minutes off the bench. She didn’t try to do too much or play too fast, and she knocked down several key shots.
• I guess we’re back to playing with another 5’11” center?
• Paige and Evina both came up big tonight, but it wasn't enough
• I know there will be criticism about players, coaching strategy, etc., but the simple truth is that Arkansas was a better team than UConn tonight. They shot it well, took better care of the ball, played tough team defense, boxed out and hit the boards. They earned the W.

I've watched all the Arkansas games that I could this season. They've been heavily tested against some of the best teams in the country and have only been blown out a few times. Still, I expected UCONN to easily handle them due to the UCONN bigs. Usually Arkansas lives or dies by the three pointer but this game they all drove the ball and got UCONN in foul trouble. For once Dungee stayed out of foul trouble.

Once again I state that I wish Liv would take advantage of her size and length and just shoot simple sky hooks. When she dribbles she makes herself the same height as the guards. Arkansas saw that and honed in on that. Every time I watched her play I said to myself that when she does that she's easy to stop and wondered when a team would take advantage of it.

To look on the bright side UCONN gets that type of game out of the way and will learn how to avoid it in the Big Dance. Unbeaten streaks are overrated...

 

[Urshurak]

Okay. Just watched the game. Missed it live. Arkansas played really well. Dungee is unreal. UConn just got outplayed tonight. They will get better. This game will help them down the road.

 

[eebmg]

Paige / Evina Presser



Evina in a politically savy way saying Liv needs to be the best version of herself

 

[eebmg]

Geno Presser



I am guessing before I watch it that Geno is in good spirits. He wants the added motivation and lessens to learn after a loss when you do not play well.

 

[Viet Vet]

After reading everything here I still have a couple things that have not been said. I watched the post game studio comments and Both Andy and Sue remarked on how Dungee created her foul shots by always initiating contact and often getting the foul call wrongly. They mentioned at least 2 terrible fouls she did that were called against UConn.

I don't know what rules Geno has given the players vs calling timeouts. Some coaches tell the team that timeouts are for coaches use. It seems that during the last timeout he should have told them to call one as soon as they got the ball. If he did say that then it was CW's fault. If not they share the fault. Evina or Paige could have used more time to get a more set 3 at the end of the game.

During one time out I saw Saylor standing next to AE. I swear she looked taller than AE! Just FYI = she certainly is as tall as advertised.

As for the discussion on the possession clock at the end. ESPN showed a stop action video that clearly showed the ball in the shooters hand with 0 showing on the clock. Should have been an easy call at the monitor. Not as obvious in real time.

Did anyone else see Geno lose it after the Dungee drive where she chopped Mir in the throat and Mir got called for the foul? CD had to drag him away before he got a technical!

On a funnier note I am watching the Houston/Tulane men's game and the announcers just went nuts because one of the Houston players has his shorts tucked under like some of the women sometimes do.

Yeah.......................sure. It was the refs' fault.......................as always.

 

[Zinethar]

I missed one other comment. I believe all the Arkansas starters were at least seniors and some 5th year ones. They also have played many more games and against better competition. Our youth and inexperience showed. Hopefully no more games will be lost so we continue to gain experience. By tournament time that advantage should be minimized.

 

[Jimbo]

-End game management was awful for UCONN. You're down 3 with like 34 seconds left, the opponent is 11-20 from the line, and you let them use the ENTIRE shot clock? By the time a timeout was called they didn't have time to set anything up. Even if they had 3-4 seconds, you're down three. Id much rather extend the game, put Arkansas on the line and let Paige create and shrink the lead. Really bad management there by Geno and great recognition by Neighbors to wait until the very last second.

Your entire post was excellent, but this point hasn't received enough attention. If you're playing catch-up, you simply can't play straight defense when there's only a 3- or 4-second difference between the game and shot clocks. It's too easy for the other team (if they're smart) to bleed the entire shot clock down to nothing and, even if they don't score, force you to pull off a miracle with only 3 or 4 seconds left in the game. Our decision not to foul was inexplicable. And then we compounded that mistake by not calling a timeout immediately after securing the defensive rebound, which was likewise inexplicable and reduced our chances of winning from slim to almost nil.

We all know that UConn has had comically few games over the past decade or so that have come down to the final possession. I hate to say this, and I might get killed here for saying it, but I think there's a fair body of evidence now that our game management in these situations isn't very good. And I don't just mean that our record in those few games hasn't been great or that opponents sometimes have hit game-winning shots against us—I mean that we have done some utterly baffling things at times. Just off the top of my head: the 3OT Notre Dame game in 2013, the Stanford game in late 2014, and especially the Florida State game in late 2016…though we got away with that last one. (Yes, I realize that's not a long list, but again, we haven't been in very many one-possession games in recent years—not a bad problem to have when we're usually blowing people out, but still.) How much of this falls on players and how much on coaches I'm not sure, but I honestly don't think we've been at our best in these situations.

Since I don't want to be too negative in this post…I loved the way our freshmen played tonight. They all play super hard, are willing defenders (albeit still works in progress), provide a ton of energy, and were a huge reason we were able to get back in this game. A lot of people have been too harsh on Nika; let's not forget that she missed significant time earlier in this already-weird season with an injury, so of course it was going to take her a while to get into any kind of flow. She looks to my untrained eye like she knows what she's doing on the court at both ends of the floor, and especially for a freshman running point, she's further along at this stage than anyone could have reasonably expected. Mir continues to provide good minutes and responded well to the moment, I thought. Aaliyah as usual did some great things when she was out there—not only does she give us a physical presence down low that we haven't had in a while, but also I really like her passing ability. The problem she has with committing too many goofy offensive fouls is fixable. And all I can say about Paige is: as heretical as it sounds, Paige in the fourth quarter tonight reminded me of Diana.

The team will learn a lot from this game and will, I expect, improve as a result of it. And the future looks bright.

 

[Striper69]

Big step up by Nika. Way to go. And Paige was great but we needed her earlier. I think the ankle is not fully healed. We need her against DePaul and SC.

SC could be big trouble if their center has a big game. She's pretty awesome this season.

 

[dragon]

 

[and one]

They lost. I hated it but it happens. I kept waiting for AK to go cold from 3 and waited in vain. Contested rebounds won by AK too often. Way too often. More shots Evina - pretty please. CW, if you can't get squared up for a shot, pass. To EW or Paige would be a good choice. ONO not likely to become a lot better than she is now; Edwards will. The frosh showed well. Paige is every ounce an big time baller. Onward.

 

[dragon]

How big does Saylor look here.

 

[Cuango]

It would appear that we are going to totally disagree on her value. Anna is a solid passer and the ball moves well when she is in the game. She can shoot the 3 and attack the basket (maybe her leg injury has affected her shot lately). She is a 6'2" guard who rebounds well. Much needed tonight.

Save your breath. Some on this board have taken against Anna and are unable to see ho much better the team plays with her on the floor. Not to mention that she has been playing injured for who knows how long!

 

[Jingo]

Christyn made a mental error when she didn't call time out immediately after securing the rebound. She dribbled away 3 seconds. If she had immediately called Time Out, UConn could have advanced the ball to half court with 3 seconds on the clock.

No, the bench should have called time out, not CW's fault, eh?

 

[Striper69]

ONO's post moves are predictable. She needs to add more to the arsenal other than two dribbles one way and spinning (and pinning the defender with her elbow) the other way. Paige was outstanding, Westbrook too. Mir stepped up. Geno will use this as a learning experience.

In defense of Liv...she's probably trying to do what the coaching staff thinks she should do. I think the staff should get her to take sky hooks and alley oops. The guards need to learn how to set her up for these.

Liv? Still love that gal!

 

[Woof 101]

Announcers were insufferable, not sure why some have to talk nonstop like they are doing radio. Constant drivel only stopping to take a breath. When reading off players info to sound more knowledgeable often not wanting to interrupt themselves to tell us what a whistle was for.
Yes I know I can use the mute but they have a view that we often do not. It would be great if they could add to the broadcast experience rather than make the audio annoying.

Dungee is a special player and ready for the next level but should have gotten at least three personals for shoving off.
Paige is special and finally got Geno's point of having to shoot more. I truly believe she did not want to come into a program of this magnitude and step on toes. She got it tonight for us to win she has to shoot.
Evina has to shoot more, I think like Paige she is being a team player but giving up open shots that she is very capable of making.

No spitting match here with anyone and not why we lost but the officiating was awful. There were more jump balls called than one would see in several games on rebounds. The foul had been committed by multiple players before the scrum on the floor. Official did not want to make the call so waited for the easy way out. Dungee is a very exceptional player but for the bull in the china shop to only have committed one foul is a complete joke.

Geno what is up? With all the calls for ONO to do more down low why is she playing at the top of the key the first quarter vs five guards! (I'll get heat for this one) I saw above how she gets pushed off the block but that is because the defender established the position first. Thus having her further away from the hoop for a drop step. I can see her at the high post when AE is down low but why when she is the only big vs 5 guards?

Lot of upsets this year but even though they have 7 more games under their belts I don't consider this one. They beat a formidable team and I thank coach Neighbors for the opportunity. The women's game is finally expanding beyond a half dozen teams.

Congrats to The Razorbacks and hope to possibly see a rematch in the dance.

Box here....

Women's Basketball vs Arkansas on 1/28/2021 - Box Score - University of Connecticut Athletics

The official box score of Women's Basketball vs Arkansas on 1/28/2021

uconnhuskies.com

 

[CTBballfan243]

My take away is there are a lot of spoiled cry babies that are UConn fans.

 

[Lucelab113]

Not sure you can blame Christyn for not taking a timeout.

According to Geno's postgame, he told his players if they got the rebound to try to PUSH the ball up the court if they had enough time.

Why? I don't know. They were going to get the rebound with less than 4 seconds. By giving his team that option, it explains why Christyn was indecisive.

That's just bad end of game management. The only option playing that last defensive possession out was to get the rebound and immediately call timeout to advance the ball and set up play.

 

[Vowelguy]

My take away is there are a lot of spoiled cry babies that are UConn fans.

Where u been ?
Clearly not in the game Chat.

 

[VA Huskie]

**Dungee is not a pro talent. She will have trouble making a roster, IMO. She is crafty, but that doesn't work in the pros.

**I'm convinced that all of Christyn's problems are between the ears. How does a guard, that's her caliber, and brick so many layups and miss that many FT's?

Disagree about Dungee... she’s a pro and will be a good one. Quick, aggressive and a good outside shot.