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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5155422, member: 12088"] I think there’s a few possibilities for Aubrey. [LIST] [*]She can raise the level of play of the youngsters merely by challenging them in practice and by her example in games. But this is not a quick fix for anything. At best, it’s an incremental change. [*]She deepens the rotation of players who fully understand Geno’s defense. This is significant by itself and could improve the rebounding options for Ice and Jana. [*]She and Paige and Azzi know how to make the transition game work. Ice and Ash and KK and Q are familiar with it too. It’s easy to see that Morgan is also eager to get out and run in the open court. Paige knows how to find Aubrey on the break and the renewed connection is likely to boost Paige’s joy in the game. [*]One last thing, maybe the least of them, Aubrey wants to make a splash, to show what she can do for a team and maybe work her way into the draft for next spring. Think Jacy Sheldon, who came back from injury and made her presence decisively felt at tOSU, and earned a spot in the W. [/LIST] To make these things happen, Aubrey can’t just be a tentative player. She needs to be a difference maker, someone who changes a game by entering it. This is what she was before the injury. This is asking a lot from someone coming off knee surgery. The question is whether she can achieve any or all of these in 2 or 3 short months. We need a dazzling 6th woman who can shock top 10 teams who focus their defense on Paige and Sarah. Aubrey did that for Azzi a few times two seasons ago. Can she be that for Geno again? In a sense, the BE schedule ought to be ideal for Aubrey. Eleven games before we face SC and Tennessee. Unfortunately, Aubrey will miss half of those games. After SC, she’ll have another handful of games culminating in the BE tournament to recapture her mojo before the big dance. This feels like a tight schedule for Aubrey and Geno. I feel bad for kids like Aubrey and Evina, who stayed an extra year to play with Paige and the team they love only to have injuries derail their hopes. In Evina’s case, she held the team together until Paige could return and the real season could begin that March. It looked rocky until Paige hobbled onto the court against St John’s and there was joy in Storrs again. She was a [B]silver bullet[/B] that season. Please, let Paige and Sarah hold it together until Azzi and Aubrey come back and the NC run can begin. The odds are even steeper this time than the last one and we’re not awaiting the return of the reigning NPOY. And the team Paige lifted with her return was stacked with veterans, 5 of whom made it into the W. But hope springs eternal. [/QUOTE]

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