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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 4396059, member: 12088"] Like many others, I reacted negatively to the wording of this post, initially. But I can understand the concern. Azzi was a bit tentative as a freshman. Now granted, she was injured for much of the year, and this may have undermined her confidence. We caught glimpses of her brilliance early on, and then basked in the glory of it late in the season. And finally, in the NC game she seemed to falter -- I gather she was under the weather -- and maybe a little bit in the Stanford game, too. If I compare her freshman year to Paige's a difference immediately emerges. No freshman jitters for Paige. She was the go-to player from day one until the Arizona game. The Tennessee game and the SC game are amazing examples of just how much heart she had. In the one, she came back from an injury to lift the team from a poor shooting night and finish off the Vols. In the SC game, she played well all game, but especially in the last few minutes and all of overtime. She took the team on her back and almost single-handedly wrenched the victory away from the Gamecocks. She suffered similar injuries, and was probably under the weather occasionally too. This is what we haven't seen Azzi do [B]yet[/B] -- though in the loss to Villanova, she asserted herself in the second half and engineered the comeback that fell only slightly short. This is what I think Azzi means when she says she can do better. She means to be what Paige was to the team these last two years. I have enormous confidence in her, and will give her the benefit of the doubt now and throughout the season. I assume she is already the best guard in the country -- you guys have already mocked me for this, perhaps deservedly. But even injured, even as a freshman, she was who opposing coaches strategized against (Kelly Harper said as much in a postgame interview) and that tells me they know what can come from this young woman's spark. She will set opposing teams ablaze. One completely positive indicator for me is that as a freshman, Geno wanted her at the free throw line at the end of close games, perhaps even in preference to Paige. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach