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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 4750791, member: 9844"] Good points, I just wanted to add that our schedule makes getting ready and incorporating freshmen into the rotation more of a challenge. It is a by-product of being a super team in a non Power 5 conference. To have a schedule in keeping with our national standing we have to load very tough out of conference games upfront in the schedule, then later the in-conference schedule is much easier. Now compare that to a school like LSU. They will have a much tougher conference schedule than us, but their early schedule is cupcakes. In their case the beginning of the season is more like an extended training camp. They can give all their newcomers playing time in blowouts to get them acclimated to the system and find out how ready they are before the important part of the season, the conference schedule begins. Uconn doesn't have the luxury of developing players that are not yet ready for prime time in early games. If they do enough to earn a rotation spot before the first big game, great, if not their next big opportunity is to show what they can do in Big East blowouts later. In that case they have the opportunity to potentially move into the rotation before the tournaments start. The player development tract and possibilities are very different because of our schedule being so front-loaded compared to Power 5 (or whatever it is now) teams. It is what it is. In the Big East we have to schedule that way, but as Alydar points out, having a more experienced group that doesn't have to rely as much on newcomers is a significant advantage for us this year, more so than much of our recent history. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach