I agree with this, and I'll add that I think one reason Nika was DPOY last year was that she guarded the player bringing the ball up the court almost every single time a player was bringing the ball up. That extra five seconds or so off the shot clock was incredibly disruptive. She's just not doing that very often this year, and when they do put some pressure on, it's both Nika and Aubrey in the back court.
She's playing a lot more minutes. I don't think they can use up her energy that way now. And certainly not with a roster of 7 or 8 players.
Yep, Nika's more important than she was last year. She probably got 1-2 fouls a game in those situations. UConn can't afford to have her on the bench in foul trouble nor drained of energy.
Some of that stuff is political.
Aneesah Morrow is leading the Big East in steals and is 5th in the country in rebounds, 1st in the BE in Defensive rebounds, and 5th in the BE in blocks. Don’t assume UConn is going to sweep all the awards.
As of now, I would say that Maddy Siegrist is the clear front-runner for BE POY. With all due respect to Aaliyah Edwards and her outstanding level of play, Siegrist is single-handily carrying Villanova. She leads the country in scoring, almost averages a double-double, shoots over 50% from the field, 40% from 3-pt land, 85% from the foul line, while taking 20 shots a game. She outplayed Morrow recently in a game where Morrow launched 34 shots.
Excellent post, Surly1. At this point, Maddy is the obvious BE POY frontrunner. and actually should be considered up there for NPOY.
Aubrey has always lost focus, 3 years in, 4 at UConn, Geno talking about players progression yesterday, year to year since their freshman year until now, year 3, Aaliyah and Nika yes Aubrey still gets lost in team concepts.
