Block Wars Continue

[DobbsRover2]

A vicious ugly fight between this year's team and the Husky squads from way back in 2013-14 and 1993-4 and 1994-1995 continues after the current team smacked 15 shot attempts on Sunday. The team is now on the verge of breaking the 8 blocks per game average as it is now at 7.94, still a little behind last year's squad who posted a 8.10, but the gap has been shrinking quickly and current squad looks set to grab the lead within the next few games if not on Wednesday if they swat 11. To break last year's total blocks mark the Huskies will need to push the average to 8.4 bpg assuming a full 39 game season.

Where the old Husky squads come in is on the individual side. Kiah Stokes has now moved past Rebecca Lobo's 4.0 pace as a junior in 1993-94 as she has now pushed it to 4.3 bpg. Lobo only played 33 games her junior year when she batted 131, so Stokes is well on the way at even just the current pace to smack 168, and her rate has been zooming upward during the last 10 games. The NCAA record is by Brittney Griner at 223 blocks for a 6.4 average.

One final vicious nasty battle is the top average by a tandem. The Rebecca Lobo - Kara Wolters duo twice averaged over 6 bpg in the two seasons spanning 1993-1995, with a 6.24 bpg in 1993-94 and around 6.17 in 1994.95 when Wolters missed two games. Stokes and Breanna Stewart have charged into the lead at 6.47 and the clip is rising fast.

They are the Sultans of Swat. And their victims get squat.

 

[JavaMan]

Great stuff! Thanks.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Kiah Stokes is not Britney Griner, but she may be a better rebounder and is one of the best shot blockers I've seen other than BG. I loved last year's big lineup with Kiah, Stef, and Stewie. Scoring on them was, as Tony would say, very tuff.

 

[Sonny44]

A vicious ugly fight between this year's team and the Husky squads from way back in 2013-14 and 1993-4 and 1994-1995 continues after the current team smacked 15 shot attempts on Sunday. The team is now on the verge of breaking the 8 blocks per game average as it is now at 7.94, still a little behind last year's squad who posted a 8.10, but the gap has been shrinking quickly and current squad looks set to grab the lead within the next few games if not on Wednesday if they swat 11. To break last year's total blocks mark the Huskies will need to push the average to 8.4 bpg assuming a full 39 game season.

Where the old Husky squads come in is on the individual side. Kiah Stokes has now moved past Rebecca Lobo's 4.0 pace as a junior in 1993-94 as she has now pushed it to 4.3 bpg. Lobo only played 33 games her junior year when she batted 131, so Stokes is well on the way at even just the current pace to smack 168, and her rate has been zooming upward during the last 10 games. The NCAA record is by Brittney Griner at 223 blocks for a 6.4 average.

One final vicious nasty battle is the top average by a tandem. The Rebecca Lobo - Kara Wolters duo twice averaged over 6 bpg in the two seasons spanning 1993-1995, with a 6.24 bpg in 1993-94 and around 6.17 in 1994.95 when Wolters missed two games. Stokes and Breanna Stewart have charged into the lead at 6.47 and the clip is rising fast.

They are the Sultans of Swat. And their victims get squat.

Love that title btw, very clever!

 

[hussybulldog]

Any link to alll-time Uconn record?

 

[DobbsRover2]

Any link to alll-time Uconn record?

Most of the info as usual comes from the UConn media guide with a little about Griner from the NCAA guide. As always a little compilation work is needed from various bits of info about blocks, but the top 10 blocks by class section is always fun and useful.

 

[HuskiesU]

Kiah Stokes has at least 20 blocks the last 5 games. She has tremendous timing. If she was aggressive on offense as she is on defense, omg Kiah will be a BEAST. But I love how this team stay on there feet's and has hands straight up so no fouls are called

 

[hussybulldog]

Looks like Kiah Stokes can reach No.3 on the all time block list before being taken over by Stewart.

 

[DobbsRover2]

That is correct. Kiah will pass Stef and go into 4th against UCF tomorrow, and then later she should pass Tina for 3rd. Stewie looks to finish somewhere between Wolters' 370 and Lobo's 396 if the trends hold.

 

[Suebird10fan]

On a per minute basis, Stokes is considerably ahead of Griner. That's true even for Griner's sophomore year, before opponents figured out it didn't make sense to go inside on Baylor. The comparison is Stokes 73 blocks in 339 minutes vs. Griner at 223/1174 for her sophomore year. Griner's blocks per minute went down after that as opposing players wised up.

 

[DobbsRover2]

That is definitely true, though blocks per minute is not a stat you will see in any record book. I do have some fear that Kiah's SWATage rate may also start to go down as upcoming opponents either watch the films or start playing UConn a second time and begin to go 80% with a "chuck and pray" strategy from way outside when she's in the game. But for now she's had 27 blocks in the last 4 games and the sky (and Kiah's hand) still seems to be the limit

 

[MilfordHusky]

It's amazing that Kiah will finish near the top of this list, despite having started only a limited number of games.

 

[DobbsRover2]

With the game against UCF, UConn's 18th of the season, Kiah with 7 more swats and Stewie with 3 continued to bump their averages upward. UConn as a team is now at 8.06 bpgs, just minimally behind last year's 8.10 rate. But again to break last year's NCAA mark for total blocks, UConn will need to get to a 8.4 bpg average, assuming a full 39 games.

 

[DobbsRover2]

As of game 20, this year's UConn team has now edged ahead of last year's bpg rate of 8.10 and is now ahead at 8.15. To beat last year's record for total blocks (assuming 39 games), UConn will need to average 8.5 bpg's in the remaining 19 games. The team has 163 in 20 games, and needs 162 more for the record.

 

[TroyHouse66]

Blocked shots shortcomings blamed on Geno & Coaches haphazard recruiting .... and statistical failure(s)

It's about time to start promoting a new statistical system to record Blocked Shots.
Yes, Kiah and Stewie are blocking opponents' shots at a prodigious rate, but the present numerical system isn't presenting a challenge for them.
Unfortunately, Kiah is falling quite short, (no pun intended), in (Bill) Russell blocks. Even reaching double digit numbers yesterday... She only had ONE block where she smothered the ball and then caught it to start an offense run. (I'd have to watch the game gain, but I think Stewie also only had one... in the near corner.)
Something along the Winter Olympic scoring model could be incorporated... Number of Blocks/Degree of Difficulty. Keeping the ball on the court would score higher style points. Catching it in the air, yourself, would be more points. Blocking, catching, & passing the length of the court to a streaking teammate even higher.
This LACK of success on UConn's part must be BLAMED on Geno and the Ass't Coaches. They should really be recruiting players with bigger hands. A two-hand-stuff may be pretty, but an outstretched, one-hand smother should be a required part of the Conn repertoire. Getting the glove sizes of Texas recruits may be more difficult than New Englanders, but requiring a handprint could be added to the scholarship paperwork.
A modest proposal.

(Don't you just hate drizzling days when there's nothing to do but annoy people electronically?)

 

[meyers7]

That is definitely true, though blocks per minute is not a stat you will see in any record book. I do have some fear that Kiah's SWATage rate may also start to go down as upcoming opponents either watch the films or start playing UConn a second time and begin to go 80% with a "chuck and pray" strategy from way outside when she's in the game.

ECU didn't learn. 3 blocks 1st game, 10 the 2nd game.

 

[ed4ourgirls]

ECU didn't learn. 3 blocks 1st game, 10 the 2nd game.

Yes, this was a little surprising to me. I would have thought that Kiah's block numbers
would come down because teams would learn, either first or second hand, that she's
pretty good at blocking shots. Sort of like what happened to Griner. I guess hope
springs eternal.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Yes, this was a little surprising to me. I would have thought that Kiah's block numbers
would come down because teams would learn, either first or second hand, that she's
pretty good at blocking shots. Sort of like what happened to Griner. I guess hope
springs eternal.

There was kind of a weird feeding frenzy on the blocks last night. The first quarter of the game goes by and there are no blocks by either team. Then Kiah enters the game and bang! bang! bang! bang! with first Stewie starting things off and Kiah quickly smacking three more, all four within 1:42. In the second half there were also some block binges. It's almost like Kiah and Stewie decide at some point, the Block Party is on and we're gonna get one even if we have to swat one out in 3-point land. And Kiah was definitely looking for more than 10 last night, as there were points where she was chasing the ball handler almost pleading with her to try a shot so that Kiah could knock the senses out of it.

So I think ECU was kind of lulled into forgetting about the blocks for 10 minutes, then Geno unleashed the Kiah Kong on them.

 

[MilfordHusky]

11 for the team today: 1 each by Stewie, Kaleena, and Saniya. Kiah, the new Sultan of Swat, had 8 more in 22 minutes. Rebecca's season record for blocks is going to be toast.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Team is up to 8.24 bpg. Getting closer to that 8.40 needed to beat that big bad UConn team from last year for NCAA record total blocks. Good to see four players in the mix.

 

[MilfordHusky]

9 for the team, 5 for Kiah tonight. They keep on rolling.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Now averaging 8.32 bpg. The squad is getting very close to the 8.40 rate it needs to surpass last year, with a full 39-game slate. And Kiah is now like an ambulance chaser as she follows after players driving to the basket just daring them to try a lay up.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Yeah, so the Huskies got just 6 blocks against Memphis, and the bpg is now at 8.22. But on the good side, Gabby smacked 3. Lots more to come.

 

[DobbsRover2]

With the 10 against Tulsa, UConn is now up to 224 blocks on the season at a 8.29 bpg pace. Still need to up the pace a bit to beat out last year's team for the NCAA record, but Huskies are in the hunt.