Can a Paige-less UConn Run the Big East Table?

[Skeets]

Marquette and DePaul back to back on the 29th and 31st are gonna be big!

In my opinion, those are more important than Louisville.

Given this situation, all the games are important. For the Louisville (phonetically Loo-a-vul) game UConn will be putting 5 pretty good players on the court. If they play like the pretty good players that they are, they win.

 

[npignatjr]

Well:

Your post is a bit ambiguous. As the sentence is written, one can take several meanings.

If you meant "it is very possible [that] UConn lost the best player in the country playing the most important position" that would be a true statement. and I would agree that it is very possible.

If you meant "it is very possible that South Carolina [could run the the SEC but] UConn [cannot because it] lost the best player in the country playing the most important position" that would create room for two arguments. First, one could argue that Boston is the best player in the country. Second, one could argue that post is the most important position.

Nevertheless, I did not create this thread to argue or to talk about SCar and Boston.

To the original question: Yes, I think UConn can run the Big East table.

This If you meant "it is very possible [that] UConn lost the best player in the country playing the most important position" that would be a true statement. and I would agree that it is very possible.

 

[CL82]

Pure speculation on my part, but the Louisville game will provide a lot of information as to how this team will be without Paige. UCLA brought out a lot of unknows about the UConn players and what they can do. This week with practice sessions by the coaching staff will give them an opporunity to see what they can do against a very good team with some preparation. A lot of answers to a quite a few questions raised in this thread will be given as to their potential within the Big East.

I think the biggest change will be one of mindset. Paige’s status is no longer uncertain. This team is going to have to figure out new roles and new ways to score. They tried “hero ball“ and failed. They succeeded playing as a team. That should’ve been refined over the past week.

I think, to a certain extent, we will see a “new look” Huskies tomorrow (well those of us who can still see the game). Roles will be better defined end what we run will be based upon the talent we have rather than the talent we lost. I expect us to look much better than we did against UCLA. We will need to in order to win this game.

For what it’s worth, there’s nothing more challenging for a team then to have to step up when there is uncertainty as to whether their star player will play or not. Think about the men’s team last year without James Bouknight. These women are elite athletes and consummate competitors. Knowing that Paige is out 8 weeks will help their focus in preparation.

 

[Lorcan]

FWIW, we’ll see how UConn does, but the odds are high that at some point UConn will get a blemish on their record due to Covid Protocols providing an automatic forfeit—it’s going to be damn hard for them to run the table without Covid getting in the way.