Next year, the following teams will have more experience players and perhaps more raw talent on the floor than Uconn:
South Carolina
Notre Dame
Baylor
Maryland
Ohio State
Texas
FSU
of the remaining OOC DePaul always plays us tough and Dayton and Chattanooga are well coached respectable teams. And in conference next year we should see better competition from three or four schools besides USF (who will be adjusting to significant change as well.)
For Uconn the transition from a team dominated by upperclass leadership over the last four years (Dolson, Hartley, Faris, KML, Stokes, Jefferson, Tuck, and Stewart) is going to be huge - The trinity who are leaving accounted for:
52% of the yearly scoring, 39% of the rebounds, 57% of the assists, 60% of the blocks, 42% of the steals, and 44% of the minutes
That looks pretty significant but only shows a fraction of their import because the were unneeded for many of the fourth quarters over the course of the year. Looking just at the last three rounds of the tournament:
63% points, 49% rebounds, 74% assists, 64% blocks, 47% steals, and 55% of minutes.
I suspect there is no other team in the top 10 that is losing quite such a significant amount of experience, starting experience, production, or leadership heading into next year. In the past four years Uconn needed to replace:
Numbers, by themselves, do not lie--but you can prove anything you want with numbers. They work well when building a bridge or determining the cost of groceries.
Numbers have no real meaning when predicting what humans or teams can or will do in the game. Then it becomes COACH, training, preparation, heart, desire, and experience (if you are not repeating the same errors in judgement all the time)--I'll put my money on Uconn, Katie Lou, Collier, Butler, Gabby, Dangerfield, GENO, Christine,Shea, Morissa(?). Never count them out of any contest . The sky is still up there, the moon has not dropped--and Uconn is in good hands....Geno will have a 30 plus season.
2012 - Starter Hayes - starting lineup was returning starters 1 senior, 2 juniors, 1 sophomore and 1 freshman
2013 - Starter Faris (and Doty) - starting lineup was returning starters 2 seniors, 1 junior, 2 sophomores
2014 - Starters Hartley and Dolson - starting lineup was returning 1 senior, 2 juniors and new starters 1 junior and 1 freshman
2015 - Starter KML - starting line-up was returning starters 3 seniors, 1 sophomore, and 1 freshman
Next year's starting line up will probably be returning starters 1 junior, 1 sophomore, and new starters 1 junior, 1 sophomore, and ______. There will be a huge leadership void to be filled both on and off the court and a huge decrease in both experience and talent - there will be no returning AA (even including honorable mentions) let alone two or three, no likely or returning NPOY, etc.
The team will not be replacing a piece or two, it will be rebuilding its identity from scratch - there is a lot of talent and potential, and a great coaching staff, but November and December will be a huge adjustment period. To not acknowledge that and not expect some struggles would be crazy - maybe they will surprise everyone like the 2003 team did and win games that no one expected them to extending the winning streak beyond 90 as 2003 extended their streak to 70, but you could get very different odds from Vegas on that than you could over the last month! Defense without the DPOY and Stewart will be different and offense without the Lieberman and the NPOY will be very different as well and that's not even mentioning AA Tuck who was brilliant on both ends.
I am not trying to be a downer - WCBB and Uconn specifically I expect to very exciting next year, but it will be a brave new world.
