Comments by HC coach Bill Gibbons

[pap49cba]

As reported by Jeff Jacobs:

Ever-passionate Holy Cross coach Bill Gibbons — "I don't think decaf has reached Worcester yet," Auriemma said — is good friends with Geno. He wasn't afraid to offer a blunt assessment of the Huskies' new life without Maya.

"Obviously, they're not as good," Gibbons said. "When Caroline Doty gets healthy, she will give that swagger that Maya had. They're kind of missing that a little bit.

"But they've got some good young guards. Sure as God made little green apples, Geno is going to have them ready come Big East and tournament time."

 

[Wonkster]

.

Bill always has just the right turn of speech for the occasion.
.

 

[UConnCat]

Fair and accurate assessment by Billy. As many of us have said on this board, the key to this season won't be replacing Maya's stats (although that will obviously need to occur), but about replacing the confidence that produced the stats and the wins. Maya brought incredible confidence to the team last year and her younger teammates were pulled along in her draft, so to speak. Now it's up to them which is a whole new ballgame. One thing we do know about confidence, though: it comes from success. Success breeds success. That is why the early games against Stanford and A&M are important.

 

[pap49cba]

Fair and accurate assessment by Billy. As many of us have said on this board, the key to this season won't be replacing Maya's stats (although that will obviously need to occur), but about replacing the confidence that produced the stats and the wins. Maya brought incredible confidence to the team last year and her younger teammates were pulled along in her draft, so to speak. Now it's up to them which is a whole new ballgame. One thing we do know about confidence, though: it comes from success. Success breeds success. That is why the early games against Stanford and A&M are important.

+1

Even losing could be turned into a positive as long as they don't get blown out. A blow-out could crush a young team's confidence.

 

[VAUConnFan]

+1

Even losing could be turned into a positive as long as they don't get blown out. A blow-out could crush a young team's confidence.

Agreed. And a blowout at home is even more devastating.

 

[itsasport]

It will be interesting for all three teams, because Stanford and A&M are also not as good this year.