Conference Play Minutes - my first thread

[Bronxjeff]

I see no tinkering with the starting five for the rest of the season. But I thought it might be interesting to speculate on the distribution of minutes against the AAC that could improve the team most for March.

My mix would start with 30 minutes apiece for Chrystal and Natalie. I would even try to get one full game for each of them too, obviously Nat would need a good recovery period after!
Next I would give 20 minutes to Molly and ten to Kyla.
I would hold 15 on average for Saniya, enough to hold of rust, but save her legs for the tourneys.
That leaves 20 plus minutes each for the core four and fun time for Tierney.

 

[Zorro]

Assuming that no one gets hurt, that is not unreasonable. I think you are a little heavy on Molly and Natalia and quite a bit light on Saniya, but Geno's mind works in devious ways, his wonders to perform.

 

[BroadwayVa]

I see no tinkering with the starting five for the rest of the season. But I thought it might be interesting to speculate on the distribution of minutes against the AAC that could improve the team most for March.

My mix would start with 30 minutes apiece for Chrystal and Natalie. I would even try to get one full game for each of them too, obviously Nat would need a good recovery period after!
Next I would give 20 minutes to Molly and ten to Kyla.
I would hold 15 on average for Saniya, enough to hold of rust, but save her legs for the tourneys.
That leaves 20 plus minutes each for the core four and fun time for Tierney.

To maintain a perfectly well operating machine---Collier, KLS, Gabby, Kia, Chong---they need 20 minutes per game--so you only have 100 minutes to distribute-- that's why injuries, even small ones or sicknesses are so long returning to full abilities.
So--My distribution after the above is addressed;\
Get as many minutes as possible for Natalie and Dangerfield---those are your 6th and 7th off the bench players ( (40 more minutes used)\\
Molly then getting 20 (160 used)
Kyla, Lawlor (15 and 5)
20 minutes left to redistribute --my hope Danger then Natalie will get that)
Now all my stuff above is just arithmetic--the real distribution will involve ---Performance of players--in Practice and in games
But I ass u me Geno would see the logic of the above to a greater or lesser degree and use it.
( I have Geno on my SPEED DIAL---only one issue--he won't answer)

 

[Geew1992]

I see no tinkering with the starting five for the rest of the season. But I thought it might be interesting to speculate on the distribution of minutes against the AAC that could improve the team most for March.

My mix would start with 30 minutes apiece for Chrystal and Natalie. I would even try to get one full game for each of them too, obviously Nat would need a good recovery period after!
Next I would give 20 minutes to Molly and ten to Kyla.
I would hold 15 on average for Saniya, enough to hold of rust, but save her legs for the tourneys.
That leaves 20 plus minutes each for the core four and fun time for Tierney.

Hmmm....I think Nat is actually in pretty good conditioning. She gets up and down the court better than a lot of bugs she's playing against. That being said, hopefully the bench sees a significant amount of minutes

 

[Carnac]

I see no tinkering with the starting five for the rest of the season. But I thought it might be interesting to speculate on the distribution of minutes against the AAC that could improve the team most for March.

My mix would start with 30 minutes apiece for Chrystal and Natalie. I would even try to get one full game for each of them too, obviously Nat would need a good recovery period after!
Next I would give 20 minutes to Molly and ten to Kyla.
I would hold 15 on average for Saniya, enough to hold of rust, but save her legs for the tourneys.
That leaves 20 plus minutes each for the core four and fun time for Tierney.

Butler and Dangerfield have been the first two off the bench for Geno so far this season. If Butler can give Geno 18 "quality/productive" minutes a game, that would be great. I don't think Butler needs any extra minutes at this point. She played her freshman year at Georgetown, practiced the full season during her red-shirt year, and has been active for the last year and a half.

Dangerfield = about 20-25 minutes a game. He's going to need her BIG time during the post season tournaments. We know that Geno's bench usually shrinks down to 2 players come tournament time. I expect he will do the same this season. Dangerfield and Butler will probably be the only bench players to see the floor as UConn goes deeper into the bracket.

Bent & Irwin will get extended minutes during the 4th quarter after the starters have established an insurmountable lead. In games where the outcome is clearly established, they may see action late in the first half. Geno will no doubt play that one by ear.

Lawlor is a senior. Geno is probably not concerned about her further development at this point. She will not be returning next year, whereas Bent & Irwin will. They need the minutes more than she does.

 

[dtbtbtb]

Geno will play the starters about 20-25 min. a game regardless of score to maintain sharpness. I expect Butler and Danger to get as well 20-25 min. a game so that is anywhere between 140 min. to 175 min. with Probably Bent with about 10-15, Kyla with 10-15 and Lawlor with 5.

 

[bags27]

Hmmm....I think Nat is actually in pretty good conditioning. She gets up and down the court better than a lot of bugs she's playing against. That being said, hopefully the bench sees a significant amount of minutes

Well sure, she's faster than most spiders, but I don't know if she can beat a mosquito...

 

[hoophuskee]

I see no tinkering with the starting five for the rest of the season. But I thought it might be interesting to speculate on the distribution of minutes against the AAC that could improve the team most for March.

1--- My mix would start with 30 minutes apiece for Chrystal and Natalie. I would even try to get one full game for each of them too, obviously Nat would need a good recovery period after!
2--- Next I would give 20 minutes to Molly and ten to Kyla.
I would hold 15 on average for Saniya, enough to hold of rust, but save her legs for the tourneys.
That leaves 20 plus minutes each for the core four and fun time for Tierney.

1.) Please no no no no no no.

Thanks for killing team chemistry.

2.)) You've got to be kidding?


This infatuation with "minutes" is just make believe. It's a massive over-exaggeration by posters such as yourself. I can't believe so many of you have bought into this myth issue that as if our batteries are overlaoed. You realize we've won, right? How did a deeper bench help MD? They lost, remember? You want to take away that momentum by benching the starters? Are some of you out of your minds? And the belief that a big bench is going to defeat superior talent? We just beaten everyone the entire month in which we should have supposedly worn down but haven't/ Even when our best player/or 2nd best had the flu and probably others and even a time when Chong was out. You think these 20 year olds are brittle?


*********Let's compare minutes for that "40-0 team of 2013-2014 vs 2016-2017:

Dolson: 32.3 mpg Nurse 35.5
Hartley: 31.9 mpg Lou 33.2.
Stewie: 30.5 mpg Collier 31.3
MoJeff: 29.7 mpg Gabby 29.1
KML: 29.2 Danger 23.2


So Nurse's minutes can be cut by 3-4 minutes if you want to equate her with Dolson and Lou by 1.5 minutes if you want to equate her Hartley and cut 1 minute from Collier if you want to equate her with Stewie.

The others are less.

Can we please stop with this over-exaggerated paranoia? Some minutes need to be reduced but the core 4 still needs to remain sharp. Twenty minutes per game doesn't cut it. If your minute distrubution is more than 20 -- around 25+ I'd be okay or a bit less if Chong is showing something. They still have to work on playing together. You may be short-changing Chong.

 

[UcMiami]

I think we need to put the breaks on this idea that the conference is a bunch of D2 teams and we can cut and dice however we want. I do not remember a single team for which Geno really messed with the rotation in any serious way. The most important thing to insure coming out of the regular season is that he has his thoroughbreds in peak condition for the NCAAs and that does not include allowing them to get lax in their conditioning or in their mental approach to the game.

So ... except in the most dire of blowouts in conference I don't see the rotation looking much different in the first half of games - that means the five starters averaging maybe 17 minutes and the two primary bench players splitting the other 15 minutes. And the starters will play the first five minutes of the second half as well. And i suspect he will want to keep two starters on the floor for the rest of the third quarter and the first half of the fourth quarter as well to keep some level of continuity within the play of the reserves.

That will end up with starters averaging around 26 minutes a game. That leave 70 minutes of playing time that gets split with probably 45/25 between Crystal and Natalie/Kyla and Molly. The two games against USF all bets are off, and there will probably be three or four other games when Uconn struggles a bit and the starters average closer to 30 minutes each.