Creighton Post Game thread (merged thread)

[BBallF]

The team is much better offensively with Nika but the reason is not just because of her point defense but rather because she starts a break every time she gets the ball on the defensive end by going at full speed. Evina’s full speed is noticeably less with the ball. She gets the ball downcourt quickly and with vision and the faster we play on offense in transition the better. Evina was just nowhere today. Lazy passes, one shot, passing up 3s, it’s as though she is going through the motions. I don’t understand it even with her out of position somewhat. She has a wide range of shots and moves.

Caroline is a player. She does the fundamental things so well like moving without the ball, getting position, and defending smartly. She knows how to get a shot off, has a nose for the basket, and is fearless. Dorka is starting to come into her own as well.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that both Nika and AE are only now in last season’s form. I don’t think it was just injuries. I think it was their off seasons. They hurt both of them. If Nika can play twice as much I think the team can take a large step. Evina is just plain uncomfortable at the point for whatever reason and would be a better scorer overnight if she moves to the 2.

When Azzi comes back you now have another 3 shooter you have to defend on the arc. It means the middle gets open even more and that helps our bigs. Turnovers have to greatly be reduced, boxing out has to take place, and everyone, not just Caroline, had to move all the time with cuts and back doors.

It wasn’t FF material today but it was something to build on and it was exciting just seeing our ladies play a game.

 

[boontonbomber]

Don’t want to rain on your parade- but the height tops out at 6’1” on Creighton.
Should have done much more with a 4” height advantage.
But she DID seem to be moving better.

UConn has 4 players 6'5"; Aaliyah is not one of them.

 

[topogigio]

Read all the posts, looking for someone to say something about the lack of low post play in the second half ( I know, more important to just bash the seniors). In the 1st half Edwards and Dorka both got a few entry passes, and either scored or were fouled. In the second half, they rarely went down low, rather were outside, not doing much of any value. For me to notice it had to be pretty obvious. Don't know what the stats were, but don't think either one did much scoring in the 2nd half. Just don't get it.

I see Dorka getting good position down low early in possession, has her man sealed, and they just don't get her the ball

 

[rt bb fan]

Overall some very welcome sights. Muhl back with some terrific energy when she first came in and nice seeing Edwards going strong to the basket. Too many unforced turnovers by UCONN between lackadaisical passes and travels that stopped momentum or prevented baskets.

At halftime, Geno was pleased with the defense, but frustrated with the offense. “Our guard play sucked – there’s no other word for it”. Can’t argue with that.

I found it amazing in the first half how Creighton was able to shake the defender for nice bank shots off the backboard. It almost seemed like they were “lucky” shots, but so many went in that I can’t attribute it to that. On the other hand, Creighton packed it in knowing our 3-point shooting is suspect and really harassed anyone who got the ball near the hoop.

The announcers said the Creighton coach planned to wear UCONN down with their depth and our lack of depth and figured they could keep it close and make a run in the 4th quarter. Q’w 2 and 3 were close, but we built the lead up to 17 in Q4 and held on as Creighton made their run. 5 minute FG drought did not help.

Dorka – Continued her strong play. I wonder if the “boo-birds” who said early on “All B10 team? How is that possible?”. Love her aggressiveness, she’s athletic, and can cover the perimeter as well as the post.

Aaliyah – is it possible that the Aaliyah that we saw last season who showed so much promise is back? Very active on defense, and in spite of a few TO’s and missed shots, was really strong going to the basket. Loved her steal and drive to the basket in the 1st quarter.

Caroline – should not be taking 3 point shots from way out – when she’s closer in, better change of making the basket. Having said that, very little she did to complain about. Moves her feet well on defense, blocks without fouling, and can score from everywhere on the floor. Probably the best player on the floor today.

Olivia – not a lot of scoring, but really solid on the defense. She’s athletic and able to (for the most part) get out on the perimeter and cover Creighton – who does not have a lot of inside play, but has a lot of shooters.

Nika – unfortunately picked up 3 fouls in the 1st half, but here energy and ball control seemed better than the other 2 guards. I felt more comfortable watching her run the point than Evina or Christyn. Her energy seems to be back to where it was last season which helps me understand how her foot injury impacted her play early this season. So glad to see her back. Wish she had knocked down 1 of those 3’s, but 1st game back – happy to see!

Christyn – Another unsurprising sub-par game. As Geno said at halftime “our guard play sucks”. Poor decision making, poor passing, I fear that the CW that we saw the final month of last season is gone for good. The new hairdo did nothing to improve her game. Sadly with all the injuries, we have no other options. And I say that knowing full well she scored double figures and grabbed 5 rebounds. She did have that nice spurt in Q4. But she seems to drive to the basket and then contort her body to avoid being fouled. Not sure why she has never leaned into fouls like so many ND guards have done over the years.

Evina - not sure what is going on with her but even if Paige is playing, 1 shot in a game is not good. Lazy passes, failing to box out her player when she takes a shot, sort of mystifying play from a 5th year senior on a team that needs her to be "more".

Evina had 6 turnovers.

 

[Stymie]

UConn has 4 players 6'5"; Aaliyah is not one of them.

OOPS. Listed at 6’3’.
So it’s a totally different story.
Not.

 

[BobbyJ]

And I am guessing that the refs, either consciously or subconsciously, notice that Nika "complains" about almost every foul call.

Auriemma can stop that immediately. If he wants to.

 

[TeamFirst!]

I like it when both Dorka and Caroline are on the floor together. They work well with each other. In any team dynamic there are the starters and then the usurpers. Both are essentially usurpers. Both are good enough to start but the team dynamic doesn't want to accept it sometimes. If you might not get PT if someone else succeeds it is a normal reaction to hesitate to pass to them. Uconn is pretty good about overcoming this but it still exists some. Newbies have to "earn" it.

I've bit my tongue all thread but no way Nika makes this team better in any way which warrants more than 15 minutes PT. She can't drive through the middle. She can't shoot that well. She struggles against good competition as she's physically over matched sometimes. We had a tougher time against full court pressure today than with other games. She gets some steals and adds enthusiasm. She gives people a breather. That's her role. If she keeps working hard she can definitely knock down some 3's and defend and that would help tremendously but her role should be 15 minutes a game ideally.

 

[Dove]

LOL-feel better?

In a cathartic way? Nah.

 

[Tonyc]

Well we all saw it. We won. Thats a good thing. Caroline was terrific everywhere, Nika was the spark that got us going, Edwards looks like shes back and Dorka once again played very good BB. Heres my thing. We started like lions on the run. Moving the ball and playing at a fast pace, getting everyone involved especially down low where we had the advantage then we got away from it. The game seemed to slow down.

I would think we see Azzi before the end of the month. Geno mentioned she will start practice next week. I figure 5 practices and then some playtime. Maybe Azzi will be ready for the Oregon game. I was told by a very reliable source Azzi can play the point. That is encouraging in that Evina can play her natural position. I believe Evinas offense is hurt by playing the point. Will Geno use Azzi at the point. If he really has to but as a freshman I would say no for now. Maybe down the road in a year or two. Its good to know she can play the point and that lets us know her ability to handle the ball and make plays if shes at the wing. So I guess the next player we see back will be Azzi and hopefully Paige by the second week of February. That means we will not have Paige against South Carolina or Tenn. We will just have to suck it up. My focus right now is the NCAA tournament. Cant worry about wins and losses. Cant worry about seeding. Just have to worry about being healthy and up to speed. With what we saw today and if we continue to improve on that and bring back Paige and Azzi we are gonna be one tuff bunch on WCBB players.

 

[HopJim]

Overall some very welcome sights. Muhl back with some terrific energy when she first came in and nice seeing Edwards going strong to the basket. Too many unforced turnovers by UCONN between lackadaisical passes and travels that stopped momentum or prevented baskets.

At halftime, Geno was pleased with the defense, but frustrated with the offense. “Our guard play sucked – there’s no other word for it”. Can’t argue with that.

I found it amazing in the first half how Creighton was able to shake the defender for nice bank shots off the backboard. It almost seemed like they were “lucky” shots, but so many went in that I can’t attribute it to that. On the other hand, Creighton packed it in knowing our 3-point shooting is suspect and really harassed anyone who got the ball near the hoop.

The announcers said the Creighton coach planned to wear UCONN down with their depth and our lack of depth and figured they could keep it close and make a run in the 4th quarter. Q’w 2 and 3 were close, but we built the lead up to 17 in Q4 and held on as Creighton made their run. 5 minute FG drought did not help.

Dorka – Continued her strong play. I wonder if the “boo-birds” who said early on “All B10 team? How is that possible?”. Love her aggressiveness, she’s athletic, and can cover the perimeter as well as the post.

Aaliyah – is it possible that the Aaliyah that we saw last season who showed so much promise is back? Very active on defense, and in spite of a few TO’s and missed shots, was really strong going to the basket. Loved her steal and drive to the basket in the 1st quarter.

Caroline – should not be taking 3 point shots from way out – when she’s closer in, better change of making the basket. Having said that, very little she did to complain about. Moves her feet well on defense, blocks without fouling, and can score from everywhere on the floor. Probably the best player on the floor today.

Olivia – not a lot of scoring, but really solid on the defense. She’s athletic and able to (for the most part) get out on the perimeter and cover Creighton – who does not have a lot of inside play, but has a lot of shooters.

Nika – unfortunately picked up 3 fouls in the 1st half, but here energy and ball control seemed better than the other 2 guards. I felt more comfortable watching her run the point than Evina or Christyn. Her energy seems to be back to where it was last season which helps me understand how her foot injury impacted her play early this season. So glad to see her back. Wish she had knocked down 1 of those 3’s, but 1st game back – happy to see!

Christyn – Another unsurprising sub-par game. As Geno said at halftime “our guard play sucks”. Poor decision making, poor passing, I fear that the CW that we saw the final month of last season is gone for good. The new hairdo did nothing to improve her game. Sadly with all the injuries, we have no other options. And I say that knowing full well she scored double figures and grabbed 5 rebounds. She did have that nice spurt in Q4. But she seems to drive to the basket and then contort her body to avoid being fouled. Not sure why she has never leaned into fouls like so many ND guards have done over the years.

Evina - not sure what is going on with her but even if Paige is playing, 1 shot in a game is not good. Lazy passes, failing to box out her player when she takes a shot, sort of mystifying play from a 5th year senior on a team that needs her to be "more".

One nit that may turn out to be material. This was the first game that Dorka played that her thumb was not wrapped. Maybe my imagination, but she appeared much more fluid and confident. Did not see her drop ball once.

 

[HopJim]

I really wanted to be able to post only positive comments about this game, but giving away a 4th quarter 17 point lead is going to prevent that. It just amazed me that the point of the offense was to put the ball in Nika's hands when she continues to dribble into the sidelines and into double and triple teams...again, on the sidelines. It seemed like the other ball handlers didn't give her much help when Nika was getting trapped. And the ball she seemed to heave to the top of the key...luckily Aaliyah got it because if she didn't, the game outcome might have been different.
Love the game Caroline gave us and at different times, the "bigs" played very well!
Finally, another game where I am looking forward to @MJL243 posting it on YouTube. (I will not watch the replay of any game we didn't win.)

Yes, Nika appeared out of control at times on both offense and defense. It was great having a true point guard who could come into the game so hopefully we can write this off as rust due to not playing for some time.

 

[SLY63]

Read all the posts, looking for someone to say something about the lack of low post play in the second half ( I know, more important to just bash the seniors). In the 1st half Edwards and Dorka both got a few entry passes, and either scored or were fouled. In the second half, they rarely went down low, rather were outside, not doing much of any value. For me to notice it had to be pretty obvious. Don't know what the stats were, but don't think either one did much scoring in the 2nd half. Just don't get it.

I notice the same thing. We stopped posting up in the second half.

 

[AgStatesman]

Quote of the year for Geno in the post game presser
Reporter, "Coach, how do you build on the inconsistencies?"
Coach, "Well, I don't think you want to build on a lousy foundation. You want to eliminate them, the inconsistencies."

 

[boontonbomber]

I see Dorka getting good position down low early in possession, has her man sealed, and they just don't get her the ball.

Sorry, not in the 2nd half did you see her getting position. How come? Ask the coaches. The bigs basically spent the 2nd half outside. Dorka didn't score, and had 1 rebound in the 2nd half, after having a really good first half. But in the 1st half she went down low a lot. More glaring was how effective Aaliyah was in the 1st half. Down low is her game. A real head scratcher. It would be great to be able to ask the coaches about it.

 

[Twolf]

With Bueckers out, I can't believe Creighton didn't half court trap UConn the full game. Not for steals, hands off, no fouls, just keep them from running any semblance of offense. Their ballhandling and passing against pressure is atrocious.

I too thought they would do some trapping, run and jump, or scramble defense to disrupt UConn, but more importantly with a tremendous advantage in the depth department, to speed the game up. Easy to second guess, because only the coach knows whether his team is capable of this strategy, but wouldn’t you do everything in your power to force the pace with UConn’s short bench and lack of both game and practice time. Conditioning surely had to suffer to a certain point.

 

[Boreifs]

I see Dorka getting good position down low early in possession, has her man sealed, and they just don't get her the ball

When she does get the ball down low, she makes her move immediately without putting the ball on the floor. I can’t remember ONO ever doing that.

 

[BobbyJ]

I too thought they would do some trapping, run and jump, or scramble defense to disrupt UConn, but more importantly with a tremendous advantage in the depth department, to speed the game up. Easy to second guess, because only the coach knows whether his team is capable of this strategy, but wouldn’t you do everything in your power to force the pace with UConn’s short bench and lack of both game and practice time. Conditioning surely had to suffer to a certain point.

Yes, force the pace up top and they go into scramble mode. Just jumping in to disrupt the hand offs they have to start every set with throws them into indecision and the bigs handling the ball freeze and start looking around. UConn didn’t look tired at all, they just don’t move and actually look surprised when the pressure comes at them. I’ve wondered since Dangerfield left why good teams won’t get up in their face on D. Other than Bueckers they don’t have the guards to handle it.

 

[TeamFirst!]

I don't think Dorka played as much in the 2nd half. Creighton went tom a press and Geno took her out immediately. The team is better, generally, with Dorka in there.

 

[SJF]

And I am guessing that the refs, either consciously or subconsciously, notice that Nika "complains" about almost every foul call.

Kinda like Candace Parker

 

[SJF]

Great win looking forward to Butler! Go UCONN.

 

[VA Huskie]

Didn’t see the game, but noticed a number of comments about E looking listless and lackadaisical. I know it’s confidential information, but I wonder if she might have been one of the players with COVID?

 

[LwrcasefaN]

I thought the overall play was encouraging. Let's be realistic....3 weeks off (not vacationing) and two of your best players...watching. Dorka and Ono were on the bench a good part of the 4th quarter. I think that was intentional and smart. Ease back into it and get your guards some "game" work in and needed confidence. Aaliyah was much better even though I thought I saw her limping in the 3rd quarter...BEFORE Creighton pulled her to the ground. I see why they call Ducharme "sneaky". Under that cool exterior was a player with a stack of chips on her shoulder...ready to play. Nika was a little too ready...like she was shot out of a cannon. lol. She'll be fine. She's just competitive as all he!!.

 

[Woof 101]

I love how stoic she is too. She doesn't get too high or too low.

Great description of her demeanor for sure. The confidence she played with right from the start was palpable.

Quote of the year for Geno in the post game presser
Reporter, "Coach, how do you build on the inconsistencies?"
Coach, "Well, I don't think you want to build on a lousy foundation. You want to eliminate them, the inconsistencies."

No attack but Geno will have way more than that make the top ten before the season is over. This actually should go down in the most dumb reporter question of the year category, a early leading contender for sure. Geno bit his tongue as unusual on this one and did the reporter a favor.

Wish Nan and several I know that have contacted the corona bugaboo good luck and a speedy recovery.

Just a little here as most has been covered. Do love CD's ability to play big and small, @ 6'1" good outside, mid-range and inside shot.
Three clean blocks to the off side of the offensive player was impressive.

Nice to see AE recover from a slow start giving up a couple of baskets being out of position early. She is an important cog in the machine down the road.

Turnovers were a lot of traveling calls. Which the players are not used to although Geno said they have addressed it in practice. Pivot has to be planted. Which has me always wonder how can a player in possession of the ball be rolling on the floor with no pivot foot be able to wait for an opponent to dive in and get a jump ball and not be called for traveling.

Last but not least and no attack but can anyone on the forum ever give the other team a bit of credit? Creighton is a very well coached and scrappy team. As usual UConn is going to be every teams target, their game of the season.
Got a win short handed under ridiculous conditions with no play for 21 days. Only a few practices have to be taken into consideration.

 

[donalddoowop]

I see Dorka getting good position down low early in possession, has her man sealed, and they just don't get her the ball

I saw that also. It had me shouting at my computer. Makes no sense to me.

 

[Alydar]

Massey has Ark at 37, Missouri at 38, Creighton at 39 and Gonzaga at 40.

 

[TeamFirst!]

USC beat Arizona today by 9 points.

 

[hoophuskee]

When Paige returns move Christyn to the 6th man and keep Ducharme in the line up if we want to make the final 4 . Yes it hurts williams
Stock but we need to
Prioritize the team before any individual .

I doubt it. CW's game vastly improves when Paige comes back. The floor opens up more when Paige is in plus they become more fastbreak oriented as a result more fastbreak opportunities for CW.

 

[Zinethar]

From some of Geno's information today we know Amari was one that had COVID which leaves 3 unknown. From what I saw of E today it made me wonder if she was another and that her energy has yet to recover fully. CW also looked a bit slow today. Maybe due to the practice issues. She thrives with Paige hitting her with outlet passes. It was fun noting that Azzi told Geno she would be playing Wednesday. Hope that is true! Amari should be able to play then also. I plan to keep my fingers crossed tomorrow for Aubrey's surgery to be successful and easy for a quick recovery.

The sky is not falling.

 

[Cuango]

Having a tough time getting used to this "new normal" UConn Women's Basketball. I don't care how long of a layoff, Covid, short bench, no Paige, no Azzi, ad nauseum. The players on the court were top rated players coming out of high school, some are now seniors, having played for 4 seasons. They are playing against competition not nearly as talented. They should look and play better than they are!

Time to accept reality! The seniors are just not very good. They were clearly vastly overrated coming out of high school and while they will occasionally have good games, they are just not capable of playing consistently at a high level. Geno has been using smoke and mirrors for the past four years to cover and compensate for their erratic performances. I hate saying that, as I think they are great people but the proof is in the pudding.

 

[Cuango]

Oh, please.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about “small” things like Geno’s irritation over Muhl’s attitude re foul calls. They say (or imply) that making a big deal about “inconsequential” things like that is silly when players are missing bunnies, assignments, not boxing out, making lazy passes etc. All of those things are important for sure but those things are important to every team. Those things are not what has separated UConn from the rest of women’s basketball for the last 30+ years. Geno and CD understand that allowing one broken window to remain unfixed, will inevitably lead to more and more until UConn becomes just another team

To be sure, UConn does most of those things better as well, but the main thing, the most important thing is the overall standard that he and CD have set for their kids to follow. Their program is like a multitude of squares that combine to make that beautiful quilt. Each square that is left off or left unrepaired damages the whole. Clearly, all the squares are not equally important but each one, when left off, may damage the whole far beyond their perceived individual value! It’s easy to sneer about fouling attitudes, tatoo bans, dress codes, interview decorum, demanding perfection on a handoff etc, but all those things are why UConn is UConn!