DePaul loses in OVERTIME, Creighton over # 22 Nebraska

[Zarathustra]

Cleveland State takes down DePaul in O.T. 90 - 83!
Aneesah Morrow with 42 points and 15 rebounds... not enough!
# 20 Creighton defeats # 22 Nebraska, a team effort by the Bluejays.
I think the score was 77 - 51. Vanderbilt continues to win 84 - 48

 

[sun]

 

[eebmg]

Highlights of Creighton game

 

[CocoHusky]

There is additional bad news for UCONN here: "Aneesah Morrow with 42 points and 15 rebounds."
Azzi Fudd dropped 32 against the # 3 team in the country and might not even win Conference player of the week.
In order to get consideration for NPOY you first have to win conference POY. The defending Big East POY Maddy Siegrist also dropped 32 in a win against a ranked team-Princeton. Bottom line is UCONN has the better out of conference schedule but Azzi is going to have to continue to ball out preferable in prime time games to win conference POY.

 

[eebmg]

There is additional bad news for UCONN here: "Aneesah Morrow with 42 points and 15 rebounds."
Azzi Fudd dropped 32 against the # 3 team in the country and might not even win Conference player of the week.
In order to get consideration for NPOY you first have to win conference POY. The defending Big East POY Maddy Siegrist also dropped 32 in a win against a ranked team-Princeton. Bottom line is UCONN has the better out of conference schedule but Azzi is going to have to continue to ball out preferable in prime time games to win conference POY.

She will but even if Morrow or Siegrist put up some better numbers in some categories, team records which is another way of saying playing meaningful high exposure games under pressure count a great deal.

And we get to embarrass their teams multiple times and target our defenses to their top player.

 

[visitingcock]

There is additional bad news for UCONN here: "Aneesah Morrow with 42 points and 15 rebounds."
Azzi Fudd dropped 32 against the # 3 team in the country and might not even win Conference player of the week.
In order to get consideration for NPOY you first have to win conference POY. The defending Big East POY Maddy Siegrist also dropped 32 in a win against a ranked team-Princeton. Bottom line is UCONN has the better out of conference schedule but Azzi is going to have to continue to ball out preferable in prime time games to win conference POY.

Is it possible she could lose conference POY and yet still win national POY for big game performances against national powers?

 

[CocoHusky]

Is it possible she could lose conference POY and yet still win national POY for big game performances against national powers?

Entirely possible but not likely. "Usually" the national POY and DPOY is chosen from among the conference POY. There are also multiple awards Naismith, AP, WBCA, ... that could be considered NPOY and those are sometimes split. Megan Gustafson won the AP POY award in 2019 and I don't believe she ever appeared in a nationally televised game.

 

[GoChips20]

Entirely possible but not likely. "Usually" the national POY and DPOY is chosen from among the conference POY. There are also multiple awards Naismith, AP, WBCA, ... that could be considered NPOY and those are sometimes split. Megan Gustafson won the AP POY award in 2019 and I don't believe she ever appeared in a nationally televised game.

Worth noting that despite playing on a “lesser” team, Gustafson had the flashy (and incredible) honor of leading the country in both PPG and FG%. Obviously much harder for a guard to do that (even with a shot as pure as Fudd’s).

 

[darrell]

Is it possible she could lose conference POY and yet still win national POY for big game performances against national powers?

One instance I remember of this is Sylvia Fowles winning SEC PoTY her Senior Year, while Candace Parker won every National Award except the Wade Trophy (Candice Wiggins, Stanford).

 

[undersized]

I thought the Big East was sorta unique in that their Conference POY award is supposed to be based solely on conference play? So these early games of UConn, DePaul, Villanova, etc shouldn't play a role, in theory.

Worth noting that despite playing on a “lesser” team, Gustafson had the flashy (and incredible) honor of leading the country in both PPG and FG%. Obviously much harder for a guard to do that (even with a shot as pure as Fudd’s).

So a top 10 team that wins their P5 conference tourney and makes a run to the Elite 8 before losing to the eventual national champs now qualifies as "lesser"?

 

[UcMiami]

I thought the Big East was sorta unique in that their Conference POY award is supposed to be based solely on conference play? So these early games of UConn, DePaul, Villanova, etc shouldn't play a role, in theory.

So a top 10 team that wins their P5 conference tourney and makes a run to the Elite 8 before losing to the eventual national champs now qualifies as "lesser"?

I don't think the BE is unique on limiting conference awards to conference play - I think most if not all conferences do the same - which doesn't mean the conference voters are unaware of OOC play and might be influenced by that knowledge.

 

[cancontent]

Question re the Azzi NPOY discussion. Which is more important? The National Championship or the individual accolades?

I'm more concerned about how the team performs as a whole over the course of the season. If she continues to play well and consistently, I don't see any issues or concerns about others who have the odd "monster" night.

 

[UcMiami]

Question re the Azzi NPOY discussion. Which is more important? The National Championship or the individual accolades?

I'm more concerned about how the team performs as a whole over the course of the season. If she continues to play well and consistently, I don't see any issues or concerns about others who have the odd "monster" night.

Geno has always said anything that is earned on the court is much more important than anything that is voted on - I tend to agree. Personal awards are a nice addition, but the team results are what really matter.

 

[Plebe]

Question re the Azzi NPOY discussion. Which is more important? The National Championship or the individual accolades?

I'm more concerned about how the team performs as a whole over the course of the season. If she continues to play well and consistently, I don't see any issues or concerns about others who have the odd "monster" night.

I couldn't agree more. UConn will be a much better team if we can can figure out a way to win big games without relying on Azzi to score 30+.

Many Boneyarders were, shall way say, heavily invested in Bueckers winning NPOY her freshman year. And she won it — hip hip hooray! But then we lost to a team we were supposed to beat. I'm sure Paige would agree that the loss wasn't more palatable because of her individual bling.

I'm thrilled Azzi is staking her rightful claim to star status, but our team's prospects will be immensely served by having multiple players capable of going for 15-20 in big games. If we have Azzi averaging 25 and no one else over 12, IMHO this is not a healthy formula.

It's no coincidence that virtually all of the greatest UConn teams had a lot of balance, and 30-point games for a single player have been rare exceptions. Even Taurasi when she was carrying the team in 03 and 04 wasn't scoring a ton of points.

 

[Mdoggie]

Whoa!!

 

[CocoHusky]

Question re the Azzi NPOY discussion. Which is more important? The National Championship or the individual accolades?

I couldn't agree more. UConn will be a much better team if we can can figure out a way to win big games without relying on Azzi to score 30+.

Many Boneyarders were, shall way say, heavily invested in Bueckers winning NPOY her freshman year. And she won it — hip hip hooray! But then we lost to a team we were supposed to beat. I'm sure Paige would agree that the loss wasn't more palatable because of her individual bling.

Post season play (NCAA Tournament) does not figure into the NPOY awards. By the time UCONN lost to Arizona Paige had already collected her national player of the year bling. The pursuit of NPOY awards and a championship are not pursuits that have to be prioritized one over †he other. ( Paraphrased) Geno was also recently said something along the lines that in oder for this team to be successful and achieve its goal Azzi is going to have to play like the best player in the country every night. I wish that were not true and obviously the more help Azzi gets the better but I'm afraid it is true.

 

[Plebe]

Post season play (NCAA Tournament) does not figure into the NPOY awards. By the time UCONN lost to Arizona Paige had already collected her national player of the year bling. The pursuit of NPOY awards and a championship are not pursuits that have to be prioritized one over †he other. ( Paraphrased) Geno was also recently said something along the lines that in oder for this team to be successful and achieve its goal Azzi is going to have to play like the best player in the country every night. I wish that were not true and obviously the more help Azzi gets the better but I'm afraid it is true.

We may be talking about different things without realizing it.

"Playing like the best player in the country" doesn't necessarily mean "must outscore everyone else in the country". Taurasi was clearly the best player in the country her junior and senior years, and she played like it quite consistently, but her PPG wasn't eye-popping.

Back to the Big East POY race, if DePaul ends up being as bad as their early results indicate (lost to Northern Illinois and Cleveland State), the chances of Morrow getting BE POY will be small even if she leads the country in scoring.

As for the national POY race, I have never heard any official source say that the conference POY award is an eligibility requirement. My sense is this is a bit of an urban myth. Two entirely separate groups of voters decide one and the other, and they're not even necessarily evaluating the same bodies of work.

 

[CocoHusky]

We may be talking about different things without realizing it.

"Playing like the best player in the country" doesn't necessarily mean "must outscore everyone else in the country". Taurasi was clearly the best player in the country her junior and senior years, and she played like it quite consistently, but her PPG wasn't eye-popping.

Back to the Big East POY race, if DePaul ends up being as bad as their early results indicate (lost to Northern Illinois and Cleveland State), the chances of Morrow getting BE POY will be small even if she leads the country in scoring.

As for the national POY race, I have never heard any official source say that the conference POY award is an eligibility requirement. My sense is this is a bit of an urban myth. Two entirely separate groups of voters decide one and the other, and they're not even necessarily evaluating the same bodies of work.

Sorry for the confusion. I don't think we are talking about too different things sinceI I agree with your statement that being POY doesn't mean the leading scorer. We don't need to go back to DT for an example Caitlin Clark outscored both Boston and Paige in each of the last two season and did not receive NPOY award in either season. You are also correct that there is no documented criteria that the NPOY must come from the conference winners of those awards. I don't believe it to be just an urban myth however. I'm struggling to think of any NPOY winner that was not a conference POY winner as well. As a practical matter I also don't think the voters that cast votes for NPOY follow the regular season close enough to know that (I'm making this up people) that Morrow was a better player than Azzi during the regular season or vise versa. The player who wins CPOY award is likely to get more NPOY votes than a player that did not win CPOY and would require a voter to cast a vote contrary to what the conference coaches have voted.

Speaking of documented criteria keep in mind that there are multiple NPOY awards one of which is the Wade trophy for which freshman are not eligible. This resulted in NaLyssa Smith winning the award over Paige in '21.

The same (no documented criteria) cannot be said for the NDPOY recipient since the WBCA sates the following;
" The defensive player of the year in each NCAA Division I conference is eligible for the award."

WBCA NCAA Division I Defensive Player of the Year

The WBCA NCAA Division I Defensive Player of the Year Award honors the best defensive player in NCAA Division I women's basketball. The award is presented each season during the WBCA Awards Show which is held in conjunction with the WBCA National Convention. Eligibility The defensive player of...

wbca.org

 

[Zarathustra]

C. CLARK (Iowa, of course) has the great numbers, and she
is Great, but IOWA has yet to prove that they are a top 5
team. So, Azzi is Great, and Azzi is on a Great Team...
Everybody Eats!

 

[Bone Dog]

There is additional bad news for UCONN here: "Aneesah Morrow with 42 points and 15 rebounds."
Azzi Fudd dropped 32 against the # 3 team in the country and might not even win Conference player of the week.
In order to get consideration for NPOY you first have to win conference POY. The defending Big East POY Maddy Siegrist also dropped 32 in a win against a ranked team-Princeton. Bottom line is UCONN has the better out of conference schedule but Azzi is going to have to continue to ball out preferable in prime time games to win conference POY.

I think conference POY isn't merely a function of the basic stats -- points assists rebounds. I think they also consider those high-falutin' stats I don't really understand. The same is true of NPOY. Otherwise Clark should have won it two years ago. But I agree, that there will be a lot of "noise" that Azzi will have to overcome here.

The distinction is going to be who makes their teams win. Two years ago, Paige didn't beat opponents with her dribble or her perimeter shooting or her midrange game or her passing (well maybe that last one figures more importantly): Paige beat opponents with her team. She used the team as the club to beat other teams with. And occasionally, as against SC two years ago, she simply had to take on every burden to get the win.

If Azzi is widely perceived as the engine for UConn, and she leads them to another dominant performance in the regular season and the BE tournament, I think she might win even if another player scores or rebounds more. We didn't really have a player like that last year with Paige out and Azzi and Caroline only playing sporadically. On the other hand, if Villanova or DePaul manages to beat UConn this season, and Azzi doesn't have a great game in the process, even if we win the conference and the tournament, all bets are off.

Morrow scored 42 and lost. Reminds me of the early years for Michael Jordan -- Chicago couldn't get past Boston in the playoffs, and their strategy was to let Jordan score 50, and shut every one else down. Morrow didn't make her team win. I'd have a similar question about Siegrist, though here it's a much trickier one, since Siegrist is much more Paige like in carrying and pushing at the same time.

These are two of the best players in WCBB, so of course they ought to be Azzi's rivals.