DePaul Post-game Thread | Page 5 | The Boneyard

DePaul Post-game Thread

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jabstep said:
Nika played her best game. She drove to the hoop and scored and she seemed a lot faster than the whole DePaul team on the break and the pass to Aaliyah as she was cutting across the middle looked like UConn basketball. She along with all of the other guards doubled down on Morrow very effectively.
We took advantage of our size matchups.
Evina did the little things and did what she does best slash to the hoop and that inbounds steal WOW
Great coaching job tonight. Its nice to have subs. When all get back the team will have confidence in all its players and depends on who is hot or has the matchup advantage we can go to them. Go Huskies!!!!!
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The coaching plan was a masterpiece. Play zone, press their passing guards, double / front Morrow. All this on a very short turnaround. Kados to Geno's staff. KISS. Make them play at our pace, a steady 80 MPH on offense, 60% on defense.

Make them work for the extra pass, 11 of which were picked up for many fast break points on our side. With Nika now operating at a smooth 80 MPH, the court opened up with some great early possessions. Their defense had a hard time getting set as we played much faster but under control. It was impressive to see so many effective pick and rolls for easy baskets. We can clean up the misses, no worry, we at least got the shots.
I hope this game plan, against similar foes, is labeled and filed for future use! It's a winner against most teams where they can't match our size and interchangeable among our players.

It was great to see the fun that the team, including the bench, was having in this game. WOW, the joy in mid-season was infectious. The players are just so happy for each other!
 
CocoHusky said:
The assist distribution and total tonight was closer to what it was in the TN game.
The key part of this is practice and also simply having time to react. For the Nova game Liv's injury was announced literally right before tip off leaving the team sort of shell shocked. Dorka deservedly won the badass award for this game but this may also have been Nika's best game as a Husky. Nika was very efficient with the basketball (5 assists and only 2 turnover) finally shot a couple of mid range jumpers (made 1 of 2) and was the only UCONN player not to commit a foul tonight.
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According to Nika, she never commits a foul. :rolleyes:
 
oldhuskie said:
This was an interesting look for our possible starting front-court next year. It was also the first game where Dorka could play most of the time as a C with Liv out. Dorka looks much much better as a C than a PF. It seemed like it worked well for Aaliyah too. We have had to use a three big rotation mostly because of having Aubrey out. If not for that, Dorka could have played almost all of her minutes at C and been more effective, and likewise Aaliyah and Aubrey could have focused just on their more natural PF position.

If Dorka and Aaliyah can play together next year like they combined tonight, then it is much easier to feel good when teamed with the anticipated guard ultimate starters of Paige, Azzi and Caroline. Like much of the season, however, one game does not constitute a trend, particularly when you remember how little we got from Dorka and Aaliyah in the prior game.

I do feel that Dorka at C instead of PF makes a very big difference though.
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Yours were great observations and possible views of the future. Dorka and Edwards showed a lot in this game, quickly cleared rebounds and sped down the court. Eighty MPH seems to be our sweet spot, not a 25 second ball possession finished with desperation 3 point shots.
 
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CONN78SEJ said:
Villanova is a much better team right now than they were earlier in the season. They should ranked in the low teens IMHO. They had injuries earlier in the season.
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Almost lost to Marquette last night.
 
eebmg said:
Almost lost to Marquette last night.
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Marquette is good, they’ve already beaten DePaul and Creighton, but they had no answer for Seagrist, had 42 points in the win.
 
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I did not expect this level of play from the UConn women against a very good DePaul team. Everyone of these players excelled.

So what happens when Paige, Caroline, and Olivia are well? Call them off of the bench as replacemens? LOL.
 
jaydee602 said:
You have to love when a pure shooter like Azzi misses all her shots, but doesn't let that affect her defense, passing, or rebounding. So impressive for a freshman!
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yes indeed.........if you told me Azzi was only going to score four points in 34 minutes with this line up I would assume UConn lost big time............she simply did not look herself shooting last night but I was pleased with the rest of her performance...........I have a feeling playing all those minutes in the past few games is starting to catch up with her after having been out so long..........
 
The rollercoaster ride continues.
Just one thought about players stepping up. I believe when there is no one available to sub in for you, you worry less about mistakes and play with much more freedom and confidence.
 
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eebmg said:
Yes, but lower teen's good? In the end, if you rely so much on 1 player, that is going to bite you going forward.
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They didn’t rely on one player when they beat us the other night. Check out the box score, very balanced scoring with Garson being high scorer. If you look at Villanova’s history, I would not call them a one player team, but that doesn’t mean Seagrist can explode for 42.
 
jchuskie said:
when Edwards plays like this she is so much fun to watch, I said it before, I really believe that Olympic camp while some say it helped her, I really feel that is why she fell behind and chemistry with the other players seemed to not be there. I prefer her over Dorka because of her ability to impose her will on opponents. She has deceiving speed.
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Up to now I’ve resisted the notion that her time with Canada’s national team didn’t hurt or her maturation over the summer as others here have suggested. It took longer than it should have, but I’ve finally seen the light.

I am now convinced that had she stayed at UConn over the summer and worked with the team, she would have been playing like this beginning with the Arkansas game. IMO, this is the first game that she looked like herself from last year. It was a wonderful thing to behold. We all know the talent and desire is there, it was just having a hard time manifesting itself.

It was fun to see her and Dorka make plays from tip to buzzer when the team really needed them to. She made her bunnies and her free throws, and they limited Morrow to a certain extent holding her to 20 points.

It doesn’t get any easier with our next opponent, Marquette. Since ONO and Ducharme are day to day, we won’t know who is going to be available until the tip. It would be nice to know that we could depend on Christyn, Aaliyah, Dorka and Evina to play for 40 minutes like they did today.
 
jaydee602 said:
What a strange ending to the Villanova/ Marquette game. Marquette took a 2 point lead with two seconds left in the game. But they somehow fouled Siegrist with less than a second left in the game. She hit both free throws to tie the game & Villanova won by double digits in OT. Siegrist scored 42 points & was 12 for 12 on free throws
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Looking at the play-by-play, Marquette committed a foul after going up 2 prior to the one that sent Siegrest to the line. Two fouls in 2 seconds is pretty tough to do unless they are intentional, I wonder if Marquette miscounted how many fouls they had to give?
 
HuskyNan said:
I think this was a great game for Evina. Every time a DePaul player got the ball in her hands, Evina was right there to slap it loose or deflect it. Her impact won’t show up in the box score but she was big this game.

I see you Evina Westbrook!
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I said the same thing to hubby, noticing that the team had very active hands tonight, which was a huge surprise.
 
Vilanova played out of their mind. They are not going to shoot that well every night and we had a horrible night. They are good but more like top 35 good. Dorka had a terrible game and Liv wasn't even available. They probably couldn't handle our bigs normally.
 
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EricLA said:
U-Came, U-Saw, U-CONNquered...

How worried were UCONN fans for this game? I would say that most were. No Caroline, no Olivia... Paige still out, Aubrey done for the season... overall I would say this is one of our best games in a long time. Not because we blew anyone out, but DePaul is a really good team. We had a few more days of practice without Liv and Caroline. Maybe that made a world of difference, even tho I'm still mystified why the effort, hustle, and energy vs. Villanova seemed so off compared to this game.

But my point about this being one of our best games in a long while - it was just so nice to see everyone playing well. Off shooting night for Azzi, but our post players DOMINATED. And only 4 TO's thru 3 quarters - that was one of the biggest stats of the night.
  • We know DePaul is really good. They gave us all we could handle last game and then some. We've had numerous games this season where we came out slow, got behind, and either had to mount a comeback, or found the deficit way too much. This game was different and the tone was set early on.
  • I loved that our post players were 7-8 from the FT line. Did NOT love that our guards were 1-3.
  • Our post players came to play!! How awesome was it seeing Dorka and Aaliyah absolutely light up the scoring sheet? Both worked incredibly hard establishing position.
    • Liya 19 hard earned points in the post
    • Dorka 22 points and 2-3 from deep. 8 boards and 4 assists. She's my POG.
  • How did Nika (2) and Christyn (1) and Azzi (1) have more blocks than our post players (2 combined)???!! :eek:
  • 20 assists compared to 10 for DePaul. But Dorka and Liya with 7 between that. Really nice job setting teammates up across the board.
  • Best drive AND steal of the game occurred within 3 seconds of each other. Christyn's drive with the shot clock winding down midway thru Q4 - shake and bake, great drive and layup with her off hand, then Evina stealing the inbound pass and scoring - that was a great moment.
  • Great seeing Amari and Piath get into the game. Wished Piath hit one of those point blank layups tho.
Bottom line, this was a tremendous win IMHO. The defense was really really good. So proud of the hustle and grit of the team.
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HOPING FOR BRIDGEPORT! (never thought I would say that)
 
That was just mystifying last night. If you were to tell me before the game that Azzi would go 2-11 and 0-7 on 3s I would have said we lose by 15. I just don't think that we have been analyzing the team and our season correctly. We keep on waiting for "the light to go on" or the "wake up call". I think it may just be as simple as having practice time with the players who are actually going to play and putting in a game plan with them,as well as biorhythms and fatigue. In retrospect, Tennessee took a lot out of a 6 man team and they were listless and flat against Nova until the 4th quarter. Last night there was effort, hustle, focus, smarts, and execution of the game plan which was to double Morrow when she got the ball and put it on the ground and to use our height underneath on offense.

I don't think there is a threshold moment or a turning point for this team and the reason is because we don't know from one game to the next who the team is. How can you get there as a team when it never stops changing? Of course, if they play like they did last night and with Liv, Paige and Caroline back, I don't see them losing. But that assumes instant cohesion and who knows what any lineup changes will do and who knows if they will be the same tomorrow in Wisconsin after a plane ride and 3 completely puzzling games at home.

One more thing. Remember the naysayers about the competition in the Big East and then some people like myself saying that the league would upgrade, the play would mimic the rivalry and intensity of the men's games, and that it was a natural fit for them? Believe it or not, we are getting prepared for the Big Dance by this league, clearly not as definitively as in the old Big East, but prepared incrementally nevertheless. I also love the new old rivalries brewing.

So, I don't think you can be certain about how we will play in any given game from here on in. It has not been a straight line up at all. Far from it. In fact, for this season so far, they make the stock market look smooth and predictable.
 
TeamFirst! said:
Vilanova played out of their mind. They are not going to shoot that well every night and we had a horrible night. They are good but more like top 35 good. Dorka had a terrible game and Liv wasn't even available. They probably couldn't handle our bigs normally.
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I liked what Dorka said in her presser. We let them get comfortable taking the shots they want and are good at and we just don]t do that at UConn.

Also, I liked what she said after the furious comeback. Everyone was pissed we did not play like that earlier (to start) the game). That shows how we could have played.
 
Littlemin said:
Looking at the play-by-play, Marquette committed a foul after going up 2 prior to the one that sent Siegrest to the line. Two fouls in 2 seconds is pretty tough to do unless they are intentional, I wonder if Marquette miscounted how many fouls they had to give?
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I thought the same thing. They had a foul to give, but fouled twice in two seconds! I'm looking for a replay for clarification.
 
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