DePaul Postgame Thread | Page 5 | The Boneyard

DePaul Postgame Thread

EricLA said:
Fun factoid... Piath Gabriel has scored more points this season than Nika Muhl.

Anna seems to be back to lacking confidence and her shooting has suffered. Aside from Paige, our 3 point shooting is just not good. Edwards is just a beast. Paige is something special. Westbrook took a step backwards in the scoring department. ONO nice job in the post, but FT's - come on!

DePaul's FT defense is fierce. UCONN played better defense than offense. Geno may be right - worst shooting team in 37 years. Williams 2-7 on 3's - meh, but the rest of her game was quite good IMHO. Mixed bag to end 2020, but a 23 point win over a DePaul team who is pretty good is not copped liver!!
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I haven't copped liver in a long time! For some dopey reason, reminds me of a song my dad would sing when we were making excuses, "he didn't STEAL the pork chops, they only STUCK to his thumb". Emphasis added to hint at the tune...
 
Ralph said:
When I saw that pass I thought it was awful. Then they showed the play again from a different angle, and you saw a DePaul player hit Paige and push her. Without that I think Paige would have caught the ball and scored.
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Sonja Morris ran right up her back on that play... should've been called. EDIT: @Biff convinced me with a replay, probably not a bad no call...
 
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BBallF said:
I rewatched the first two quarters of last night's game and I think we are both wrong because we are assuming that there is a set position by player for the 1 and 2 with Paige being the 2 and Evina being the 1. Actually, the 1 is being played interchangeably between the two of them depending on who gets the inbounds pass , who gets the the first outlet pass after a defensive rebound or steal, etc. I didn't see any real improvement in either the fluidity of the half court offense or Paige getting assists in the half court set when she initiates the offense at the 1. I am only talking about the half court set not transition. The difference for me is that the first cut is by the PG and it goes to the corner. Geno wants Paige to get more shots, she had 15 last night, but she could easily have taken 20. I don't think rigidly setting positions is the answer especially when you have an experienced PG in Evina who can create for others as well. Also, If you think Paige is more like Jen I can't agree. Sure, there is only one GOAT, but Paige has an astonishingly complete offensive game for her years and she reminds me more of D because she is so gifted.
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UCONN opened the second half with Paige posting up with her back to the basket in a horns set. The sequence after that she rejected 2 screens that were set for her on the right side of the floor and went left into a second defender and got her shot blocked. Those sets are traditionally NEVER run for the 1 or the 2 in the UCONN offense. There is a great difference between Evina initiating the offense vs Paige initiating it. Evina is doing well but the significant difference is that Evina needs a screen or two to get by that first defender and Paige does not. Paige compromises that first defender with the dribble and gets to the second level defender with a live dribble. In summary Evina cannot create for others like Paige can. I understand Geno dilemma because Paige also happens to be the teams best shooter right now.
Ideally you want you best shooter to be taking the most shots but IMO this is history repeating itself in a negative way. The latter half of last season Geno essentially did the same thing to Crystal when CW was having her crisis of confidence. Crystal was a senior and her game suffered from this change, Paige is a freshman.
 
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Well, I wished for a chance to show some competitive fire and we got a little of that. I noticed last year, and I think it's still the case, that Sonja Morris has way more attitude than game but you've gotta meet swag with swag and I think we did that. Second game in a row that Paige has gotten beaten up a little, I think her and Evina both were put off by all the reaching, grabbing and slapping that Depaul was getting away with, and they were literally hanging off of Lil like icicles.
 
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Paige was great even on an off night But really was it an off night? She would have had many more assists if only the players made the baskets. Totally impressed with AE. I’m not giving up on Anna, she is a very good player who has lost confidence. You can see it. I suspect G, CD, S and Jamelle will be working with her to get that back. Try to be positive on the future. Also, kudos to Mir.....,.even Geno said she’s getting better every practice!
 
A couple of thoughts - If DePaul had one player of Ono's height who was a strong re bounder, we would have been in deep trouble. We cannot play four guards against teams like Baylor who will have a height advantage. What has happened to Griffin? Has she played herself onto the bench or does the coaching staff actually feel Anna is a better option? Is this team better suited for a zone rather than man to man? And if so, would not Williams be a better fit in the lineup? Just thoughts.
 
pvdoggy said:
For all the praise that Geno gave Aubrey at the start of the summer, she has not shown much. Where is that person who thinks Aubrey is going to get 20/10 this year even if she does not start?
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Geno is Italian and has been known to speak hyperbole.
Examples of Geno speaking Hyperbole:
"Natalie Butler is going to be a game changer for us".
"Aubrey was 100 times better than she was last year."
"Courtney Ekmark is one of the best shooters I've ever seen, at any level"

The poster that thought Aubrey was going to Average 20/10 was probably hanging out with the poster that thought Aubrey would lead the team in scoring as a freshman. Coincidentally, both of those posters also happen to speak hyperbole.
 
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My 2 cents on overall team and guard play:

This team cannot hit open shots! Excluding PB we were 4-21 from three...cant get much worse than that. Horrible FT shooting. Should have scored 85 to 90. GA tinkering with EW at point but I think this is just for emergency situations down the line. EW tends to take too long to start things. Geno also tinkering with the high-low with Liv and AE – I think this has some possibilities but maybe better if Liv is on the outside, since she has at least shown she can hit the FT extended jumper.

Didn’t really break away until the end of the third. Interesting first sub with NM in for AM – small line-up. Possibly due to the small DePaul line-up.

I thought the defense was good, can’t complain. Beaten to the basket: CW -1, EW-3, AM-2, PB-1, NM-2.

PB – lost 5 assists in the game: three times got the ball to CW (1) and AM(2) for threes off good dribble penetration and/or good cross court passing but the shot was missed. Need to hit these. Lost an assist to Liv. Continues to show great anticipation to use her length to get steals – 2 from my count.

Had a three point heave otherwise she hits 4 of 5 on threes. Another big step as she hit the 3 with great regularity. Not sure I agree that she should shoot more – at least not more than she did in this game. She seems to have a good feel for this in this game at least. Actually, I feel like she forced a couple, maybe because she is being told to shoot more.

I think Geno is hammering this into her so down the line, she is not hesitant to take the three and get to the basket. I think this is why she took a couple threes when the player backed off her, which she had not done before. Other than the couple she forced, I thought she played very well.

EW – I think she struggles with consistency on defense. Gets beat regularly in a short time span, then she is ok for longer stretches.

Nice take to the basket! Nice stop and pop to get to the line. Another nice take but didn’t finish. Used to bring the ball up – probably in order to see what PB can do off the ball.

NM – She moves her feet well momentarily and then abruptly stops and reaches. Bad habit – will take time to break. Terrific pin-point pass to Liv, but Liv missed the shot. On another occasion, she showed nice work moving her feet to stop dribble penetration. Seems to be a tick late in anticipating movement. Maybe she is watching the ball looking for the swipe as opposed to the player’s hips.

Nice sequence at the end when she got the steal and later the pass for the layup. The problem with the steal, is that this is NM using her hands again and stopping the movement of her feet. It worked this time.

Please let me know if you agree or not.
 
My two cents on post play:

Liv – Nice game dealing with contact and muscling up the shot, showed promise in this area. Needs to lower the ball to gather herself to go back up. Not sure this will get much better due to her linear build – she is not comfortable keeping the ball high – needs to bring it down and back up for power and balance. Continues to show a nice arsenal of moves. Agile in the post, even against smaller players. Excellent composure in the post. Not perfect, but she has a nice feel on how to react with players flying at her at all directions. A bit slow on her backdown move once. Almost split a triple team but earlier recognition with a kickout would have been good. Then she adapted in the second half. This really shows that she takes to coaching as I’m sure the staff pointed this out at the half.

Later on, she had a very quick pass out of the post to an open EW -airball. Did it a second time and then moved out to the FT extended, got it back and hit the jumper. Nice sequence here. Nice pass to AE and later CW for the three. Nice backdoor pass to CW. She has been coached really well on post play. Not to take anything away from Liv, but it is easier to rebound and pass against smaller players. Hope she keeps it up against size. BTW, she did not use her patent step back fade shot in this game. That is good because maybe she is recognising that it is not always needed.

AM – off again – very streaky. 1 3 pt heave shouldn’t count against her. Good defense and there were times she showed really good lateral slide movement. She needs to hit her shots!

AE – impressive. Made a difference as soon as she came in. Big strong body who can post and has nimble feet.

MM reminds me of Denis Rodman rebounding the ball.

Please let me know if you agree or not.
 
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RedStickHusky said:
Well, I wished for a chance to show some competitive fire and we got a little of that. I noticed last year, and I think it's still the case, that Sonja Morris has way more attitude than game but you've gotta meet swag with swag and I think we did that. Second game in a row that Paige has gotten beaten up a little, I think her and Evina both were put off by all the reaching, grabbing and slapping that Depaul was getting away with, and they were literally hanging off of Lil like icicles.
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Morris is a very good shooter but last night seemed to be lacking the desire she normally has against UConn. Also, when Westbrook was called for charging early in the game, the DePaul freshman who led her team in scoring hit Westbrook with an elbow in the face. The announcers said nothing about it. That is why Westbrook was wiping her eye afterwards.
 
eebmg said:
Afterthought.

I know CW is getting alot of assists and that is great but I would nix that behind the back pass she tried to feed Paige on a transition layup. Poor Paige laid out for the pass and looked like she could have pulled multiple muscles. :eek:
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Ralph said:
When I saw that pass I thought it was awful. Then they showed the play again from a different angle, and you saw a DePaul player hit Paige and push her. Without that I think Paige would have caught the ball and scored.
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With the luxury of watching it from multiple angles and in slow motion multiple times I think:
  • It was a poorly thought out pass too late into the break
  • It was poorly executed, even without the bump it was possible but unlikely that Paige would have reeled that in.
  • Paige was bumped to knock her to the floor. She would not have fallen without the bump and it technically should have been a foul.
  • The no call was not a horrendous miss-judgment by the officials when you view it in real time. Could have been called either way.


 
jazz said:
My two cents on post play:

Liv – Nice game dealing with contact and muscling up the shot, showed promise in this area. Needs to lower the ball to gather herself to go back up. Not sure this will get much better due to her linear build – she is not comfortable keeping the ball high – needs to bring it down and back up for power and balance. Continues to show a nice arsenal of moves. Agile in the post, even against smaller players. Excellent composure in the post. Not perfect, but she has a nice feel on how to react with players flying at her at all directions. A bit slow on her backdown move once. Almost split a triple team but earlier recognition with a kickout would have been good. Then she adapted in the second half. This really shows that she takes to coaching as I’m sure the staff pointed this out at the half.

Later on, she had a very quick pass out of the post to an open EW -airball. Did it a second time and then moved out to the FT extended, got it back and hit the jumper. Nice sequence here. Nice pass to AE and later CW for the three. Nice backdoor pass to CW. She has been coached really well on post play. Not to take anything away from Liv, but it is easier to rebound and pass against smaller players. Hope she keeps it up against size.

AM – off again – very streaky. 1 3 pt heave shouldn’t count against her. Good defense and there were times she showed really good lateral slide movement. She needs to hit her shots!

AE – impressive. Made a difference as soon as she came in. Big strong body who can post and has nimble feet.

MM reminds me of Denis Rodman rebounding the ball.

Please let me know if you agree or not.
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I want to stay positive and agree with everything else but AM is really having issues on both ends imo. I do not see the preseason improvement in fitness and I think this is affecting her defense and I think that is affecting her confidence on the offense.
 
eebmg said:
Thanks @Biff for the slowdown. I see the bump as incidental contact and not the reason she went to the floor. I just think the player got close into her line of peripheral sight and Paige reacted a little and then had to get her eye back on the pass and she stumbled reaching for it.
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And I see it differently, after watching it in slo-mo multiple times from multiple angles.
That's exactly why I said the no call was perfectly reasonable for the ref to call in real time. Too close and too fast.

But, it was all set up by a bad pas so....
 
eebmg said:
I want to stay positive and agree with everything else but AM is really having issues on both ends imo. I do not see the preseason improvement in fitness and I think this is affecting her defense and I think that is affecting her confidence on the offense.
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Last night was the first time I felt like Anna gave us next to nothing on offense; Depaul was pretty good in not allowing transition and Anna's ussually pretty good when we run (not a finisher though).
 
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eebmg said:
I want to stay positive and agree with everything else but AM is really having issues on both ends imo. I do not see the preseason improvement in fitness and I think this is affecting her defense and I think that is affecting her confidence on the offense.
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Thanks for your thoughts eebmg.

I watched her pretty close and she looked good to me on defense. She moved well laterally on several occasions. She is a bit savvy as well using the baseline as a defender and her length to make a couple steals and recover when she was initially beaten.

I really didn't see a problem defensively and this team was smaller and quicker than she will normally face playing the 4. I remember a couple steals and a block, but not sure if she got credit for the block-looked like one to me.

She had some nice looks and continues to miss, but not by much. She has to hit shots, no doubt about it. In saying that, anybody not named PB missed from the outside. Horrible shooting night from outside all around except for PB.
 
Biff said:
And I see it differently, after watching it in slo-mo multiple times from multiple angles.
That's exactly why I said the no call was perfectly reasonable for the ref to call in real time. Too close and too fast.

But, it was all set up by a bad pas so....
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Fair enough on seeing the replay.. CW just needed to get that ball up on the rim.
 
Steelerone said:
A couple of thoughts - If DePaul had one player of Ono's height who was a strong re bounder, we would have been in deep trouble. We cannot play four guards against teams like Baylor who will have a height advantage. What has happened to Griffin? Has she played herself onto the bench or does the coaching staff actually feel Anna is a better option? Is this team better suited for a zone rather than man to man? And if so, would not Williams be a better fit in the lineup? Just thoughts.
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Aubrey dealing with back spasms for the last couple of days; game time decision to play her and she couldn't go in the 2nd half.
 
oldude said:
Some thoughts on the DePaul game:
  • DePaul is UConn’s 1st ranked opponent, while UConn is DePaul’s 4th ranked opponent. As a result, the Blue Demons were not particularly fazed by the Huskies.
  • I have to believe UConn is a better outside shooting team then they’ve demonstrated so far this season. Games like this are going to be a lot tougher than they should be when UConn doesn’t hit open shots.
  • In general, UConn’s defense was good, holding DePaul to 36 points less than their season average.
  • Not the prettiest win. UConn's size advantage was a significant factor, and Paige, Christyn and Evina made just enough plays to push the score to a reasonably comfortable margin.
  • Bring on the Lady Bears, I think. :oops:
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I couldn’t agree more with your 2nd & 3rd point. They’re getting by now against less talented teams, but when they play other top 5 teams, they will create problems for themselves if they fail to convert open 3 point shots.

I was very impressed with their defense, holding DePaul’s leading scorer to 8 points, and the team to 30 points below their average. That same type of effort and results will be needed if they want to leave Waco with a win next week.
 
Steelerone said:
A couple of thoughts - If DePaul had one player of Ono's height who was a strong re bounder, we would have been in deep trouble. We cannot play four guards against teams like Baylor who will have a height advantage. What has happened to Griffin? Has she played herself onto the bench or does the coaching staff actually feel Anna is a better option? Is this team better suited for a zone rather than man to man? And if so, would not Williams be a better fit in the lineup? Just thoughts.
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That's a myth based on previous years. If you go look at Baylor's roster, they do not have a height advantage over Uconn, at least not an obvious one.
 
pvdoggy said:
That's a myth based on previous years. If you go look at Baylor's roster, they do not have a height advantage over Uconn, at least not an obvious one.
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5 players at least 6 feet tall.
 
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