I'm going to break my silence on this discussion board and say a few things that may or may not be popular..
1) We cannot keep doing the same things an expect different results
The talent in women's college basketball has changed, you cannot expect to win against a good opponent by playing passive basketball, everyone knows the keys to beating UConn is to be aggressive with them, taking them out of their rhythm and to play with confidence and make your shots.. We will always be a good team, but if you want to get back to the pinnacle, this team needs to be aggressive and play with a little more urgency the entire game , not just in the last 3mins
2) We lost this game mostly because we were firing on 1 and a half cylinders offensively. We missed too many open shots early on by players who should be making them.. After watching the game, our defense was not as terrible as some would like to say it was, NC State made several tough shots with defender within their area code, that is cuddo's to them. Geno likes his players to play defense right now by keeping players in front of them, I personally miss the old days when he would put a defender on a player and don't even let them touch it.. In Mariah's era, Saniya Rivers would have been limited to her touches.. Making her less impactful WE have the personnel to do the same in my opinion, why he did not utilize them, only he can know.. Aubrey somewhat did a good job on guarding Saniya the few times they were matched up in that game...
3) The only player on our team right now who is comfortable drawing fouls is Paige, our bigs have to put teams in foul trouble, fading away on jumpers to avoid contact is what we seem to like doing.. Hardly do I ever see our players utilizing the pump or head and shoulders fake to get aggresive defenders out of position.. Aliyah being blocked by Saniya, as a prime example. nine out of ten times Aaliyah will try to avoid contact by trying to go past the defender or pull up for a jumper..
4) Our turnovers came at critical times in this game, otherwise Uconn had as good a chance to come away with a hard fought win in hostile territory.. As well as NC State shot and as poorly as a few of our all american candidates played, this game was closer than it should have been..
5) Ice Brady, other than missing a few shot attempts, I saw no real reason not to play her a bit more in this game, after all it wasn't like Edwards/Azzi made much of their shots early on either.. Depth is suppose to be a strength this year, if you dont give your new players experience against good opponents early on in the year dont expect them to be comfortable later in the year when it matters more...
6) Aaliyah Edwards made a statement in preseason that concerned me a little ... She stated in an interview her goal this year was to be consistent... For me that was last year's goal, which for the most part she accomplished. This year similar to Tina Charles her goal should be to dominate, she is a senior that should be the natural progression for any good player... So hopefully she changes that mindset and go out and put up, 27pts, 15rbd, 2blks, 2stls, 5assist per night leave it all on the floor, sub when tired and come back in and do the same again..
We had zero blocks in this game, and they had 6 blks, very telling.... Out rebounded by 10, passive, Passive, Passive.
let the games continue!! Let's Go Huskies!!!