I 100% agree with
@hoopsnloops32 and
@AgStatesman - Some will obviously disagree, but IMHO UCONN is the team to beat next season, not LSU.
so we lost Dorka and Lou. Big losses. But who do we add? Let's be optimistic on health issues for a moment...
New players:
- A fully healthy Paige Bueckers, who as a freshman, was the NPOY. That is MANY times better than ANYTHING any other team out there added.
- Ice Brady, who not only was on the bench the entire season, but has also had lots of time to practice and grow with the team when she was healthy
- Jana El Alfy - a highly prized "Stewie-light" recruit with a big wingspan, great size, and mad skills for a forward who has also been with the team since January practicing, bonding, and working out with them all.
- KK Arnold - by most accounts a top 5-6 recruit and one of the 2 premier PG's in the entire class
- Ashlynn Shade - a "do everything" blue collar tough glue player who Geno won't pigeonhole into any one position. I think she may be the surprise of the class.
- Qadence Samuels - not uber high in the rankings (top 40 for the most part), but Geno and others seem very high on her. Will she have much of an impact on a very crowded and talented team? that remains to be seen, but her athleticism has been compared to Griffin, so Qadence had me at "Aubrey" LOL.
What about the returning players?
- I'm betting that Azzi was never fully healthy last season. Daniel Connolly nailed it when he said "Fudd’s success is entirely dependent on whether she can stay healthy. She’s a national player of the year talent when at 100%, but has a lengthy injury history dating back to high school and has only played in 50 of 73 possible games in her UConn career." Personally I think a lot of her problems are between her ears - I've never seen a player so good suffer from such a crisis of confidence. But the potential - wow!
- On Edwards - she has the chance to have a special senior year. Anything she adds to her arsenal will make her that much better. I'm hoping she plays at an AA level the entire season. She did at times last year, but not often enough.
- Nika - she will still have a crucial role, but i don't see her getting nearly as many minutes. And while her oft maligned shooting (which IMHO is off base) will continue to be discussed, I think her real problem is that she is too much of a 2-dimensional player. Sure she has tremendous energy and charisma, but i think she needs to add more variety to her dribbling and decision making.
- Griffin - to me she was an X-factor much of last season. There were some games where she dominated EVERYWHERE. Defense, offense, you name it. Other games she completely disappeared. If she has more consistency on the favorable side, watch out.
- DuCharme - poor kid. If she can keep her head out of the way of everyone's heads, elbows, knees, etc. I think she can be really good.
- Patterson, DeBerry, and Bettencourt - on a crowded and talented team, unless each of them makes big strides, they may find it hard to find playing time on the floor. Patterson, especially, was a bull in a china shop, but also a step slow almost everywhere she went. hopefully the game slows down for her. DeBerry and Ines are solid but on such a talented and deep team, unless they make bigger than expected strides, I'm not sure how much of an impact they will have.
I'd take a healthy Paige and Azzi as "new pieces" to UCONN every day and twice on Sunday over the addition of Morrow and Van Lith. IMHO, on paper, a healthy (and that's a very big caveat) UCONN is head and shoulders above every other team out there, and it's close, but really, not that close.