Early Season Losses - a look back at lineups

[BRS24]

GM y’all! A little Christmas break in the action, musing on where we are right now. In thinking about the ND and USC losses and some of the comments regarding who’s doing what, who’s not, what needs to happen, what needs to stop, etc, etc, I tried to channel my inner Tony, HuskyNan, among others, and be realistic of where the team is today. A post by @Puppy Love tied into what I was musing, re the continuity of recruiting classes that leads to senior leaders, and hopefully results.. Fair warning - this post is long, a pdf is attached showing the lineups.

I went back to prior year results to compare what happened in the first 13 games, as we’ve seen ND, IA St, and USC within this timeframe this year. Games in italics are away or holiday tourneys, games at Mohegan also marked “home”. The details are attached.

Starting in 2015-16, I took a look at how many starting lineups were used, along with how many changes of lineups were made in the first 13 games (LU=lineup, chgs=# of times the LU changed):

2015 13-0, 5 LU, 5 chgs, 8 players used​

2016 13-0, 2 LU, 2 chgs, 6 players used​

2017 13-0, 2 LU, 2 chgs, 6 players used​

2018 12-1, 2 LU, 2 chgs, 6 players used (loss to Baylor)​

2019 12-1, 3 LU, 3 chgs, 7 players used (loss to Baylor)​

2020 12-1, 5 LU, 5 chgs, 8 players used (loss to Arkansas, also took until 2/3/21 to get to 13 games because ….)​

2021 9-4, 5 LU, 4 chgs, 8 players used (losses to S Carolina, GA Tech, L'ville, OR, and again, took until 1/17 to get to 13 games)​

2022 11-2, 6 LU, 5 chgs, 8 players used (losses to ND and MD)​

2023 10-3, 6 LU, 5 chgs, 9 players used (losses to NCSU, UCLA, and TX)​

2024 10-2, 2 LU, 2 chgs, 6 players used (and IMHO, Fudd should have come off the bench in those two games)​

Last year, we had three losses before the end of the calendar year, and the mood was “the sky is falling,” “forget the NCAA tourney,” “there goes the final four”, etc etc etc. And look what happened, albeit with a lot of bubble gum and duct tape, the team got to the final four. Although I’ve only coached at the youth level, I always wanted to end better than the start, and each day make an improvement, no matter how incremental it was. As I've posted before, Geno doesn't mind losing early in the season, in order to give the team motivation to improve upon things that can be overlooked when going undefeated. For instance, in 2016-17, our only loss was in NCAA semis to Miss St, and again in 2017-18, our only loss was in NCAA semis to Notre Dame. Most of the losses listed above weren't surprises, as NCSU came out of nowhere last year, and we had some injuries & illnesses.

Attached is a PDF that shows the lineups for the first 13 games. Note that in 2015-18, there are dual rankings for some opponents, however since I got the info from the UConn archives, it's not something to change. Some observations:

2015 - Nurse is only one to start all 13 games. Tuck, Jefferson, and Stewart only missed one game in this timeframe.
2016 - Collier, Samuelson, Williams and Nurse start all 13. Chong misses 3.
2017 - Collier, Dangerfield, Williams and Nurse start all 13. Samuelson starts 2, then misses 4 with Stevens starting.
2018 - Collier, Dangerfield, Samuelson and Williams start all 13. Walker starts 7, misses 2, then comes back.
2019 - Nelson-Ododa, Walker and Williams start all 13. Dangerfield starts 5, misses 2, then comes back.
2020 - Nelson-Ododa and Westbrook are only ones to start all 13. Williams misses #13, Bueckers misses 1 after TN win.
2021 - Nelson-Ododa only one to start all 13.
2022 - Edwards and Senechal only ones to start all 13.
2023 - Bueckers, Edwards and Muhl start all 13. Ducharme (4) and Fudd (2) are the other starters, however ....
2024 - Brady, Bueckers, Chen, and Strong have started all 13. Shade gets 7, then Fudd 2, then back to Shade.

So, what does this mean? Perhaps the continuity of lineups and sub patterns matter more later in the season when a lot of games are played, the rhythm of player combinations are in full swing. Hey, I'm just a girl, who used ms excel A LOT for work for 9 years and misses it sometimes, so this is what you get when you combine it with my very visual thoughts.

Oh, and of course, wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe new year!

 

[Bone Dog]

Data is in the eye of the beholder in most cases. A lot depends on how you divvy things up. I like this way of parsing the OOC seasons

 

[NycUcWbbFan]

Was going to eventually post something similar, after the somewhat annual rendition of “why aren’t we there yet” passes.

• Every season’s prizes lie in March-April. Geno always has his teams ready for postseason.

For this season, after 12 games in a 31-game regular season, many things are true at the same time:

• Besides 2022-2023, the last time Geno has failed to produce a UConn team to the final four is 2007-2008 (Maya Moore’s freshman year);
• This year’s team is arguably one of the deepest and most talented rosters in UConn history;
• The team is folding in 5 incomers (JMASK: Jana Morgan Allie Sarah and Kaitlyn);
• The walking wounded — includes game changers Azzi and Aubrey, Caroline (?) and Ayanna (another injury) — were practically unavailable for UConn’s two marquee losses in its first 12 games;
• UConn lost its game decisively to Notre Dame and at least course corrected to almost make it a winnable game against USC.

Yes, UConn is 10-2. And this is probably the worst this team would look this season.

Geno knows all his pieces, and the deliberate absence of a running game as a crutch in the early season, is imo by design to produce his best postseason team:

• Paige, Azzi and Sarah will be the engine of UConn’s beautiful offense; they have not yet played their best games together;
• End of season Nika and Aaliyah have not yet been replicated by early season versions of (Kaitlyn/ KK) and (Ice/ Jana);
• Ash is very streaky;
• UConn’s half-court game with 2 bigs is still a work in progress particularly against elite competition;
• The four guard lineup (with Morgan most times as last year’s Paige analog at the 4) has been fine even against elite competition;
• Geno has not yet fully unleashed his press;
• The press and the rotation will be turbocharged when Aubrey returns;
• By March, UConn would have a battle- and practice-tested rotation of at least 10: (Kaitlyn/ KK), (Azzi/ Ash), (Paige/ Morgan), (Sarah/ Aubrey), (Ice/ Jana);
• There are still 19 games to the regular season.

I would like to think UConn’s two early season losses would have the same effect on this group with 5 incomers and 4 walking wounded as Diana’s stinker game in her freshman year’s NCAA tournament (when Svet and Shea were lost for the season):

• Sure, wins would have been great;
• But these losses probably have more teaching weight for every player to strive for the best version of themselves by March-April.

 

[hoophuskee]

For this season, after 12 games in a 31-game regular season, many things are true at the same time:

• Besides 2022-2023, the last time Geno has failed to produce a UConn team to the final four is 2007-2008 (Maya Moore’s freshman year);

UCONN made the Final FF in 2007-2008, Maya's frosh year. They got beat by Stanford - led by Wiggins.
It was 06-07 they didn't make it. LSU took them down. Two prior years they missed out in FF as well.