It seems to me, even if teams play us more physically than others, we are certainly not the only team that happens to. I have a hard time believing that the increased “physicality” is to such an extent that our players are unable to make it through the games.
I think I the fatigue aspect is mostly affecting Evina as she has suspect knees and is unused to this much play being required of her. I tend to agree with a couple of posters who attribute most of our woes (besides injury, of course) to mental fatigue and a roster that has largely failed to play up to it’s talent level. I think these two factors go hand in hand as some of our players are being asked to do things they simply are not capable of.
I think some of our players are what I call “mechanical” rather than “instinctive”. This imo is why certain of our players, while dominant in high school, are unable to be the same now. Their abilities come from hard work, determination, and a love for the game. However, they are not “instinctive or intuitive” players who intuitively know what to do when a play breaks down.
Remember Geno humorously demonstrating how Maya moved without the ball? He essentially said she had no clue where she was supposed to be but somehow ended up at the exact right place at just the right moment and made the necessary play. Meanwhile the announcers were saying, “look how Moore moves without the ball”! Now I have little doubt that this was mostly exaggerated but I do believe Maya was an “instinctive/intuitive” player who along with her talent, hard work, and physical skills also had this intuitive feel for the game. That’s the part that allowed her to run the girl down from behind and make the game winning steal, make the perfect pass, or make the critical shot.
We’ve been fortunate enough to have had many of these kinds of players over the years. The more of this type of player a team has, particularly at the UConn recruiting level, the more likely you are to have a dominant team that performs well in tight, intense game situations. I believe our greatest teams were those with higher numbers of those “instinctive/intuitive players.
Finally, I believe Paige is the only “for sure” player of this type on this team, although I have high hopes that Caroline is one as well. I hope Azzi is as well, but have not seen enough of her in order to make a judgement. This is not meant as any kind of put down towards any of our players! I admire and root for all of them. However, the cold hard facts of the matter (as I see it) is that we (UConn) have simply had a dearth of the specific types of players needed to get over the final hurdle of the FF! Even so, we could easily have won several of previous 4 titles if we had gotten a little luck at the right times.
That imo illustrates the biggest difference between a highly talented team of “mechanical” players and one with a good percentage of instinctive ones. One needs a little luck, the other makes its own luck.
One thing we can do is not turn on them. 
