Game Analysis - UConn vs Arkansas

[jazz]

You did miss it. Saylor projects to be second best perimeter on this UCONN squad once she gets game ready. In case you also missed it I'm the one doing those projections, which means they are subject to error. For example I had Nika projected as a far better defender than she has shown and Paige has far exceeded my projection as a defender.

Wouldn't you say that NM held up well on defense in this game....and is progressing??

 

[RockyMTblue2]

I believe we should nominate @CocoHusky to distill the advice and brilliant observations in this thread, add illustrations, have them bound in the finest embossed leather binding, and present them to Geno in a half time ceremony. Whatcha think?

 

[jazz]

Time for some big picture perspective:

• It is only one loss. Just in case you don’t believe me, check out the won-loss column
• We lost on the road against a very experienced team by a grand total of 3 points.
• We could have won this game is so many ways which I think most of us either know and/or mentioned in posting here.
• There is a lot of BB to be played and we are a very young team. Usually this means the team can get a lot better as the year progresses.

Some Good things:

• PB is lights out. First team AA consideration and is ONLY scratching the surface of how good she can really be.
• EW has gotten better every game. A steady progression to the point that she is a force on offense.
• Nice improvement in some of our young players and freshies not named PB. We are starting to see glimpses of their talent. I think they will get even better in another 5-6 weeks.. I’ve seen improvement over the first 10-11 games and if we can get the same kind of improvement over the next 10-11 games, we may have something there!
• We should get some kind of lift when we get AM back and Saylor on the court. You may not be a big believer in either, but we are a better team with them than we are without them.
• We are playing a lot of young players in different positions but still score points for the most part and this last game we had 87. The offense will come around. It is the defense I am most worried about.

Some bad things with my usual optimistic spin:

• We are not a good perimeter defensive team. Some are better/worse than others. Hopefully we get better – I think most will get better and I think one player may not.
• We have not shot the ball well from the outside this year. I still think this will improve. As critical as I have been on CW, I still think she will rebound and start hitting shots. As a 2G, she has shot very poorly this year.
• Liv has not played as well as I thought she would. I am hoping to see how she does against SC. We just need 12 and 10 and stay in the game.
• We are not a physical team and this might hurt us. We will see when we play SC.
• I thought AM would be a much bigger force thus far, but she has not found her rhythm yet and this hurts us on offense. I think if she gets her rhythm along with CW and/or Saylor, we have PB, EW and NM to dribble and kick to open shooters and this helps those shooters a lot. We saw this in the Ark game – made some and missed some.
• I think EW is a little slow on her closeout of the 3 point shooters and hope she will be quicker at doing this.
• AG hasn’t quite become the force I thought she might. She seems inconsistently confident in her outside shoot. I still think she can help us big time down the road.

 

[CocoHusky]

Wouldn't you say that NM held up well on defense in this game....and is progressing??

Nika is definitely progressing. I would not say ANY UCONN player help up well defensively in that game. Might be the worst defensive game I’ve seem in a long time.

 

[jazz]

Nika is definitely progressing. I would not say ANY UCONN player help up well defensively in that game. Might be the worst defensive game I’ve seem in a long time.

Well for me, Nika held up reasonably well, considering she is a freshie. That is the key: she is learning to play better defense in her 9th or 10th game and had to deal with really savvy players. She had some good defensive possessions. She didn't win all of them but the other team is good too!

To further this discussion if you will, AG did a lot better than some think on defense as well. She made Dungee work and sometimes she lost the battle. Well guess what? Dungee is an exceptional player and a very savvy one too.

I thought Mir was respectable as well. She had 1 or 2 really bad possessions on defense but she won her fair share as well. She is a bit hit or miss to me on defense.

PB was decent, but it is harder to play defense and react on a bad ankle than it is to know where you will go on offense with a bad ankle.

We were late on the zone close-outs and had some trouble keeping guards in front of us. EW was at fault some on this. I've noticed this year that she seems to be a tick late on 3 point close-outs.

CW's defense was poor, no matter if she was in zone or man.

 

[CocoHusky]

Well for me, Nika held up reasonably well, considering she is a freshie. That is the key: she is learning to play better defense in her 9th or 10th game and had to deal with really savvy players. She had some good defensive possessions. She didn't win all of them but the other team is good too!

To further this discussion if you will, AG did a lot better than some think on defense as well. She made Dungee work and sometimes she lost the battle. Well guess what? Dungee is an exceptional player and a very savvy one too.

I thought Mir was respectable as well. She had 1 or 2 really bad possessions on defense but she won her fair share as well. She is a bit hit or miss to me on defense.

PB was decent, but it is harder to play defense and react on a bad ankle than it is to know where you will go on offense with a bad ankle.

We were late on the zone close-outs and had some trouble keeping guards in front of us. EW was at fault some on this. I've noticed this year that she seems to be a tick late on 3 point close-outs.

CW's defense was poor, no matter if she was in zone or man.

As I said before there were no passing or even respectable defensive performances in that game. Not from the freshman not from the upper class men. 23 to 13 in personal fouls. UCONN gave up 90 points even with AK missing 9 FTs. The AK players go to the basket at will and shot 56% from deep. Defensively that was about as bad as it gets= curb stomping. Other post are blaming Geno and several others ( perhaps yours) are trying to find a ray of hope in that performance. There were none defensively IMO.

 

[jazz]

As I said before there were no passing or even respectable defensive performances in that game. Not from the freshman not from the upper class men. 23 to 13 in personal fouls. UCONN gave up 90 points even with AK missing 9 FTs. The AK players go to the basket at will and shot 56% from deep. Defensively that was about as bad as it gets= curb stomping. Other post are blaming Geno and several others ( perhaps yours) are trying to find a ray of hope in that performance. There were none defensively IMO.

Yeah I get cha. Good point in saying it could have been worse with the missed FTs. I meant to comment about that but didn't have the stats at the time and then forgot.

I agree with you for the most part. I thought the freshies held up better than some others. I do think GA should have put Liv and AG in earlier in the 4th.

I will say though that I never would have thought that having Mir play centre would have helped us have a spark. Now that was genius. I just think that after a while, Neighbors told his players to take the ball to the rim because: 1. they can get there 2. there is no tall player in the paint to bother you.

Also, to be fair, Ark hit some contested shots as well...although there were loads of times they were wide open...

 

[CocoHusky]

Yeah I get cha. Good point in saying it could have been worse with the missed FTs. I meant to comment about that but didn't have the stats at the time and then forgot.

I agree with you for the most part. I thought the freshies held up better than some others. I do think GA should have put Liv and AG in earlier in the 4th.

I will say though that I never would have thought that having Mir play centre would have helped us have a spark. Now that was genius. I just think that after a while, Neighbors told his players to take the ball to the rim because: 1. they can get there 2. there is no tall player in the paint to bother you.

Also, to be fair, Ark hit some contested shots as well...although there were loads of times they were wide open...

That another often overlooked great point Neighbors coached an excellent game stuck to his game plan and exploited every UCONN weakness. The small adjustments he made after UCONN had taken the lead were brilliant and led to the 10:0 game deciding run. That mindless blame game I refereed to earlier is taking it way too far though by saying Geno was out coached.