Geno v Cori

[Soxx]

Several posters have commented that Geno completely out coached Cori Close. Just watched their presser. The UCLA players said they felt fully prepared by their coaching staff and owned that they did not execute and played poorly. I am curious what other boneyarders would point to—specifically—to critique Close. Where do you see the superior coaching?

 

[victor64]

Obviously, the players are not going to throw their coach under the bus.

Maybe the moment was too big for a team that had not made a FF appearance in a long time.

Talent-wise, UCLA compares favorably to UConn and every other team in the country. No way, this team should lose to any team by 30 plus points.

UCLA panicked and never recovered after UConn punched them in the mouth early. Turnovers, lack of rebounding and poor outside shooting isn’t all on Close but she definitely deserves some of the blame for her inability to get her talented team back on track.

 

[Jaydumo20]

Obviously, the players are not going to throw their coach under the bus.

Maybe the moment was too big for a team that had not made a FF appearance in a long time.

Talent-wise, UCLA compares favorably to UConn and every other team in the country. No way, this team should lose to any team by 30 plus points.

UCLA panicked and never recovered after UConn punched them in the mouth early. Turnovers, lack of rebounding and poor outside shooting isn’t all on Close but she definitely deserves some of the blame for her inability to get her talented team back on track.

Maybe equal in talent as you go down the bench, but at the top I think this uconn team is a lot more talented than ucla. We blew out all 3 #1 seeds this year. You don't get blown out like this due to nerves.

 

[Geesworld]

I think it's ridiculous to say that she was out coached. Great scheme by Geno and even better execution by the players.
I believe it's time to start giving this UCONN team all time great ranking espe if they win it all. Since that Tennessee game UCONN hasn't played a bad game.

 

[Glenn]

I think Geno is particularly good at defensive schemes and that showed by the high number of turnovers in the first half. Close made some adjustments at half time, and there were much fewer turnovers in the second half. The margin was also large because UCLA could not hit their open shots, even air balled some. I think that was nerves. Finally, USC had beaten them badly twice-- i don't think they were as good as the humans thought, the computers were always less impressed by them

 

[CL82]

I think it's ridiculous to say that she was out coached. Great scheme by Geno and even better execution by the players.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

Close looked nervous in her pregame interview. It's human, but it also gets picked up by the players. Her pacing on the sidelines unnerves me.

 

[Soxx]

Close looked nervous in her pregame interview. It's human, but it also gets picked up by the players. Her pacing on the sidelines unnerves me.

She paces every single game like that! Probably gets 10,000 steps!

 

[Bigboote]

Specific coaching point: UCLA began pressing with 1:30 left in the game. I didn’t notice them pressing at all before that. If it’s in your toolbox, you might want to try it before the game has been decided.

Re the apparent nerves: I agree that Close did look edgy last night. I watched Allisha Gray on the Sue and Diana broadcast during the SC-Texas game. Sue asked what makes Dawn Staley a great coach. One thing Allisha mentioned is that Dawn has a calming influence. (If you’ve watched Dawn on the sideline, you might be thinking Say What? as I did when Allisha said this.). But she mentioned that if a player seems to be losing control, Dawn is really good at quickly recognizing this, pulling the player promptly, and giving her a pep talk on the bench to help cool her jets.

I suspect what you project to your players is 90+ per cent innate and very little changeable, but if Cori could project something different, it might help. Congrats to her on making it to the Final Four for the first time. It’s a big step (as was beating U$C in the B1G championship) and may indicate that she’s getting better at handling the high-pressure games.

 

[BobbyJ]

Close looked nervous in her pregame interview. It's human, but it also gets picked up by the players. Her pacing on the sidelines unnerves me.

Bingo! The pacing looks like Chris Farley as motivational speaker Matt Foley. When the game is tight or they're behind, she becomes frantic and you're right, it affects players that aren't very, very confident. And UCLA has a few of them.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Obviously, the players are not going to throw their coach under the bus.

Maybe the moment was too big for a team that had not made a FF appearance in a long time.

Talent-wise, UCLA compares favorably to UConn and every other team in the country. No way, this team should lose to any team by 30 plus points.

UCLA panicked and never recovered after UConn punched them in the mouth early. Turnovers, lack of rebounding and poor outside shooting isn’t all on Close but she definitely deserves some of the blame for her inability to get her talented team back on track.

I mean, UConn starts three number one recruits (Bueckers, Fudd, and Strong), Jana would probably be at least a top 10 if she had been American, and Chen is easily one of the 5-10 best PGs in the country. Apart from Betts and Rice, the UCLA starters are very good recruits but not the top of their classes.

While I totally agree Geno out outcoached Cori, I think UConn has the most talented starting 5 in the country, to say nothing of their deep bench.

 

[fireford]

Close and UCLA had a great season. Their first final 4. So I'll give her and her team props for that.
One moment early on that I sensed where I could feel tension and frustration for her and her team setting in was when Betts got called for her first foul and she went ballistic.
El Alfy just had two iffy fouls called on her and had to leave the game. You could say the Betts call might have been questionable too but it didn't seem blatantly bad.
In any case, the opposing center just had to leave the game with two fouls so it's to be expected that the refs were going to give "equal time" and possibly hit yours with one as well. And it was ONE foul not two or three and not a horrible call considering what was just called on El Alfy
It felt to me frustration was setting in with her because she could sense things slipping away and it rubbed off on her team and they played accordingly.

 

[FormerCTrez]

She paces every single game like that! Probably gets 10,000 steps!

Good for her on the steps. Sort of bad for the nerves!

 

[oldude]

Close is a good coach with a talented roster. But when you get to March and April, Geno is the GOAT. He has the best coaching staff in the country and he does a better job preparing his team than anyone. So yes, Geno outcoached Cory Close last night. That puts her in very good company.

 

[Kat]

I think that UConn having players who were in a Final Four game before was more impactful than anything else. Cori can coach. This time had a remarkable year, and most of these players will return.

 

[Puppy Love]

I thought watching UCLA play felt like watching the UConn 1995 team play. The only difference is that they didn’t have a monster point guard like Jen Rizzotti. But the style felt the same. It just seemed like once things weren’t working in the first quarter, coach Close didn’t have a Plan B option. If you look at their schedule, other than playing USC twice, they really hadn’t been all that challenged. I think they just got “surprised” when UConn came out swinging and they didn’t recover from it.

 

[TWG236]

One, Geno is the best coach in the country, who else has won 11 NC. So, it's hard to believe that anyone who walks on the court to coach will out coach him. Two, nobody coaches defense like Gino. UCLA hasn't played against any other team who plays defense like UCONN, especially if Gino has a full week to prepare. This game reminded me of the South Carolina game. Same results. Tomorrow's game should be much harder to win, South Carolina has played us before, but Dawn only has one day to prepare. So, let's watch and see.

 

[Bone Dog]

I don’t think of the comparison simply in terms of in-game coaching. The main difference is the team culture Geno has spent decades building, and Cori evidently has not done this nearly as well. Her team was the best for most of the season, but they didn’t progress much. They are now essentially what they were in January and February. By contrast, UConn is a continuing project. Even now, Paige is talking about what they can do better, of “tapping into the next level.”

Another thing I noticed, in the postgame presser: Lauren was pissed and couldn’t wait to get right back at it next season. I respect her for that. She has the heart of a competitor. Kiki was analytical about their flaws, especially the turnovers, which she considered out of character for them. She’s mistaken about this. But more striking was how neither of them seemed to understand that UConn had a hand in why they played so poorly.

To me, this is a sign of a weak team culture — they’re too fragile as a team to take in the great effort of an opponent. It will dawn on them over the next few weeks or months, I’m sure. But this is not their first reaction. Paige would never have spoken this way in the aftermath of a loss. Yes, she’d admit her own mistakes, but she’d also be alert to what the opponent had achieved. She wouldn’t shrink from recognizing that she’d been outplayed. I mean, she’d never admit that Azzi ever beats her at anything, lol, but she knows how to recognize a great opponent, even when she loses.

Cori’s own remarks are rather like Kiki’s. She mentions that UConn outplayed them. But her focus is on their own shortcomings. A coach can’t help doing this, of course, and it’s a way of shielding her team by taking the blame. But I wonder if she’s able to criticize them effectively in practices. You need to build a strong team culture to be able to speak hard truths to players. Geno is able to criticize his players in the harsh terms he typically uses because their culture and camaraderie is so strong.

 

[huskeynut]

Cori Close and UCLA had a great season. The program reached heights never before obtained. You have to give respect were respect is do.

Now, it has been said many, many times, preparing for UConn and actually having to play them are two very different things. UConn's speed is usually the first thing that coaches cite. The second thing coaches cite is UConn's defense. And UConn is a physical team on both sides of the ball.

Last night Close got out coached. She made no in game adjustments. Geno was adjusting the entire game with bigs at the 5 and Sarah at the 5. Take out Kaitlyn and bring in KK. Take out Azzi and bring in Ash. Jana out and Ice in. It might not seem like much, but it forces teams to deal with different looks. That is huge.

 

[Topdawg]

Cori Close had a fantastic season. Team performed well and deserved to be the overall #1 seed. She was recognized this year with the Naismith award. I am sure she had a plan for the game against UConn.

However, to quote the famous philosopher Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.”

Let us not judge either UCLA, South Carolina, or their coaches by their spectacular losses to UConn this year. These coaches have done a lot for their players, fans and the game of basketball.

That said, let us hope Geno out coaches Dawn to win #12. Dawn and Cori will be around for many years after Geno has retired, to create legacies of their own.

 

[Rowdy831]

UCLA has Betts. After that they simply couldn't match up with UConn at any other position and UConn played Betts straight up meaning those others would have to perform against a tough defense. I don't blame Close for the loss other than not teaching her team how to play defense.

 

[DEpup]

I think for Close, her team has the problem that Geno always talks about as a priority. Consistency and can she trust her players beyond Betts to get X every night. She can't.

I've watched them all season and it has always been different players helping Betts to put points up and not a consistent player or two.

 

[hookshot]

I mean, UConn starts three number one recruits (Bueckers, Fudd, and Strong), Jana would probably be at least a top 10 if she had been American, and Chen is easily one of the 5-10 best PGs in the country. Apart from Betts and Rice, the UCLA starters are very good recruits but not the top of their classes.

While I totally agree Geno out outcoached Cori, I think UConn has the most talented starting 5 in the country, to say nothing of their deep bench.

Chen is really solid and Jana is slowly developîng with a long way to go but surely ́neither was / is top 10 anythîng, nor do they need to be. ND arguably, top to bottom, had at least equal talent / experience but they unraveled. So, Geno and his coachîg team must be credited for developing a 9 deep rotation whose combîned talent masked the lack of a dominant point guard and post

 

[HuskieDawg]

When you lose by more than 30 points in Final Four game, or any game really, coaching is certainly a big talking point. It’s not that complicated.

 

[Jim]

Specific coaching point: UCLA began pressing with 1:30 left in the game. I didn’t notice them pressing at all before that. If it’s in your toolbox, you might want to try it before the game has been decided.

UCLA pressed the whole game. The reason you only noticed it at 1:30 left is that UConn's starters were beating it all game. Their press wasn't effective until Geno cleared the bench and the lesser used players were on the floor.

 

[oldude]

Here’s an element of coaching to consider. Close has developed an offense that practically forces the basketball into to low post, which is about all that UCLA did well last night.

Remember that Geno recruited Betts. Had she come to Storrs, UConn would never have put her in a similar offense. Geno runs a motion offense that spreads the floor and shares the ball.

That is not to suggest that Geno would never post up Betts and feed her the ball in the low post. It would be an option. But not an exclusive one.

What Geno knows, and Close has yet to understand, is that a one dimensional offense is much easier to stop than a multidimensional offense.

 

[Dublin]

Though I know I have seen way less WBB games that other BYers here, I was simply amazed how poorly UCLA shot 3-pointers. It's one thing to shoot a 3-pointer under pressure. It's another thing to shoot a 3-pointer when you are wide open.

Betts obviously doesn't worry about shooting 3-pointers. In 3 seasons, she has never attempted a single 3-pointer. Heck, in practice, while her teammates are shooting 3-pointers, she should be practicing her foul shot shooting since it's at 62% --- some 20 points worse than most of her teammates. If her sister is anything like her, Lauren will have someone to practice foul shot shooting with next season; unless she spends this practice time working on her hook shot spin moves or in the training room getting a massage.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

The pacing is just one of my personal problems (lol). Hope my wife doesn’t read this. There are different levels to it, but in any case it can unsettle players. Close’s pacing seems to be nerves, whereas Mulkey’s pacing is just what drama queens do and what hypes up other drama queens. lol. At least Close restricts her performance to the coach’s box unlike Mulkey who thinks the court is her personal runway.

 

[Bone Dog]

UConn's speed is usually the first thing that coaches cite.

This is an excellent observation, and counter-intuitive because UConn doesn't always have the super-speedy types like Hidalgo. We have one this year in KK, but the speed at issue is team speed. The team moves as a whole with astonishing rapidity, already in a play or a defensive formation before the opponent knows what happened. They turn a defensive stop around so quickly it makes opponents' heads spin. It's not about one speedster beating them down the floor. The whole team gets out on the break. Sarah, who is not the speediest, is usually first or second in the transition offense. And they do this when opponents score as much as when they miss. And on a long rebound: fuhgedaboutit.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

Several posters have commented that Geno completely out coached Cori Close. Just watched their presser. The UCLA players said they felt fully prepared by their coaching staff and owned that they did not execute and played poorly. I am curious what other boneyarders would point to—specifically—to critique Close. Where do you see the superior coaching?

Soxx- - -There was nothing Close could have down to stop that snowball rolling downhill!