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Message: [QUOTE="EricLA, post: 5248675, member: 26"] I'm late to the party on this thread but my $.02. Geno had a game plan. Post player push Betts as far out of the lane as possible. As soon as she gets the ball AND STARTS HER MOVE TO THE BASKET, bring a double or even triple team. Knowing she'd pass the ball out, be ready to instantly sprint out to the 3 point shooter. Sometimes full court press, sometimes denying Kiki the ball, switching on every screen if needed, and play defense like that one possession will decide the outcome of the game. What you saw was exactly that. There were at least 3-4 plays where UConn did not bring help side defense, or Betts was just to quick, and she scored on EVERY PLAY. But the problem was when she passed the ball out, the UConn player was either already there, or closing out so fast, the 3 point shooter had to give up the ball. And UCLA had zero back up game plan. We did it over and over and over again - Betts got her 26, and the rest of the team scored 25 all together. UCLA shot 4-16 from 3. Many of the 3's were airballs and missed everything. I think my thought on Close being outcoached is that she had literally no plan B, and when asked about it in Q3, rambled something about needing to play "more together". Really? That's all you got?? I also think UConn threw a lot of defensive looks at them - to my eyes, the zone was the most effective, but all the switches threw them off too. I think Geno's defensive game plan was brilliant. On the offensive side, credit to them. They made adjustments and Azzi barely scored in H2, if at all. Paige's shot was off, but they had no answer for Sarah. And BTW we "only" jacked up 16 3's. Out of 60 shots. The midrange game was ON POINT and I think this was a brilliant example of UConn's motion offense creating open looks for a lot of players. And the job that Jana and Ice did not only on Betts, but also their own scoring, was just awesome. Our post players had 11 points, 8 boards, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 1 block. To be fair most of that was Jana, but still, I'll take that every day and twice (hopefully) this Sunday LOL. Our bench played a legit 50 minutes and Paige and Azzi only played 31 each. It was a complete team effort. [/QUOTE]

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