Georgia Tech Postgame Thread [Merged Thread]

[hoophuskee]

As I said before - of course they need Paige. But --

This team needs Azzi Fudd.
This team needs Azzi Fudd.
This team needs Azzi Fudd.

 

[Aluminny69]

No real comment on the game, poor by the players, poor by the coaches.

But I will comment on the players not talking to the media after the game; after all the times opposing teams had to face the media after getting thrashed by Uconn, and those times are measured in YEARS, I think it is a horrible decision, whoever made it. It is a GAME and you lost, face it and move on. And no I don’t think it will build character, etc., etc.; it is just the right and standup thing to do.

I may be in the minority, but I have never been a fan of press interviews of losing coaches or players, especially college players. What's the point? What do you expect them to say? I don't like it when UConn opponents are forced to do it either. The players look so uncomfortable.

As a former player, I would just say, congratulate the other team, and then move on. Why humiliate them further?

 

[donalddoowop]

Nothing is going to get better unless the offense is changed. There seems to be something wrong with the coaching as far as coaching these players up. Westbrook looked better at Tennessee, Williams has not played consistently well over a full season, Dorka did not make Big10 first team twice playing like she has been playing, and Edwards is a mystery. GT adjusted in the second half, but it seems UConn did not adjust to what GT was doing. Adjustments must be made with the offense. Even lesser teams are running their offense more efficiently than UConn. The UCLA game may be uglier than this game.

 

[donalddoowop]

Dorka is " not consistent with her outside shot?" She has yet to make one at UCONN. That is the ultimate in consistency.

Get your facts straight. She has hit a three this season and some short jumpers.

 

[Huskyfan63]

They were scrappy for a while under the most difficult of circumstances. But the end was not surprising. The goal needs to be to get healthy by the tournament. Seeding doesn't matter. Making the big dance does. So welcome to the next few weeks.

I think the announcers were a little overboard in praising GA Tech under the circumstances. But I will give GA Tech credit for having the best ladder-on-the-chin balancer in the world.

I think GA Tech should be congratulated, they earned the win down the stretch by playing better team basketball.

 

[Aluminny69]

As I said before - of course they need Paige. But --

This team needs Azzi Fudd.
This team needs Azzi Fudd.
This team needs Azzi Fudd.

I respectfully disagree. So far, the only skill I've seen from her is a really good three point shot. And she doesn't seem to miss layups. While that puts her ahead of the rest of the team, I haven't seen a great assist, I haven't seen her create her own shot and she hasn't taken a pull up jumper yet. And her defense is suspect. Taller guards easily post her up. Maybe when she is 100% healthy, she will live up to expectations, only time will tell.

 

[Boreifs]

Who said anything about "forcing" anyone to do anything? I'm talking about voluntarily taking responsibility. It's something adults do.

OK, you win.

They are kids, not adults. Your criticism seems very harsh to me.

 

[Boreifs]

I was wrong in my projections. I thought they were Notre Dame without Paige but maybe at least temporarily that is a stretch. Overall though this game was to be expected. Georgia Tech had over 7000 fans and this might be their biggest game of the year and they smelled blood in the water. They were "up" for the game. Uconn lost by far their best player and now have had a series of lost players making endurance and depth an issue. Uconn was not "up" for this game and that's coaching as much as anything. It's no surprise they got discouraged and tired and tanked in the 4th quarter. They have been overplaying their starters all year. They also have been under too much pressure.

Overall I think Liv and Evina had decent games. Deberry had a solid game but you could see lots of confusion in the defensive assignments when she was in there. We had next to no dribble penetration because we have no penetrating guards. We have fast break guards and perimeter shooters and some that are not even good perimeter shooters. It's a weakness. They are supplementary players overall, not players who can make plays against top competition. They are all role players but Paige is the play maker. The person who can score against top competiton. The pressure they are under only magnifies the problem. So what do they do now? Reducing the pressure should be job one.

Just being the #1 rated recruit does not mean you are the #1 player in college. I think Paige was and I think Betts will be next year and Haley Jones was to a degree and Boston was but recruitment should not be about recruiting by a hoopgirls rating. It's about projecting the player at the college level. I think South Carolina got 2 recruits this past year better than any we recruited. We are not necessarily recruiting the best players currently. With Paige though this is still a very good team and as we go through this period I think it only makes this team better for March. We certainly have enough good players to maybe win it all.

Geno needs to do something about the pressure and maybe he is already starting that with the no press conference tonight. Few players thrive under that sort of pressure. Look at MLB. The Yankees sometimes choke under pressure while the team with the relaxed coach has his team playing loosely. I would say Paige is the only Uconn player able to deal with it well overall. These players worry about missing shots and messing up a pass and ...bingo, it happens. They are freaked out about screwing up.

I think the game plan tonight was to get the ball in the paint but with that high post offense the big players rarely receive the ball in a position to do a normal post move. Liv finally made some set shots but those were not good shot opportunities for her. This team is flawed in many areas without Paige. Lack of dribble penetration from the Point guard ( why not try CW there? ). If our guards do penetrate the opposing players just say go ahead and shoot because we have to get all the way to the basket to convert. We have a consistent lack of good positioning to receive the ball in the post area. Lack of outside shooting. Too many turnovers. Paige helps all of those areas and they do not have a replacement.

They need to try something else because tonight's lineup wasn't going to get it done even in an average night. Might as well keep throwing Caroline out there for similar PT and find some PT for Deberry too ( 10 minutes? ). At least both should improve from the experience. Sink or swim with Caroline. Having even a limping Azzi would help some.

Long post, but your best point was the fact that everyone playing for UConn tonight is a supplemental player. One doesn’t win a lot of games that way. Is Azzi also a supplemental player? Let’s hope not.

 

[LoTrader]

w


I was thinking that too...and it may not matter
I'm not saying its surely the scenario...but we could lose 4 or 5 games
(really not unlikely)
and when the walking wounded return; be a final 4 team

Something to think about……how many Big East teams could we beat playing like we did tonight? What are our chances of going undefeated again this year in conference play? UConn may drop out of the top 25 with another loss to an unranked team. Massey has GT ranked #40.

Massey is wrong. GT is a TOP 25 team

 

[DrummerDee]

I think this team's biggest loss was Shea Ralph. There, I said it.

 

[Boreifs]

Massey is wrong. GT is a TOP 25 team

They may be that tomorrow.

 

[hoophuskee]

Were they sobbing? Teams lose all the time and have to face reporters, this shouldn’t be any different and is kind of ridiculous they weren’t expected to do just because what? They aren’t use to losing and played bad?

Because UCONN doesn't lose "all the time" in some seasons. And overall they rarely lose. Since 05-06 have they have never lost more than 4 games in a single season and only twice lost 4 while winning a title in one of those years.

Ohhh the horror -1 college postgame was missed over the past 20 - 30 years. The horror. Who can sleep tonight knowing this tragedy has happened?

 

[cohenzone]

“Not able to watch” was the best outcome. The box score won’t do it justice.

Maybe. But not having watched, the questions I have are what is a reasonable expectation for the players we have and how they will “look”. Right now Evina is the only kind of ball handler and she is really a combo. As a senior + was her leadership ok? There were a lot of missed shots. Were they the right shots in the flow by the right people. If so, there isn’t much a coach can do to make a shot go in. Seems like the defense was generally ok. In Paige, Nika and Aubrey we are missing our best perimeter defenders. I guess my question is, what can we realistically expect this group to do. Making shots is a start and that always helps the “look’” of a team. Were the players moving ok and/or were we missing the passers who can use the movement the right way. We are missing an awful lot of key pieces. The running score makes it look like CW was trying to do her part. Was she a problem? Anyway right now, it is what it is.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

IMHO this looked like what Custer's Last Stand must have been!
What upset me most was the lack of enthusiasm and aggression by the most experienced players on the team!
I would expect juniors/seniors to have the mentality that we may lose but we're going to fight you till the final buzzer! You'll have to "kill us to beat us mind-set" And that was never there.
Because of the numbers problem I would have to start the following line-up for UCLA:
PG EW
SG CW
C ONO
Wing Caroline Ducharme
F Amari
With out other players to fill in at PG/SG we have to start EW & CW! If we had Nika, Azzi or Griffin healthy I would bench the 2 seniors!
Something radical has to happen to shake up the team, some of them thinking Geno HAS TO play us because there's no one else!
I would have the coaching staff sit down with Dorka and Edwards, individually, and talk out what's on their minds because they're better than what their showing!
Geno and staff will have to coach their butts off to get the team to finish the season on any successful results!
Don't allow the season to go down the drain!

 

[X conn]

Hard to watch, especially late in the game....makes me wonder if CW needs lasik for her eyes, I don't think she sees the rim clearly from the 3 pt line. AE missed too many bunnies. It has to be a tough loss...everyone knows we were way under staffed. I liked seeing Amari Berry on the floor.

1-8 3 pt range...missed the rim 3 or more times.

haha!

 

[hoophuskee]

I respectfully disagree. So far, the only skill I've seen from her is a really good three point shot. And she doesn't seem to miss layups. While that puts her ahead of the rest of the team, I haven't seen a great assist, I haven't seen her create her own shot and she hasn't taken a pull up jumper yet. And her defense is suspect. Taller guards easily post her up. Maybe when she is 100% healthy, she will live up to expectations, only time will tell.

This team desperately needs her 3 point shooting. That's the skill this team needs (along with Paige). The below links says it all - Geno's 1st comments.. And yes you are right about health. When I say they need Azzi Fudd. It goes without saying that they need her heathy. If she is playing on only 1 leg )) then of course UCONN can't play her. But they do need her for the major skill she brings.

 

[TeamFirst!]

I just read ESPN's review of the game. It included Geno's post game comments. I thought they were honest and right on target.

One comment of note and I am paraphrasing: "I get really good players that normally get better and better. That has not happened with this group."

As disappointed as he with his team, he is most certainly beating himself up too. His quotes indicate full ownership.

I read it that he was essentially blaming the players for that. He owned up to some things but he quite often has blamed the players. He needs to make the game fun again .

 

[Heytherego]

 

[CTtoSanDiego]

That would be 350 games between losses to unranked teams - though I suspect, GT may be ranked soon as they have beaten two ranked teams in a row. I believe St John's ended ranked as well. St. John's moved to 20 after the win and to 14 in the last AP poll on Mar 12th and were a 3 seed in the NCAA.

This was similar to the St. Johns loss. St. Johns had just beaten a ranked team before playing us, and would have been ranked had the poll come out before we played them. GT just beat a ranked GA team, and probably would have been ranked before playing us. The timing was bad both times. The difference was the St. John's game came down to the wire -- if I remember correctly, they hit a last second shot to win. Tonight, we were thrashed... no last second heroics needed by GT.
Now, we need to beat UCLA to keep our most amazing streak going -- no back to back losses!

 

[eebmg]

I think GA Tech should be congratulated, they earned the win down the stretch by playing better team basketball.

Cubaj took over that 4th Q. WNBA potential for sure

 

[Childhood]

Not a big deal. It's a good chance to learn to play as a team. No reliance anymore. No pain no gain. They are all talented players. They just need time to adapt it.

 

[willtalk]

Players are not machines. They will have their good and not so good games on a sliding scale. Those days of winning even when the team has a mediocre game are gone. There are just too many good teams out there who can knock you off if you don't bring close to your A game. As it has been in the mens game, even the top teams get knocked off more frequently, it is becoming more so like that in WCBB. We will begin to see more "any given night " scenarios. Its not just about talent but having things fall in your favor to win a Natty anymore.

Frankly it is not just that the number of quality players has increased and has been distributed more evenly to more teams, but the level of coach's has been elevated as well. Not that long ago one could count the top level of coaches on one hand. now there are very many coaches at that same level.

 

[hoophuskee]

Players are not machines. They will have their good and not so good games on a sliding scale. Those days of winning even when the team has a mediocre game are gone. There are just too many good teams out there who can knock you off if you don't bring close to your A game. As it has been in the mens game, even the top teams get knocked off more frequently, it is becoming more so like that in WCBB. We will begin to see more "any given night " scenarios. Its not just about talent but having things fall in your favor to win a Natty anymore.

Frankly it is not just that the number of quality players has increased and has been distributed more evenly to more teams, but the level of coach's has been elevated as well. Not that long ago one could count the top level of coaches on one hand. now there are very many coaches at that same level.

No Paige Bueckers.
No Azzi Fudd.
No Nika Mulhl
No Aubrey Griffin.

Unless the guards are hot - CWill/Evina/CD - they are going to struggle vs good teams. Their posts are not scorers (yet or maybe never).

 

[caramel]

I kind of expected this struggle,because the team has changed greatly with the injuries.All preseason the team has practiced with the idea who is in the game rotation,and suddenly that rotation has turned upside down.It will take time for this temporay rotation to form trust and execution.
As mentioned there is one thing that seems to work time and time again for this team,and that is driving inside and then finding the player who is in the best place to score.This is not a three point juggernaut with Azzi and Paige out, and Caroline just getting her feet wet.This team at present need to get the opposing defense on their heels by using the lanes to create plays that succeed.It will be tough going for a while,but it is time needed to get this present team to trust and execute as a group.