Grades for UConn after the first quarter

[Bama fan]

I'll take a slightly different approach—one that got me in trouble with registrar at Sacred Heart in Fairfield when I taught there many decades ago. Teachers do not award grades. They record them. In a classroom setting, the goal is learning. Think of learning as improvement. The student who knows the most on both the first and last day of classes may have learned little, and thus the teacher records (or should record) a low grade.

By the necessarily subjective yardstick of improvement, most team members have made good to excellent progress. I would record a B+ or A- for the team, so far.
Continued improvement should earn a better grade. This being a game, not a classroom, the absolute measure is wins and losses. By that standard, the ladies have earned an A to this point.

Comments and brickbats invited.

If we are using continued improvement as a metric, then we need Kaizen to chime in soon!

 

[meyers7]

I'll take a slightly different approach—one that got me in trouble with registrar at Sacred Heart in Fairfield when I taught there many decades ago. Teachers do not award grades. They record them. In a classroom setting, the goal is learning. Think of learning as improvement. The student who knows the most on both the first and last day of classes may have learned little, and thus the teacher records (or should record) a low grade.

By the necessarily subjective yardstick of improvement, most team members have made good to excellent progress. I would record a B+ or A- for the team, so far.
Continued improvement should earn a better grade. This being a game, not a classroom, the absolute measure is wins and losses. By that standard, the ladies have earned an A to this point.

Comments and brickbats invited.

Plenty of brickbats here. I imagine you did get in trouble with that approach. If a student comes in knowing the material and goes out knowing the material, you're gonna "record" a low grade???? Cause they know the material??? The problem isn't the student, it's the teacher.

 

[cohenzone]

I’m not a believer in overachieving, but I do believe in underachieving. I don’t believe anyone can achieve beyond their absolute potential. And I think, in terms of college althletes, they might not have the tools to maximize right out of the gate. So a Tina Charles needed coaching to bring out her potential, but might have achieved as well as can be expected her first two years. Just using her as an example.

I don’t believe as far as this team goes that anyone who is counted on is really underperforming. Some games will be better or worse than others in terms of stats based on flow. In terms of MW, she’s an all around contributor and if she scores 25 in a game it probably means someone else is scoring relatively less. In a 35 point win it hardly matters. What i think I really want her to be able to do is make defenses think twice about paying too much attention to the others. We don’t have more than maybe 9-10 opponents capable of putting us in that siruation. Geno might strive for perfection, I have a hard time seeing much negative with how this team is playing at the moment.

 

[CocoHusky]

I'll take a slightly different approach—one that got me in trouble with registrar at Sacred Heart in Fairfield when I taught there many decades ago. Teachers do not award grades. They record them. In a classroom setting, the goal is learning. Think of learning as improvement. The student who knows the most on both the first and last day of classes may have learned little, and thus the teacher records (or should record) a low grade.
By the necessarily subjective yardstick of improvement, most team members have made good to excellent progress. I would record a B+ or A- for the team, so far.
Continued improvement should earn a better grade. This being a game, not a classroom, the absolute measure is wins and losses. By that standard, the ladies have earned an A to this point.
Comments and brickbats invited.

I would fundamentally disagree with your principle that grades should be proportional to improvement. Grades should demonstrate mastery of a subject or skill. In that regard, a student who masters the material coming in the door and one that masters it by the end of the session would be graded the same.
In BB terms and under your principle CW and ONO (all freshmen really) would be graded lower simply because they are ballin coming in the door.

 

[j66kicker]

As a special ed teacher, I see that what it fair is not always equal. Looking at potential and current progress, you shouldn't compare one player's grade to another as each brings something very different to the table. Thanks for making my lunch student free AND UConn full!

I salute you for teaching special ed. My daughter is a special ed teacher and I’m really proud of what she does.

But here we’re talking about elite athletes competing at the highest level. Nobody gets cut any slack. Doesn’t matter how far you’ve come, how much you’ve grown, what you potential is or isn’t. IMO ‘grade’ should just be how your performance compares to your peers and competitors.

 

[MilfordHusky]

I'm going to stay away from the grading issue, but I want to acknowledge that our first recruit from Tennessee is both an ankle-breaker and an elite shooter. She's also the most exciting player in America, in my opinion. Here she was one year ago today dismantling the Stanford Cardinal. Edit: Oops, the date was in European format, so it was Nov. 12.

 

[CocoHusky]

I'm going to stay away from the grading issue, but I want to acknowledge that our first recruit from Tennessee is both an ankle-breaker and an elite shooter. She's also the most exciting player in America, in my opinion.

Is CW the first from Arkansas?

She has potential!

 

[BroadwayVa]

I wonder again if all this isn't premature: UConn hasn't won anything yet (except the #1 ranking). IMO we're one serious set-back from losing whatever advantage we have. Not a loss, but an injury to our extremely thin roster. Whatever grade players have earned, it won't matter if they're sitting on the bench.
Also, like to second Coco's assertion that most of the Husky/Irish game was of very high quality, especially for so early in the season. No one is playing great b'ball like these two teams. (The TN/TX game was a case in point: terrible.)

I totally agree and Coco, per usual, was correct abt the ND game. Injuries and fouls are the Achilles heel of this and for the past 2 years. How do you beat Uconn get Napheesa, Danger, KLS in foul trouble? The big games I envision may be physical with the intent for Uconn kids to lose their cool and foul out. CW will be banged about more in one game than she has been her whole life. This isn't new for Geno but brand new for the Frosh.

I participated in the "grading" because I take few things seriously any longer. I thought it was for fun. Some took it much more serious than I.
In retrospect, the grading of OUR Uconn Women is a bit not so nice. If we think about it the 10 or 11 still with us all deserver an A plus for the pleasure they have given us and the work they do to obtain their level of excellence.

 

[BroadwayVa]

I'm going to stay away from the grading issue, but I want to acknowledge that our first recruit from Tennessee is both an ankle-breaker and an elite shooter. She's also the most exciting player in America, in my opinion. Here she was one year ago today dismantling the Stanford Cardinal. Edit: Oops, the date was in European format, so it was Nov. 12.

Retrospect is great---I wish I had said that (Highlighted above)

 

[huskyd]

I totally agree and Coco, per usual, was correct abt the ND game. Injuries and fouls are the Achilles heel of this and for the past 2 years. How do you beat Uconn get Napheesa, Danger, KLS in foul trouble? The big games I envision may be physical with the intent for Uconn kids to lose their cool and foul out. CW will be banged about more in one game than she has been her whole life. This isn't new for Geno but brand new for the Frosh.

I participated in the "grading" because I take few things seriously any longer. I thought it was for fun. Some took it much more serious than I.
In retrospect, the grading of OUR Uconn Women is a bit not so nice. If we think about it the 10 or 11 still with us all deserver an A plus for the pleasure they have given us and the work they do to obtain their level of excellence.

Great sentiment, BV, you're turning into a poet. "The pleasure they have given us"; "the work that they do . . . [for] excellence." Memorable and oh so true.

 

[BroadwayVa]

Is CW the first from Arkansas?

She has potential!

View attachment 37326

No! Sid Moncrief and J.R. Reed were both from Arkansas (facetious?) (Two of my favorites when I cheered U Ark-)-Sue Pig Whooie (phonetically). You can take a hog out of Arkansas but never a Razorback.

 

[BroadwayVa]

Don't let 'condemnation " stand in your way. Some will disagree with many perhaps all, of your points. But others will generally agree. You can't please everyone. Do your best and hope for a fair evaluation.

So ya got to please yourself! Seems there was a song by one of Olivia's relatives that said that.

 

[Bama fan]

So ya got to please yourself! Seems there was a song by one of Olivia's relatives that said that.

That seems to be a very personal choice. But poor Ricky felt quite constrained by his fans. He wanted some of that "continued improvement', but they wanted more of the same old same old! Just shows you how terribly subjective most people's grading critereon can be.

 

[donalddoowop]

The only grades that are important right now are the ones the players make in their classes .

 

[DEpup]

Average a double double and get an A- glad you were not my teacher .. we know who the teachers pet is

Amen! I think Pheesa and KLS get the same grade A. If we want to be picky like the poster was about free throw shooting then I'll have to get picky about KLS's 3pt shooting percentage which in a few games was not great. I also think CW gets an A- for defense and sometimes having lackluster play after the first quarter. We shouldn't grade on a curve for freshman.

 

[Bonpland]

UConn is, unexpected for many, the best of their three last teams,

I'm always amazed at how quickly we lose perspective after we are impressed with some recent good news. What a great start we have had this year. Beating ND by 17? I certainly didn't see that coming.

But the last two teams were 36-1 and until we were shocked by Mississippi State at the overtime buzzer we, the national media, and every team we had vanguished felt that that team was unbeatable and maybe the most extraordinary and least expected giant we had ever produced.

But then Saniya's drive fails and we watch a small inspired ebullient guard hit a shot that shocked everyone. We didn't win the title and so now that team fades into also ran staus and this year's team (which gives us as much reason to love them as has any other team in the recent past) vaults ahead based on their first nine wins?

36-1 and 36-1. Those were great teams who were just vulnerable enough to be beaten by good opponents on a given night. Are we so jaded that our apprecation for the game is reduced to only approving National Champions?

I'll be rooting for us to win every game again this year the same way I have for the last 26 years and I still have a pair of scars that never felt a wound but we have 29 more games to go before you can ask the last two teams to line up behind this one.

 

[BroadwayVa]

Well, it is exam time; therefore, given that I have been teaching (including a bit at UConn after I finished my studies) for more decades than I care to remember, I thought I would give the UConn team and players their first-quarter grades.

Grades are based on getting us to the goal: cutting down the net. Nothing else (except playing clean and no injuries) matters.

Overall grade: A. In my judgment (and what do I know? ), we are nicely on track to achieve the goal. In my judgment, if we have no major injuries and we bring our "A" game in the FF, we will cut down the nets.

Lou: A. Overall game is so much improved. She is now the rebounding Samuelson! Better defense, just more aggressive. She is the leader. She was annoyed about the third quarter against Seton Hall. Good. She watched the ND FF game 10 times, including with Kobe. Very good!

Pheesa: A-. More aggressive on defense and offense. Better rebounding. Only negative is her free throw shooting, which I expect will mean revert, i.e., get better.

Crystal Dangerfield: A-. She runs the team with authority and controlled aggressiveness. Only negative is a bit more turnovers this year. She is shooting lights out.

CW: A+. Is she really a freshman? She may be, all in, the best player on the team in terms of what she can do under pressure. She has more gears than anyone I have seen in a long time. OK, OK, her defense is not very good. But Shea will teach her. Do you think she even thought about defense in high school?

Meg: B. I am waiting for her breakout game: 25+ points, etc. Her offensive rebounding, when she does it, is excellent. She has so much upside.

ONO: B-. I mean the kid had a dreadful knee injury and probably is not yet 100% physically. Great, great upside. Loves to compete. Playing against ND -- what, me worry? No way, coach. Everyone likes her.

Bench: Not relevant to cutting down the net, except they can give our starters needed rest against the weak conference teams. Maybe, just maybe Touley can heal enough to help. We can hope.

I am optimistic. I think the results in late March and early April are dependent on the team's psychology. If we go in with earned confidence (and some swagger), and bring our "A" game, we will win. Period. If not, the last two years have shown what can happen.

We shall see.

If BYer's don't condemn my post , I will post grades after mid-year.

Thoughts?

A Team grade: Geno for the past 2 years has said: They had not been tested during the season.
Sherri Coale/OK kids tested the RESOLVE of Uconn big time!!! And an young child shall lead them--both teams. CW started the "come back". KLS/Napheesa/Danger/Walker finished it.
Team GRADE-----A PLUS!!! I'm proud and pleased down to the end of the Bench they kept their "cool" dug in and did th almost impossible : they beat a team playing like fanatics, at home. The best win I've seen in years. Kudos to Sherri, OK Team