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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5166658, member: 12088"] For Aubrey to make a substantial difference she’d have to come back as she was before the injury. There’s no guarantee of this. When people express their hopes for a possible NC run in terms of Aubrey’s return, they’re expressing a lack of confidence in our current frontcourt. This is not surprising given last season’s experience when our frontcourt in March consisted of Aaliyah, Ice and Paige. It’s also a holdover from the optimism of the summer. I’d add to this concern the loss of Ayanna. We have no idea what she’d have been able to bring to the team other than strength and quickness. But this might have made a significant difference in a rather thin frontcourt. Losing her is a blow to the team’s hopes. And I’m sure some of us, including me, held out some hope Caroline might also return and bring added depth. Finally the setback Azzi suffered in the Louisville game and what Paige suffered in the Providence game gave many of us a shock. Over the summer, many of us pictured the healthiest version of the team and forecast the sunniest prospects. It wasn’t unreasonable at the time to think we’d be an obvious NC contender if all the assumptions were born out. Now, the fact is some of these assumptions will not be borne out. But at least one assumption has turned out better than any of us hoped, namely Sarah’s readiness to be a headliner. She’s exceeded any reasonable expectation. There’s also still time for other things to break our way. Jana is developing as well as we ought to have expected and could be an effective center by March. And Morgan and Allie still have time to become important contributors. And KK and Ash are performing more or less as many hoped they would. UConn is still an NC contender, but not as obviously so as we seemed in September. The favorites ahead of us are still UCLA, SC and ND. We might upset any of them, and they may falter in other ways, but their paths to an NC looks to be wider than ours. USC, LSU, MD, Texas have hopes that seem to be on a par with ours. We could beat any of them merely by staying healthy and playing our game, and the same could be said of them. And there’s probably a dozen other teams who could upset us in March if only a few things break their way, teams like Michigan or Tennessee or tOSU. This is what not being one of the favorites looks like. The upshot of all this is I still think we have a shot at an NC. But how good a shot depends on a few factors outside of our control. [/QUOTE]

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