How good is UConn

[fomalhaut]

And UCLA just beat them by 51!!!!! I believe 51 is much higher than 26. Iowa is 8th in Massey. Villanova is 38th and we only beat them by 14. UCLA is not going to fear us.

Iowa had a horrendous shooting night: they're 6th in the country, but except for Ava Heiden they went 10-50. UCLA's defense is solid but not otherworldly. 20 of that 51 was poured on in the 4th quarter when the game was out of reach. I still think UCLA is the second-best team in the country, but a lopsided win shouldn't be enough to flip the seeding this late in the season.

 

[Woof]

Iowa had a horrendous shooting night: they're 6th in the country, but except for Ava Heiden they went 10-50. UCLA's defense is solid but not otherworldly. 20 of that 51 was poured on in the 4th quarter when the game was out of reach. I still think UCLA is the second-best team in the country, but a lopsided win shouldn't be enough to flip the seeding this late in the season.

You are probably right about the seeding but, if SC is #4, I want to be #2.

Anyway, the point still holds that it doesn't make sense to say that UCLA isn't close to UConn. By any metric, they are.

 

[EricSD]

It's so hard to compare a game that was #12 for both teams in the season (UConn vs. Iowa) vs. the very last game of the regular season in a conference championship game. Plus, UCLA was en fuego from 3 going 13-26 - a whopping 50% shooting. They don't shoot like that every game.

Still, UCLA had 6 players make a 3, all of them better than 33% for the day. That's some great shooting. Against us in a NC game, that would be tough to beat.

Honestly, I do think this UConn team is really good. I don't mean this as a criticism of any posters who have discussed it, but I don't care if we are better or worse than last year's team. All we need to be is better than the hopefully 6 teams we face in the tourney, even if it's just by 1 point.

Last year, our romp thru the 2 teams in the final 4 was epic. It was a testament to how dialed in the team was and how good the game plan was. This year we have more depth which will allow for more defensive intensity. How will that play out? No idea. Hopefully really well. I like our chances, but there isn't a universe where I would announce that we are "head and shoulders" better than everyone else in the country. And again, we don't need to be. Just a little bit better will work too.

 

[DemonDeac22]

First goal: win tonight.
Next goal: win the 1st 2 home NCAA games
After that: let’s not worry about that until the above goals are met.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

The UCLA roster is just way more talented than last year. 6 seniors and super seniors is rare beyond rare. Rice is playing way better, Kneepkens and Leger-Walker also upgrades. Betts doesn't have to do it all this year. Cori has a lot of room for error. There really shouldn't be any shame in losing to that team.

Oh, I agree, but I was responding the the notion that Cori is a signiicantly better coach.

 

[NycUcWbbFan]

Not wanting to stray too far from the topic but www.herhoopststs.com (For those BY'ers not familiar they produce weekly stat assessments of women's basketball.) Anyway, today they put out what they call a Win Variance Analysis that shows nine statistics about how teams win computed from all games or the season. It certainly looks comprehensive but my bringing it up on this forum is to find out from those who study and are familiar with b-ball stats more than perhaps the rest of us how they assess their analysis. Positive, negative or other?

It’s a good analysis. But one would caution against concluding something that the analysis does not really say, but may imply: that archetype dominant teams (the non-“versatile” teams) cannot win any other way.

The HerHoopStats article (here | methodology) relies on Dean Oliver’s Four Factors (a very brief description on UConn’s is here, updated with 3PA Rate):

• The analysis relies on residuals — winning in an archetype way (there are 5 identified archetypes this season) despite what an opponent usually does.

The dominant archetype top NET (adjusted Net Efficiency) teams in the article seem non-versatile simply because they don’t need to play anything else other than their (A) archetype game to win in the regular season.

• In the Final Four, such teams will clash, and who wins will depend on who can play their A archetype game better or who can better adjust.

In the Texas vs. South Carolina SEC finals, TX proved it can adjust:

• They are not as dependent on Harmon (! a big reason in their losses) and Booker, they were 4-7 from 3, and other people showed up; they still play at their scintillating pace (63 possessions);
• But to secure that win to be in the Fort Worth pod, Schaefer gave up a heads up; if anyone was underestimating TX, they sure aren’t anymore.

As for UCLA, they only have 1 loss but they only have 1 Final Four caliber game, which they lost.

• Their loss to TX (UCL 65, TEX 76 - FINAL) exposed their vulnerabilities to a defensive-minded team (they committed 10 turnovers more than TX, had 11 fewer FGAs and Harmon had a great game).
• Scoring-wise (TS%), UConn has better efficient scorers than UCLA; UCLA makes up for the inefficiency by crashing the boards (the archetype identified by HerHoopStats).

I have previously described UConn as an Operational Death Star — just how good they are is not yet revealed (or equally plausible, not yet tested).