How to play to our Potential

[Tonyc]

We play in the Big East and thats not gonna change. We are building a post player in Jana. She's new to America and WCBB and she's developing and working hard. She is improving and getting better. She gonna be what she becomes this season and thats not gonna change. Geno knows more about what's going on with this team then we do. He plays who he feels are our most developed players and who play well together and that most likely wont change unless something happens that forces it to change.

What we are is what we are. IMO we have not been playing up to our potential, especially in big games. Neither are other teams. I watched the Tenn @ LSU game and the SC @ Texas games. They were doing alot of the same things that we are doing in our big games. We have 3 losses on the road and we could've won those games if they were home games and we could've won those games if we played up to our potential. BTW we were in all those big games that were on the road just like Tenn and SC who lost on the road yesterday.

So how do we play to our potential????? This is a big question for me and maybe some of you.

We need to fine tune a few things and we will be fine. IMO we need to fine tune a few things starting with controlling the tempo. In big games we become hesitant, and seem to rush. These are both killers. They kill our execution and they kill the way we think which kills our confidence. When we play top teams they our quicker and play better defense, then some other teams we play. Overcoming being hesitant, and rushing comes from fear. The answer is play with patience and poise.

In big games I see us rushing to try and get open and get a good shot. Getting a good shot and taking your time to execute it is what I feel we're missing. I learned a long time ago when you fear something do it until you dont fear it anymore. By taking a second your thought process is clear and not clouded with negative thoughts. If you think about good execution and miss you took a good shot so be it. If you get fouled you can still score. Dont be concerned about missing, focus on executing a good shot. To many times I feel we rush a shot to get it off cleanly because we fear of having it blocked or getting fouled.

I know from playing golf when you need to hit a good shot you should focus on your execution and let it happen. You muscles and brain know what to do. When think about all the things that can go wrong which are distractions, you lose focus on what your suppose to do and you fail. In BB when your thinking about execute a play it gives you a second to execute a shot that you've made a thousand times and chances are you will make it. When you let those demons get in your head making you think your gonna miss or get fouled your chances of scoring a gone.

This is where patience and poise come in. Awareness of where your teammates are and where the defenders are is important to your execution. Players get angry with herself for missing a bunny. Focus on execution. If you execute the shot the way you do in practice you will make it.

Against good teams you have more obstacles to overcome than you do with a team less talented. Against good teams they are quicker, sometimes more athletic and that affects your mind and the way your think, because you cant execute as easily. Against good teams you have to overcome negative thinking, such as lapses in concentration, nervousness and self doubt. To overcome these obstacles you need to learn how to calm the mind. Calming the mind is done by focusing on executing plays, which helps eliminate fears. Focusing on executing the play leads to a good shot. Most defenses have lapes too, just like offenses. By focusing on executing offense your mind is free of fears because your focus in on what your doing. This creates calmness of your mind almost like your playing unconscious. Eventually the defense breaks down or the offense creates a situation for a good shot and somebody takes it. If that situation fails to happen you are in position to create a shot whether its a pull up jumper or a designed play to get somebody open. At this point you mind should be relaxed and you can play fear free. Playing fear free is trusting yourself to let it happen not trying to make it happen. Letting it happen is fear free, trying to make it happen causes your muscles to tighten up and that usually causes a disaster.

We are very close to where we know we can be. We have the talent. It's frustrating at times when we make mistakes. Playing to our potential is a direct result to being able to execute the way we know we can. Focusing on execution creates calmness. Playing when your calm helps your confidence because your mind is free and that results playing with poise, patience and confidence. Putting it all together creates a winning attitude.

 

[JellyBean]

@Tonyc As always, well said!

 

[Dugway]

In a different thread, another member posted something that I believe is very appurtenant. That being the mental game of our players and the combined mental opinion of our team. UConn needs to develop a chest thumping, "I am going to dominate you!" confidence, particularly when they play the top teams! However, it can't just be said, it needs to be believed by the players!

We as Boneyard members are all fans, and we wish nothing but the best for the team. Often, the members of the Boneyard are very confident in the team and have 100% expectations that we will be National Champions. All that faith, all of that confidence by the BY, and yet none of it matters one tiny little bit! The only confidence that matters, is the deep seeded opinion of the UConn players themselves. The players must have the confidence. They must have the deep belief that they are better than the competition. If doubts exist, almost certainly the outcome will not be what we all hope for.

 

[Husky fanatic]

There was a thread on this earlier in the season. Where’s the Fire?

 

[Bigboote]

In big games I see us rushing to try and get open and get a good shot. Getting a good shot and taking your time to execute it is what I feel we're missing. I learned a long time ago when you fear something do it until you dont fear it anymore. By taking a second your thought process is clear and not clouded with negative thoughts. If you think about good execution and miss you took a good shot so be it. If you get fouled you can still score. Dont be concerned about missing, focus on executing a good shot. To many times I feel we rush a shot to get it off cleanly because we fear of having it blocked or getting fouled.

The rushing is coming in large part from the defenses — Tennessee is long, athletic, and swarming; Notre Dame throws the uber-quick Holdago at the opponent; South Carolina is quick and athletic. (I got no answer for USC, whose defense I wouldn’t talk of in the same breath as the others.)

The defenses that are right up in your face all the time force your players to play faster. You need to get to your spot faster to receive the ball or the pass is intercepted. Make faster decisions once you have the ball or it will bw stolen. Everything needs to,be done faster, both physically and mentally.

The thing is, as John Wooden said, play with speed, but not in a hurry. I’m with Tony, Geno will figure it out. There’s something he saves for the interregnum between the Big East tournament and the NCAAs.

 

[GoUconn7961]

Punch first and keep punching.
Play 4 solid quarts.
Have a go-to player who actually wants to shoot the ball.
Play stifling defense.
The end. LOL

 

[PacoSwede]

@Tonyc strongly agree with your comments about fear & focus. dealing with both can change everything. fear is probably the harder issue, but intense focus is needed too because it seems lacking -- yet it is a lot easier to fix. .... in fact, it should be easily achieved if the team gets a winning mindset.

 

[Plebe]

Well, MY potential and the team's potential are hopefully two very different things. But if Geno needs me, he can get in touch with my NIL agent

 

[Huskee11]

The star players are the ones that make the difference in most big games. I don't recall a big game in recent memory that UConn won without star level performances from the top one or two players. Conversely, when they play poorly or even just average, UConn has not won.

Role players from both teams generally cancel each other out, more or less.

The last time UConn beat South Carolina, Paige had 31 points. Perhaps even more noteworthy, she took 26 shots, mostly from mid-range.

 

[Tonyc]

Winning is a mind set.............unfortunately so is losing

 

[Bone Dog]

Teams that play the "swarming" defense people mention inevitably make compromises. The question is whether we can capitalize on those compromises. That's the potential we have to play up to. The girls are big enough and quick enough and strong enough. They have good enough basic skills. The issue is whether their chemistry is good enough. This is also sometimes referred to as 'moving without the ball' on offense.

If you play in your face defense to stop a shooter, you risk getting beat off the dribble and require help from another defender. To pull this off, the team's defensive rotation has to be crisp and well-coordinated. A great passer, like Paige, can burn teams that play this sort of defense if they make any mistakes in their rotations. Geno's motion offense is specifically designed to induce such mistakes -- that's the point of the seemingly aimless passing and rotating on offense. [Geno did a whole series of videos on this a few years back] However, if Paige beats an overly aggressive defender, it only matters if her teammates move appropriately to take full advantage of her movement. Azzi and Sarah know how to do this. KK and Ash too, most of the time. The others, not so much, though Kaitlyn seems to have figured this out of late.

USC played aggressive defense against us, and it worked in the first half -- we didn't capitalize on the mistakes in their rotations. It didn't work in the second half because we started making them pay for those mistakes, and we applied the same sort of defense to them. I think something similar was also visible in the Tennessee game. We didn't lose that one because they forced a lot of turnovers. We lost both of them because our intensity level faltered in the second half.

Ideally, as each of Geno's lineups develops 'chemistry' we can play this defense better, and respond to it better when other teams try to do it to us. It looked like we were making good progress in developing that chemistry early on, and then got slightly disrupted by little injuries to Paige and Azzi, and the time it has taken Aubrey return. And now this injury to Ice is a major disruption to that development. I think it is pretty clear that Morgan and Allie are not yet fully integrated into the defensive and offensive schemes, though they don't make the worst mistakes anymore. And even Q has come a long way in both departments, though her intensity level comes and goes.

It is testimony to Sarah's great court awareness (we used to call this court savvy, before the ugly phrase BB IQ took its place) that she figured out her various roles in a few different lineups by the middle of December. This never ceases to amaze me about her. And KK and Ash seem to be fully integrated into several lineups and make very few mistakes and always bring great intensity to every game.

We might well ask how many lineups Geno runs in a typical game. Each one needs to have its own chemistry. Sure, the starters have gotten lots of minutes and have chemistry. But what about the 6 or 7 variants on the starting lineup that get minutes in the first half? Is their chemistry all equally developed? I think the answer is probably 'no.' But it looks to me like they're coming along. Playing to our potential means maximizing the chemistry of all the various lineups.

Morgan gets 1st half minutes, and this suggests she's performing well in practice, well enough for Geno to overlook the mistakes she makes. Allie does not get 1st half minutes, and we can all fill in the blanks on that. Jana gets some minutes throughout games, but not as many as some here (including me) would like to see. We all have our pet theories on this. But whatever is going on behind the scenes, it looks like Jana is making progress in learning to make switches on defense, on boxing out, on making cuts on offense, all of which are key to playing to our potential. A month ago, Jana was not able to make a cut to receive a pass and finish with a layup. Now she's begun to do this. We have yet to see her master rolling to the basket after setting a screen and finishing with a layup. Sarah does this almost instinctively. I'm sure it's not that Jana doesn't have the basic skills to do these things. But at this level, timing is everything, and she doesn't seem to have mastered this yet.

My conclusion from all of this is that playing to our potential may have little to do with anything Paige is or is not doing. I suspect it is much more about the rest of the team. On offense, she uses her perimeter shot, her dribble-drive penetration, her midrange jumper, and her brilliant passing off the dribble to make this team win. But all of these things require her teammates to behave in ways she can count on. Some of them do this very well, others are still growing into this symbiosis.

I expect Geno & Co are working very intensely on building the chemistry we need, and we catch glimpses of it in the conference wins, and even in our losses. For example, in yesterday's game Jana chased down a long rebound into the corner to beat out a Providence player. She could do this because she's feeling strong, but also because she knew she wouldn't be out of position once she got the ball. I'm sure this insight took a lot of experience, and as a result she didn't hesitate when she might have a month ago.

 

[Ouremblem]

Somehow Geno is going to have to solve the missed layups.

 

[Inthepaint]

Contradictions
I’ve heard here that people are standing around waiting for Paige to take over and do it for the
I’ve heard here that Paige has to be more selfish and take over like stars do at crunch time
I’ve heard here that Geno has to expand the rotation to get more P/T for the role players to get confidence and prevent the starters from wearing out late in close games
I’ve heard here that It’s time for Geno to shrink the rotation to enable the starters to develop the chemistry required to play together efficiently. In a fast paced game against quick and tall top teams they must play instinctively. No time to think out there
Geno is not the omnipotent almighty.
He can only teach and guide these young women if they’re willing to learn
UCONN history is full of talented headstrong players ( DT, Nika, Ayleah, Shea, Tina, etc.)
Dorka wandered around the perimeter uselessly for many games before the lightbulb came on and just KNEW what her place was in the machine.
An experienced Junior
Translate that to freshman.
It’s going to take time and patience for them to learn.
Our expectations and frustration are , unfortunately irrelevant.
You can be sure that Geno has a flat spot on his head from years of banging it against the wall.

 

[PacoSwede]

Teams that play the "swarming" defense people mention inevitably make compromises. The question is whether we can capitalize on those compromises. That's the potential we have to play up to. The girls are big enough and quick enough and strong enough. They have good enough basic skills. The issue is whether their chemistry is good enough. This is also sometimes referred to as 'moving without the ball' on offense.

If you play in your face defense to stop a shooter, you risk getting beat off the dribble and require help from another defender. To pull this off, the team's defensive rotation has to be crisp and well-coordinated. A great passer, like Paige, can burn teams that play this sort of defense if they make any mistakes in their rotations. Geno's motion offense is specifically designed to induce such mistakes -- that's the point of the seemingly aimless passing and rotating on offense. [Geno did a whole series of videos on this a few years back] However, if Paige beats an overly aggressive defender, it only matters if her teammates move appropriately to take full advantage of her movement. Azzi and Sarah know how to do this. KK and Ash too, most of the time. The others, not so much, though Kaitlyn seems to have figured this out of late.

USC played aggressive defense against us, and it worked in the first half -- we didn't capitalize on the mistakes in their rotations. It didn't work in the second half because we started making them pay for those mistakes, and we applied the same sort of defense to them. I think something similar was also visible in the Tennessee game. We didn't lose that one because they forced a lot of turnovers. We lost both of them because our intensity level faltered in the second half.

Ideally, as each of Geno's lineups develops 'chemistry' we can play this defense better, and respond to it better when other teams try to do it to us. It looked like we were making good progress in developing that chemistry early on, and then got slightly disrupted by little injuries to Paige and Azzi, and the time it has taken Aubrey return. And now this injury to Ice is a major disruption to that development. I think it is pretty clear that Morgan and Allie are not yet fully integrated into the defensive and offensive schemes, though they don't make the worst mistakes anymore. And even Q has come a long way in both departments, though her intensity level comes and goes.

It is testimony to Sarah's great court awareness (we used to call this court savvy, before the ugly phrase BB IQ took its place) that she figured out her various roles in a few different lineups by the middle of December. This never ceases to amaze me about her. And KK and Ash seem to be fully integrated into several lineups and make very few mistakes and always bring great intensity to every game.

We might well ask how many lineups Geno runs in a typical game. Each one needs to have its own chemistry. Sure, the starters have gotten lots of minutes and have chemistry. But what about the 6 or 7 variants on the starting lineup that get minutes in the first half? Is their chemistry all equally developed? I think the answer is probably 'no.' But it looks to me like they're coming along. Playing to our potential means maximizing the chemistry of all the various lineups.

Morgan gets 1st half minutes, and this suggests she's performing well in practice, well enough for Geno to overlook the mistakes she makes. Allie does not get 1st half minutes, and we can all fill in the blanks on that. Jana gets some minutes throughout games, but not as many as some here (including me) would like to see. We all have our pet theories on this. But whatever is going on behind the scenes, it looks like Jana is making progress in learning to make switches on defense, on boxing out, on making cuts on offense, all of which are key to playing to our potential. A month ago, Jana was not able to make a cut to receive a pass and finish with a layup. Now she's begun to do this. We have yet to see her master rolling to the basket after setting a screen and finishing with a layup. Sarah does this almost instinctively. I'm sure it's not that Jana doesn't have the basic skills to do these things. But at this level, timing is everything, and she doesn't seem to have mastered this yet.

My conclusion from all of this is that playing to our potential may have little to do with anything Paige is or is not doing. I suspect it is much more about the rest of the team. On offense, she uses her perimeter shot, her dribble-drive penetration, her midrange jumper, and her brilliant passing off the dribble to make this team win. But all of these things require her teammates to behave in ways she can count on. Some of them do this very well, others are still growing into this symbiosis.

I expect Geno & Co are working very intensely on building the chemistry we need, and we catch glimpses of it in the conference wins, and even in our losses. For example, in yesterday's game Jana chased down a long rebound into the corner to beat out a Providence player. She could do this because she's feeling strong, but also because she knew she wouldn't be out of position once she got the ball. I'm sure this insight took a lot of experience, and as a result she didn't hesitate when she might have a month ago.

all good stuff... but ya know, there wouldn't such anguish in the BY if uconn had simply made the shots they, by rights, should --- even just a average % if not all of them. make the g.d. shots and uconn is sitting pretty.

crappy shooting alone is the devil that has depressed us! we wouldn't care about everyone's other valid criticisms if the open shots were made.

 

[Inthepaint]

Yeah
Put the ball in the basket and keep the other team from doing the same
Of course there are subtitles and nuances
I remember when Cristin was going through a horrendous string of poor offensive displays
Geno told her find something else to do, like rebounding, defending the paint, looking for assists, denying easy perimeter shots until her touch returned.

 

[Rowdy831]

We play in the Big East and thats not gonna change. We are building a post player in Jana. She's new to America and WCBB and she's developing and working hard. She is improving and getting better. She gonna be what she becomes this season and thats not gonna change. Geno knows more about what's going on with this team then we do. He plays who he feels are our most developed players and who play well together and that most likely wont change unless something happens that forces it to change.

What we are is what we are. IMO we have not been playing up to our potential, especially in big games. Neither are other teams. I watched the Tenn @ LSU game and the SC @ Texas games. They were doing alot of the same things that we are doing in our big games. We have 3 losses on the road and we could've won those games if they were home games and we could've won those games if we played up to our potential. BTW we were in all those big games that were on the road just like Tenn and SC who lost on the road yesterday.

So how do we play to our potential????? This is a big question for me and maybe some of you.

We need to fine tune a few things and we will be fine. IMO we need to fine tune a few things starting with controlling the tempo. In big games we become hesitant, and seem to rush. These are both killers. They kill our execution and they kill the way we think which kills our confidence. When we play top teams they our quicker and play better defense, then some other teams we play. Overcoming being hesitant, and rushing comes from fear. The answer is play with patience and poise.

At some point they have to win a game against good players or by definition they are playing to their potential. I think UConn is a team that can make it to the second week just as they are and really that isn't a bad season. Problem is to expect the current group to somehow get taller or faster or better defenders in the last quarter of the season isn't realistic.

Geno is convinced the winning combination is 4 guards and Sarah and I just don't think that is good enough no matter how good the guards play. Teams that are quality are going to defend UConn and when they are defended they are not going to shoot 50% from three and neither is anyone else.

 

[Inthepaint]

Trick is SOMEONE has to make the shots

 

[PacoSwede]

At some point they have to win a game against good players or by definition they are playing to their potential. I think UConn is a team that can make it to the second week just as they are and really that isn't a bad season. Problem is to expect the current group to somehow get taller or faster or better defenders in the last quarter of the season isn't realistic.

Geno is convinced the winning combination is 4 guards and Sarah and I just don't think that is good enough no matter how good the guards play. Teams that are quality are going to defend UConn and when they are defended they are not going to shoot 50% from three and neither is anyone else.

it would be super nice if the huskies were taller, faster and better defenders (wow, they be a cinch to clinch another NC in April) but those aren't the weaknesses that plague them. they would be fine with their current height, speed and defense if their shooting didn't abandon them at the worst times. u be focused on the wrong things.

 

[Bone Dog]

all good stuff... but ya know, there wouldn't such anguish in the BY if uconn had simply made the shots they, by rights, should --- even just a average % if not all of them. make the g.d. shots and uconn is sitting pretty.

crappy shooting alone is the devil that has depressed us! we wouldn't care about everyone's other valid criticisms if the open shots were made.

I don't disagree. I just think it's not an isolated problem. Tennessee's press didn't force many TO's but it did make the Huskies feel rushed and they missed shots. When a team shoots poorly, it's usually because something the other team did had an impact on them.

So, how do they address that? I think it's entirely about practice and mastering Geno's offense and defense. You don't specifically practice not missing shots you should make... whatever that might mean. You practice everything about the offense Geno teaches, so that you're confident in your movement and always know where you're supposed to be. Do that, and no team can make you feel rushed.

We're clearly not there yet, and for the very reason Geno has repeatedly said in pressers: inexperience. We play Paige (who has as much experience and confidence as any coach could want) and a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, and a couple seniors coming off injuries, and one grad transfer. Who else in the top-10 is in this situation? Certainly not UCLA, Texas, SC, LSU, tOSU or NC St. Maybe a case could be made that ND is in a similar situation, but I don't think it'd be very persuasive. That just leaves KY and USC, and I think we can beat either of them.

 

[DefenseBB]

Um, not so sure I agree with all the theories and views on this thread. Frankly, being a season ticket holder, I see the problem pretty simply:
1. Put the ball into Paige's hands more often, let her make the decisions to pass or shoot. Don't have Kaitlyn Chen bring the ball up. Let her play a shooting guard (judiciously). Given all the grabbing, holding and blocking that occurs against Paige when she tries to break free and then not get the ball until under 10 seconds left hurts our team. Kaitlyn is fine against the mid-Major Big East schools but she has struggled against the elite competition. Go look at the SHU and Villanova wins, Paige had the ball more to bring it up and direct the offense and those games resulted in 43 and 60 point blowouts.
2. All our players need to hit their open shots against the quality opponents-Azzi, Ash, KK, Kaitlyn, Jana and even Paige. Too many missed layups and missed 3 pt shots. That can't happen if you want to win in March.

 

[Blond D.]

There was a thread on this earlier in the season. Where’s the Fire?

The FIRE was drafted by Seattle.