Huskies back on campus

[psconn]

With my [CT] Sun sinking slowly in the west, seeing our Husky squad is like tossing red meat to a lion. Great thing about being a WNBA fan is that it fills awful b-ball gap from April to September.

 

[CocoHusky]

I don't remember Williams being a shutdown defender, ever. A great defender? Yes. My only recollection is that she and Collier played the opponents' 4 and 5. Gabby was rarely assigned to defend a guard for a game. She was a disrupter and a great team defender. In fact my recollection of UConn's great defensive teams was that they played a switching defense, handing off opposing guards and rotating to another player. It's one reason why Geno likes positionless basketball.

My recollection of the 2013 NCAA win was that Dolson finally stopped inbounding the ball to Diggins. The best example of that was the conference championship where UConn had the ball with seconds left. Dolson inbounded from the baseline and as she always did in pressure situations she threw it in the direction of Hartley and Diggins. For the umteenth time stole Hartley's lunch money, went the other way and won the game. It wasn't poor defense that lost that game, it was Dolson.
Finally, in the FF, Dolson must have been told that under no circumstances was she to throw a pass to Hartley unless Diggens was far far away. You could see a few times after a made ND basket that Dolson stepped out of bounds and started to just throw it over to the left sideline where Hartley always went, only for once she actually looked and saw Diggins standing there, waiting. And for the whole game Dolson inbounded to the other side, away from Diggins as I sat in front of my TV screaming "FINALLY".

Gabby Williams was an absolutely fabulous perimeter defender. The 2015-16 started out with three of the best perimeter defender to ever occupy a backcourt in Kia, Moriah and Gabby as the starting 1,2,3 for UCONN. Go back and watch them destroy Ohio State on the road in the opening game of the season and holding Kelsey Mitchell to 8 points. I believe Mitchell led the nation in scoring that seasonm. As I siad what prevented Gabby from being utilized as a perimeter defender was the un planned departures of first Morgan Tuck followed by Natalie Butler followed by Azura Stevens. This basically relegated Gabby to being a post player.
Positionless basketball is an often misunderstood concept even more so when it applies to the defensive side of the ball. What enables switching are mobile bigs and players of similar size and mobility. Stewie and Morgan Tuck were two of the most mobile bigs that God has ever created. When they left UCONN their minutes were replaced by Saniya, Gabby, KLS, Napheesa Collier and Natalie Butler and
Crystal Dangerfield. Among this group of players only Gabby and Kia could effectively execute a perimeter switching because for that scheme to work you want the offensive player to switch on to an equal or better defender and Gabby and Kia had no equals as far as perimeter defender. This is the reason Geno rarely relied on switching schemes with those teams.

Dolson threw a few errant pass in that FF game one of which ended in a Diggins steal and layup, but she must be forgiven as she was playing with an injury and had 7 turnovers. She was magnificent otherwise.

 

[Alydar]

Gabby Williams was an absolutely fabulous perimeter defender. The 2015-16 started out with three of the best perimeter defender to ever occupy a backcourt in Kia, Moriah and Gabby as the starting 1,2,3 for UCONN. Go back and watch them destroy Ohio State on the road in the opening game of the season and holding Kelsey Mitchell to 8 points. I believe Mitchell led the nation in scoring that seasonm. As I siad what prevented Gabby from being utilized as a perimeter defender was the un planned departures of first Morgan Tuck followed by Natalie Butler followed by Azura Stevens. This basically relegated Gabby to being a post player.
Positionless basketball is an often misunderstood concept even more so when it applies to the defensive side of the ball. What enables switching are mobile bigs and players of similar size and mobility. Stewie and Morgan Tuck were two of the most mobile bigs that God has ever created. When they left UCONN their minutes were replaced by Saniya, Gabby, KLS, Napheesa Collier and Natalie Butler and
Crystal Dangerfield. Among this group of players only Gabby and Kia could effectively execute a perimeter switching because for that scheme to work you want the offensive player to switch on to an equal or better defender and Gabby and Kia had no equals as far as perimeter defender. This is the reason Geno rarely relied on switching schemes with those teams.

Dolson threw a few errant pass in that FF game one of which ended in a Diggins steal and layup, but she must be forgiven as she was playing with an injury and had 7 turnovers. She was magnificent otherwise.

The 2016 Gabby Williams. A joy to watch, I agree, but we were talking about the 2013 team. Gabby, talking about her 1st year is quoted as saying she was "disappointed that she didn't give the coaches more reasons to play her. And as you admit, after that year she played the post out of necessity. So while Gabby was my favorite when she played, she did the vast bulk of her defending in and around the paint from the foul line down to the hoop, not chasing opposing pgs on the perimeter. As good as she might have been on the perimeter, we'll never know.

As for Dolson/Hartley/Diggins, Dolson threw many errant passes to Diggins during their entire careers, except for the 2013 FF game. Diggins owned Hartley, still does. I watched a W game last season where Hartley was on a break away and Diggins ran her down and blocked her shot from behind with no whistle. I laughed because Diggins did that to her many times in school. Once twice in one game. I loved her though. Hartley to me was the player I always wanted to take a shot, but only in the last 4 minutes of a close game.