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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5232803, member: 12088"] I feel the same way... most of the time. That team beat SC in the regular season in a 1-v-2 matchup and got our hopes up. [B]We were better than SC because we had Paige. [/B]But the signs of how unbalanced our offense was could already be seen. The fact is that game was SC's to win but for Paige's heroics -- everyone else faltered. In hindsight, it was inevitable that some team would knock us out of our groove. It could have been Baylor in the Elite Eight, at least until Didi Richards got injured. But for that, I think we'd have lost that game. And Arizona must have taken notes, because they did exactly the same thing, face guarding Paige for much of the game, and it didn't hurt that MacDonald was riding an incredible hot streak. [B]This year's team is not that team. [/B]It's much more balanced, much better put together, though it has weaknesses, too. Our post presence is not strong, and this makes it difficult to see how we'll manage the super-big teams, like UCLA or Texas. Maybe we won't have to, at least not both of them. But it will take a bit of Geno-magic along with a lot of Paige -magic to get by UCLA. It's easier to see how we'll win (or lose) against every other opponent. Our strength this year is in our guards and one particular 4-3 player. The guards by themselves are probably not enough -- I think we learned that last year. But Sarah presents a paradox to every opposing team. Defend her as a post or a wing or a guard? None of these approaches is quite satisfactory. And Paige knows exactly how to exploit every mismatch Sarah creates. This is how we'll win it all, if we do. We're so used to spotting every flaw in our favorite team because we scrutinize them with special care. But we're also expert at overlooking the flaws on every other team, because we only consider them a few times a season. [/QUOTE]

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