If We Get a Big Game From Her We Win Today/Tonight

[Zanzman]

I predict a player will lose her sneaker at some point during the game. She will recover the shoe, put it on, rearrange her hair, catch a pass and drain an NBA 3.

Saylor

 

[HopJim]

Ono is the key for the game as she should be the one player that Ark got no answer for. If she dominates and stays away from foul problems, UConn should win!

A related point is if ONO can stay out of foul trouble. Watched several SEC games and the Arkansas guards are kamikazes, driving into the paint and into bigs any chance they get. Not always successful but ONO needs to play smart.

 

[Boreifs]

For me it always comes back to CW and ONO. CW could shoot 10-14 or 2-14, and there never seems to be much rhyme or reason behind it. Similarly, will ONO dominate the middle or settle for outside shots. If we don’t have her scoring on the interior, we become much less dynamic offensively. Our other players seem to be more consistent in what they bring to every game.

This was a prophetic post

 

[MooseJaw]

You’re relatively new here so you don’t know us very well. This is a message board for offering opinions and analysis and arguing the same (civilly, I hope). If we not here for robust discussions, then why are we here?

MS HuskyNan, isn't that what I was doing? Offering up my comments foe robust discussion. I read every post and wonder why you find my post was less welcome than others. I am on the BY for an exchange of ideas which leads to discussion. If my post was inappropriate please let me know in what way. I will take any constructive criticism to heart.

 

[HuskyNan]

MS HuskyNan, isn't that what I was doing? Offering up my comments foe robust discussion. I read every post and wonder why you find my post was less welcome than others. I am on the BY for an exchange of ideas which leads to discussion. If my post was inappropriate please let me know in what way. I will take any constructive criticism to heart.

Not inappropriate but you called posters’ opinions that a certain player or another needed a big game “silly”. Their opinion, like yours, has value. Agree or disagree, a person has a right to offer an opinion without being called silly.

 

[MooseJaw]

Not inappropriate but you called posters’ opinions that a certain player or another needed a big game “silly”. Their opinion, like yours, has value. Agree or disagree, a person has a right to offer an opinion without being called silly.

Thanks, I sometimes think people understand that while I may say silly or something else it was a soft silly to me, not my intention to denigrate. I will do my best to chose better ways to phrase my post.

 

[Carnac]

Last time I checked, it's a TEAM game. NO SINGLE player will win it, no single player will lose it.

A lot of posters threw ONO under the bus in their post game comments, and are blaming her for the loss.

 

[MooseJaw]

A lot of posters threw ONO under the bus in their post game comments, and are blaming her for the loss.

While Liv seems to have reverted back to earlier woes she was not the only one to take a back slide. We only lost by one basket, any one player could have made just one more shot. we may be talking about her ineffectiveness but no one should be blaming the loss on her. One less errant shot by CW, a little more footwork and less reaching from AE, heck just one or two more makes from anyone and the team has a w. As it is the team has it's first L, the team. No where will it be recorded that Liv has a loss.
All that being said I hope she shakes the loss off and regains the form we all have seen glimpses of in the recent past. Also hope this loss doesn't shake the team confidence and leads to the Blue Demons taking the brunt of a brilliant butt kicking Sunday. Finally I believe that no one feels worse about Thursdays loss that Liv, she deserves our support, she is ours we need her and I hope she comes out Sunday with a monster game leading to a Team victory.
I don't think after reading a lot of your posts that you blame the loss on Liv I am glad you posted what you did it gives us the chance to debate this point.

 

[Carnac]

While Liv seems to have reverted back to earlier woes she was not the only one to take a back slide. We only lost by one basket, any one player could have made just one more shot. we may be talking about her ineffectiveness but no one should be blaming the loss on her. One less errant shot by CW, a little more footwork and less reaching from AE, heck just one or two more makes from anyone and the team has a w. As it is the team has it's first L, the team. No where will it be recorded that Liv has a loss.
All that being said I hope she shakes the loss off and regains the form we all have seen glimpses of in the recent past. Also hope this loss doesn't shake the team confidence and leads to the Blue Demons taking the brunt of a brilliant butt kicking Sunday. Finally I believe that no one feels worse about Thursdays loss that Liv, she deserves our support, she is ours we need her and I hope she comes out Sunday with a monster game leading to a Team victory.
I don't think after reading a lot of your posts that you blame the loss on Liv I am glad you posted what you did it gives us the chance to debate this point.

Thanks MooseJaw. We all know that basketball is a TEAM sport. One or two players can make a HUGE difference/contribution to a team's success or failure. When I compose a comment after a loss, I try not to highlight the obvious. We all know who did/didn't do what. If you read my two post game comments, you'll see that I refrained from mentioning any player by name. I merely focused on the team's accomplishments/short comings. I do respect how other posters choose to craft their comments. I don't throw rocks at anyone's posts, and no way am I suggesting that anyone adopt my particular style.

You are correct. If UConn had hit just two more lay ups, or put backs, or made just two more stops, we win. Again, I point to and was impressed by what it took to beat us. One player played out of her mind, and had a field day. She said in her post game interview that she just took what the defense gave her. We can start there. There were 5 players on the court for us at all times. They failed as a unit to stop or contain her.

We lost by three, not by double digits. We lost to a ranked team on the road. The game came down to the last shot. If Dungee scores her average of 21 ppg, we win going away. Arkansas has 3 graduate seniors on their team. We are a freshman heavy squad. That's ok. Everyone is a freshman when they begin college. The best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.

Hope springs eternal, but at no time have I ever thought that THIS team could win the national championship. It just does not have the necessary ingredients, i.e., a "lock down defender". Most teams don't. Right now, I'd say 3-4 teams (Stanford, Louisville, Baylor, NC State, South Carolina, Maryland, and I'll throw in Texas A&M and UCLA as longshot possibilities) have a real chance of winning those last six games in March. If any one of these teams get hot during the tournament, and have the ball bounce their way once or twice, they can win it all. IMHO, next year's UConn team has a better than average chance of doing so. I'm very excited about the team Geno will put on the floor next year. As good as this team is, next year's will be that much better!!

Lastly, after the 20-21 schedule was released late this past summer, I don't think there were too many UConn fan's that "honestly" believed that THIS UConn team would run that gauntlet and come out undefeated. There had to be a loss in there somewhere. Geno scheduled some heavyweights this year. We may have defeated 2-3, but not all 4. We debated all summer who the starters would be, knowing that 1-2 freshmen would be counted on heavily if this team was going to have any measure of success because of its deficiency of returning veterans.

I will be very interested to see how this team responds to this loss tomorrow when they take the floor at DePaul. The Blue Demons will give them everything they have. Especially since they lost the first meeting, and they just saw UConn get beat. Does UConn come out flat and listless, or like gangbusters and start the game on a double digit run? We shall see.

 

[MooseJaw]

Thanks MooseJaw. We all know that basketball is a TEAM sport. One or two players can make a HUGE difference/contribution to a team's success or failure. When I compose a comment after a loss, I try not to highlight the obvious. We all know who did/didn't do what. If you read my two post game comments, you'll see that I refrained from mentioning any player by name. I merely focused on the team's accomplishments/short comings. I do respect how other posters choose to craft their comments. I don't throw rocks at anyone's posts, and no way am I suggesting that anyone adopt my particular style.

You are correct. If UConn had hit just two more lay ups, or put backs, or made just two more stops, we win. Again, I point to and was impressed by what it took to beat us. One player played out of her mind, and had a field day. She said in her post game interview that she just took what the defense gave her. We can start there. There were 5 players on the court for us at all times. They failed as a unit to stop or contain her.

We lost by three, not by double digits. We lost to a ranked team on the road. The game came down to the last shot. If Dungee scores her average of 21 ppg, we win going away. Arkansas has 3 graduate seniors on their team. We are a freshman heavy squad. That's ok. Everyone is a freshman when they begin college. The best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.

Hope springs eternal, but at no time have I ever thought that THIS team could win the national championship. It just does not have the necessary ingredients, i.e., a "lock down defender". Most teams don't. Right now, I'd say 3-4 teams (Stanford, Louisville, Baylor, NC State, South Carolina, Maryland, and I'll throw in Texas A&M and UCLA as longshot possibilities) have a real chance of winning those last six games in March. If any one of these teams get hot during the tournament, and have the ball bounce their way once or twice, they can win it all. IMHO, next year's UConn team has a better than average chance of doing so. I'm very excited about the team Geno will put on the floor next year. As good as this team is, next year's will be that much better!!

Lastly, after the 20-21 schedule was released late this past summer, I don't think there were too many UConn fan's that "honestly" believed that THIS UConn team would run that gauntlet and come out undefeated. There had to be a loss in there somewhere. Geno scheduled some heavyweights this year. We may have defeated 2-3, but not all 4. We debated all summer who the starters would be, knowing that 1-2 freshmen would be counted on heavily if this team was going to have any measure of success because of its deficiency of returning veterans.

I will be very interested to see how this team responds to this loss tomorrow when they take the floor at DePaul. The Blue Demons will give them everything they have. Especially since they lost the first meeting, and they just saw UConn get beat. Does UConn come out flat and listless, or like gangbusters and start the game on a double digit run? We shall see.

I appreciate your response, and agree. Moving on I think the way the team starts the game tomorrow should tell us a lot about how the loss affected them. I wonder if you have thought about Geno's approach to how he handled the substitutions in the last game. In specific after removing Liv with 2 fouls and going to AE and staying with her until she got her 5th he still refrained from going back to Liv. Was this a message to her about her game, or just trying something different, or maybe a combination of both. Curious as to how you view this.

 

[Carnac]

I appreciate your response, and agree. Moving on I think the way the team starts the game tomorrow should tell us a lot about how the loss affected them. I wonder if you have thought about Geno's approach to how he handled the substitutions in the last game. In specific after removing Liv with 2 fouls and going to AE and staying with her until she got her 5th he still refrained from going back to Liv. Was this a message to her about her game, or just trying something different, or maybe a combination of both. Curious as to how you view this.

I thought he went with Aaliyah because ONO was not playing well to that point. When it's obvious that a player is having an "off night", you've got two choices, 1) leave them in and hope they play their way out of it, or 2)
replace them with your 6th man (or their designated backup). Aaliyah was more effective than ONO was in the first half.

Often, when it's just not your night, it's not your night. We've seen Christyn, Anna, ONO and Nika, have forgettable games. It happens. Call it "full moon" syndrome, biorhythms, or whatever. Some nights your rhythm is out of sync, and your shot is off, and you can't seem to keep anyone in front of you. Players know it before the coaches do. When your shot is off, you do other things like get closer to the basket or drive the lane (looking for fouls along the way). That's what the Arkansas players do. They said as much. That's why they shoot so many free throws. They are coached (as are many other teams) to look for and try to draw fouls. It works for them. Arkansas' tallest player is 6'2". Their height disadvantage proved not to be a factor in that game.

In stark contrast, South Carolina played them to a 104 - 82 finish. Dungee scored 22 points (her average is 21.5) with 5 reb, 1 ast. and 3 turnovers. 4 of her teammates also scored in double figures. They got 16 points from their bench.

Aliyah Boston scored 26 points, grabbed 16 rebounds and blocked 6 shots. 4 of the 5 starters for SC scored in double figures. Zia Cooke had 9 points. They got a 23 point contribution their bench. Cooke (4) was the only Gamecock with more than 2 fouls. I didn't see this game, but I would surmise that ARK couldn't do to them what they were able to do to us. Go figure.