Cheli is not really a point guard but can play it in a pinch.........KK is the starting point guard and I think she'll do a good job, especially if she can improve her three point shot to make defenders more honest.........Kelis should be able to step in for some valuable bench minutes
I don’t know what to make of Morgan as a potential PG. She has played the position full time in high school if that tells us anything. From the HS games I saw when she was at Mitty it was clear she could run a transition offense. In that respect she reminds me of Evina, who often played PG for Geno. But she wasn’t
the PG. it was that formula we’ve seen so often at UConn: PG by committee.
This is what we had this season. Paige Kaitlyn Azzi KK and even Sarah played this role, but mainly Paige and Kaitlyn. Next season, without Paige and Kaitlyn, KK and Azzi will need to step up, but so will Kelis and Morgan. And Sarah will probably slip into this role a little more than she did this season. Also, toward the end of the season, Allie ended up functioning as de facto PG at the end of games. I wonder if we’ll see her step up as a main ball handler next season.
It’s surprising to me that I don’t think of Ash as part of the PG by committee. She participates in the perimeter weave with the rest of them, and she occasionally helps break presses. But Geno doesn’t seem to want to use her that way. I wonder what he has in mind for her this fall.
As for KK, she very much reminds me of Nika, who was roundly criticized here as an offensive liability in her sophomore year. Whether it was fair or not, she came back the following year much more willing to drive to the rim and to take spot-up perimeter shots. She didn’t develop a midrange game while she was at Storrs, though this may have been in part because Paige and Azzi and Ash were midrange masters and Geno didn’t see the need. There was so much else Nika was already doing.
KK is in this same position, but perhaps slightly more advanced on offense. Her willingness to take it to the rim seemed more developed in the last two months. Her perimeter game needs work and she has no midrange jump shot to speak of. And she isn’t yet the assist leader Nika became in her junior year. This leads me to expect that Geno will push her to improve in these areas over the summer, as he did with Nika.
As a junior Nika became one of the best PGs in D1. I wouldn’t put it past KK to make a similar leap into her junior season. I don’t know if we can expect a sophomore leap of analogous proportions for Morgan and Allie given how limited their experience as freshmen ended up being. They are each a long way from what Evina was in her junior season as a utility guard and part time PG. This is a gap that could weaken the team. But I will try not to measure them by their November-December performance. What matters is what they become by the beginning of March.
One last observation: UConn lost to tOSU in the sweet 16 because the press was too much for the guards we had available, namely Nika and Azzi playing at less than 100%. Aaliyah could help break the press (much like Sarah does now) until she got into foul trouble. Lou and Dorka could not help break it in the open court, though Lou was able to convert some of the times the others broke the press. The lesson Geno seems to have taken from that game was that 2 primary ball handlers is not enough. In subsequent seasons, he consistently tried to form a large enough ‘PG-by-committee’, injuries permitting. But it was only this past season that he was able to form a PG committee that was effectively unpressable. This became the small-ball lineup at times. But even with Jana or Ice on the floor, he still always had 4 ball handlers on the floor. I suspect this is the situation he wants to create for next season. Does he have enough proven ball-handlers for his PG-by-committee? Are Azzi KK Sarah Blanca Kelis Morgan Allie and Ash enough?
