Just total domination! Congrats to UConn!

[boontonbomber]

At 12:28 of the first half the game was tied 18-18, and SC seemed to be finding ways to score. I told my partner Jenny that I would expect sometime before too much longer that Geno and Co. are going come up with something to put a stop to SC finding easy ways to score. It was almost 4 more minutes before they scored again. I don't know what kind of adjustments may have been made, but this is far from the first time that I've seen this happen. I think that in-game defensive adjustments have been an underrated strength of the UConn coaching staff over the years. Beyond the face-guarding of Mitchell, I have no clue what adjustments may have been made last night. Anybody able to cast some light on what else might have caused SC to begin to struggle?
Also, I haven't had the time to go thru all of the comments about the game, so maybe somewhere someone said something about Aleighsa Welch. I just thought that she was SC's best player on the floor last night, with 17 and 11. And she did her damage in the paint. I guess Mitchell is their best player, but, considering that Welch had to contend with UConn's big people, I thought she was quite impressive.

 

[hoophuskee]

A thorough drubbing can bring clarity. It is a service UConn has frequently rendered.

Great post. That cracked me up!!

 

[CL82]

Think Louisville (was it last year or the year before) ?
They got schooled, the paid attention, learned, took the Court and were bulldozed again.
Then came the NCAA's, Same old, Same old.
The same fate awaits SC in the final-4 (if they get that far).

Huge, huge talent difference between that 'ville team and this SC team.

So then according to you guys, there's no chance UCONN gets any better during that same time frame?

Of course not, UConn's room for improvement is much, much smaller, especially compared to last night's game which was a close to a prefect game as anyone has any right to expect.

SC will be better - yes. Enough to beat UCONN - no..

Bingo, we have a winner.

 

[EricLA]

At 12:28 of the first half the game was tied 18-18, and SC seemed to be finding ways to score. I told my partner Jenny that I would expect sometime before too much longer that Geno and Co. are going come up with something to put a stop to SC finding easy ways to score. It was almost 4 more minutes before they scored again. I don't know what kind of adjustments may have been made, but this is far from the first time that I've seen this happen. I think that in-game defensive adjustments have been an underrated strength of the UConn coaching staff over the years. Beyond the face-guarding of Mitchell, I have no clue what adjustments may have been made last night. Anybody able to cast some light on what else might have caused SC to begin to struggle?
Also, I haven't had the time to go thru all of the comments about the game, so maybe somewhere someone said something about Aleighsa Welch. I just thought that she was SC's best player on the floor last night, with 17 and 11. And she did her damage in the paint. I guess Mitchell is their best player, but, considering that Welch had to contend with UConn's big people, I thought she was quite impressive.

That's a great set of questions. Milford and I watched the game a 2nd time and noted that (and I think others have said it), the team packed it in a bit - the UCONN guards almost never went out beyond the 3 point line - mainly because the 3 point shot is not a strength for SC (except for Mitchell)....

I also think when it was 18-15 or 18-18 was when he brought in Chong. she played really good defense on Mitchell as well. I think face guarding her, packing it in elsewhere, and generally harassing Sessions kept SC from getting into any kind of rhythm. But I will leave it to better analysts than me to really nail it down...

 

[Woof 101]

You just slaughtered us.

80% of you predicted a 16+ pt win or more. Cudos.

Only a dozen or more bad calls against SC ... no excuses, even given that horribly bad call to end the first half that was just horrible. You know the one, the charging foul against Bianca. No problem.

But your girls just absolutely dominated ... we can only pray to recover from this and see y'all in Tampa.

Whoever said #23 was great and would have a great game for UConn ... you were totally right. She made the difference.

Everything y'all threw-up tonight, went down.

Yo, Cook-A-Doodle-Do welcome, but I for one could care less about your back handed FOWL comment. It is one thing to be gracious in defeat but it is another to speak from the other side of your beak. If Dawn or anyone else other than a over excited chicken saw a dozen or more bad calls you can be sure the NCAA has heard about it by now.
Why did the chicken cross the road? In this case to get run over and survive and not cry fowl but to take the next step in the progression of becoming one of the elite in the sport. Dawn knows what she is doing and is building a very good program. She will use everything from this game to build on our next meeting.
You come across as a passionate and knowledgable fan but you shot yourself in the foot on this one. Pick a road, you can't take the high one and the low one at the same time. I think I know which way you will go and hope to see the banter here for years to come. Mean while take this out on Rocky Top.
See you in the final four.

 

[HoopsHoppy]

You just slaughtered us.

80% of you predicted a 16+ pt win or more. Cudos.

Only a dozen or more bad calls against SC ... no excuses, even given that horribly bad call to end the first half that was just horrible. You know the one, the charging foul against Bianca. No problem.

But your girls just absolutely dominated ... we can only pray to recover from this and see y'all in Tampa.

Whoever said #23 was great and would have a great game for UConn ... you were totally right. She made the difference.

Everything y'all threw-up tonight, went down

Y'all were a great contributor to the days leading up to Monday's game. Perhaps there'll be more in the tournament .

Had to check out your comment after "no excuses". You should look again too. No question, Stewie got there too late - and it would have been a block if Bianca hadn't dropped her left shoulder and went into her with what was almost a "forearm shiver". That's a no no - here in snow country and in S. Carolina as well.

Good luck in your remaining conference games.

 

[Geno-ista]

I don't agree that it's taken Geno thirty years to get here. He's been here for quite a long time already, maybe just fine tuning things more recently. He's had better overall talent more recently than he had in his first 15 years but as the talent level has moved up, so has the domination. Ten years in he really started to get quite a bit of talent and then that success led to even better talent. Geno does more with the talent he has available than any coach in the game and I do have to give kudos to his staff, headed by the great Chris Daly. There has been no one that I'm aware of that has been able to do what he's done, particularly where he started from. What this program was when he arrived and where it is now is unfathomable. The script to a movie would be too hard to believe, and would never be made. It's almost like Hoosiers in that Storrs was a back water town with nothing to suggest that both the women's and men's programs would ever rise to the level that they have. Totally incredible! It's still amazing to me that this team lost to that Stanford program a few months back! Well, it kickstarted the defense playing like we've come to expect it to perform. Go Huskies!!!!!

That was one of the best losses we ever had! They all buckled down after that!

 

[Geno-ista]

At 12:28 of the first half the game was tied 18-18, and SC seemed to be finding ways to score. I told my partner Jenny that I would expect sometime before too much longer that Geno and Co. are going come up with something to put a stop to SC finding easy ways to score. It was almost 4 more minutes before they scored again. I don't know what kind of adjustments may have been made, but this is far from the first time that I've seen this happen. I think that in-game defensive adjustments have been an underrated strength of the UConn coaching staff over the years. Beyond the face-guarding of Mitchell, I have no clue what adjustments may have been made last night. Anybody able to cast some light on what else might have caused SC to begin to struggle?
Also, I haven't had the time to go thru all of the comments about the game, so maybe somewhere someone said something about Aleighsa Welch. I just thought that she was SC's best player on the floor last night, with 17 and 11. And she did her damage in the paint. I guess Mitchell is their best player, but, considering that Welch had to contend with UConn's big people, I thought she was quite impressive.

Welch is a beast- plays with heart and is smart. Mitchell is also awesome- they are loaded with talent.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

Don't you believe it. SC will be dramatically better the next time we play. They just got lesson 101 in championship basketball. They'll learn.

CL82- - - Of course they'll learn, they're great athletes with a good coach, that wasn't my point, reality check, where are they going to get the 25+ points they need and how can they hold UCONN to 70 points? They don't have the scorers on the roster to add that many points! That is what they HAVE to do to beat UCONN! THEY JUST CAN'T DO IT, the team as comprised now cannot score 80 points against UCONN and they can not hold UCONN to 70 or below! So they cannot beat UCONN in the FF or where-ever! And if you truly think they can you're delusional!

 

[HuskiesU]

I love games like this make big time recruits take notice of perfection at best. I know Aja Wilson was thinking in her head maybe i should of choose UConn. Sort of how Kara Lawson Diamond Deshields really wanted to choose UConn and it seemed Angel M would of signed if offered.

 

[Sonny44]

CL82- - - Of course they'll learn, they're great athletes with a good coach, that wasn't my point, reality check, where are they going to get the 25+ points they need and how can they hold UCONN to 70 points? They don't have the scorers on the roster to add that many points! That is what they HAVE to do to beat UCONN! THEY JUST CAN'T DO IT, the team as comprised now cannot score 80 points against UCONN and they can not hold UCONN to 70 or below! So they cannot beat UCONN in the FF or where-ever! And if you truly think they can you're delusional!

They'll learn enough to get within 20.

 

[Tonyc]

You just slaughtered us.

80% of you predicted a 16+ pt win or more. Cudos.

Only a dozen or more bad calls against SC ... no excuses, even given that horribly bad call to end the first half that was just horrible. You know the one, the charging foul against Bianca. No problem.

But your girls just absolutely dominated ... we can only pray to recover from this and see y'all in Tampa.

Whoever said #23 was great and would have a great game for UConn ... you were totally right. She made the difference.

Everything y'all threw-up tonight, went down.

The calls were not bad calls. The call you refer to against Bianca was a charge Stewies feet were there and Bianca dropped her should. Second the KML shot where the SC player held her arm and she pushed her away and she fell and KML hit the trey No foul on SC. The refs let them play. SC was physical and how man times was Stewie on the floor and no foul? UConn won big because they played to SC weaknesses which were pack it in, face guard Mitchell, and shoot the trey. How many times was KML open and SC didn't defend her? How many times did MoJeff make a play by either driving the lane and making a layup of penetrating and passing it out for an open shot. SC had very little dribble penetration, almost no 3 pts shooters and Sessions made 3 outside shots with a 21% shooting avg. When you lose by 25 pts its not the refs its you didn't play good enough defense, UConn was too quick.

 

[jcoton56]

Thanks for very gracious assessment. Here is my very humble evaluation. Your guys have talent. No doubt it is oozing from every pore. Your guys have the tools. There were flashes all night long. The uConn edge was in toughness. Our guys are in a little better shape. The big gap is in mental toughness. The little fundamental things. The uConn kids don't practice until the get it right, they practice until they can't get it wrong. This produces a focus and disciplined approach that is very hard to duplicate. It is not physical ability, but mental agility.

 

[Tonyc]

Thanks for very gracious assessment. Here is my very humble evaluation. Your guys have talent. No doubt it is oozing from every pore. Your guys have the tools. There were flashes all night long. The uConn edge was in toughness. Our guys are in a little better shape. The big gap is in mental toughness. The little fundamental things. The uConn kids don't practice until the get it right, they practice until they can't get it wrong. This produces a focus and disciplined approach that is very hard to duplicate. It is not physical ability, but mental agility.

The Biggest differences were. SC shot 39% which I thought would've been lower and SC had no one except Mitchell who they could depend on to shot from the outside. With that said Sessions who hit 3 outside shots with a shooting percentage of around 21% and Welch who scored better then her average were big pluses for SC. Uconns inside game and quickness negated SC's inside game. Once again just like Maryland and Duke to much height without ball handlers and quickness does you no good especially against UConn. The fact that SC had to come out and guard UConn and did a poor job of it is part of the reason for UConn shooting so well from the outside. UConn ran the break and SC could not get back. With those stats winning by only 25 pts could've been worse.

UConn is at a different level then every team in WCBB. They continually win almost every game by double digits. Theres a reason for that...UConn is that good. Geno is the reason why.