Kibitzer Memorial Badass Award | The Boneyard

Kibitzer Memorial Badass Award

I'm going with AE. As great as Paige was Ailiyah did all the heavy lifting in the post and really concentrated on her shot. Very few misses. And she absorbed a lot of body blows.
 
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I'm gonna buck the trend and go with Nika. Maybe half her rebounds were balls that went her way, but the other half came under the basket among the trees. She got them by pure cussedness, which is a large percentage of my definition of badass.
 
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paige was (not surprisingly) great for most of the game.

but i was cussing her for her terrible, harebrained move to start the game that led to the marquette 10 point edge in the first minutes. thank the lord geno pulled her and set her straight!

i refer to her decision to feed liya in the paint, which resulted in an early turnover. it happens, so ok ... except that she did it when she had an open foul-line jumper available (virtually a gimme for paige). ouch! what the hell was she thinking? as the absolute best player on the court, that should not happen, but it too often does, it seems.

guess geno was aghast. i know i was. that was the failure of paige to be an aggressive scorer that so often gets the huskies off to a lousy start.

BTW, i think paige is great, potentially another DT. please forgive me my opinion.
 
It was a bonehead turnover, but after that Paige dominated on both ends of the court, a real badass.

I do want to give a shout out to our rebounding animal, Nika, who proves there are several different skills involved with rebounding, it's not just height. I also want to give a shoutout to everyone who took the ball to within 5 feet of the hoop and exposed themselves to some real physical play. This was mostly AE, but others took a pounding too.
 
Skeets said:
It was a bonehead turnover, but after that Paige dominated on both ends of the court, a real badass.
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With due respect, Skeets, that 'bonehead' turnover should have been credited to Aaliyah. It was right in front of me, and I was shocked Aaliyah didn't expect the pass.

Agreed we want Paige to shoot more, but if Aaliyah had been paying attention, she'd have had an uncontested layup and it would have gotten her (and the team) off to a positive start.

Geno can rant all he wants. I'd want my best player to play to her instincts, and passing to a teammate for an easy layup seems never a bad move (if said teammate is awake).

By the way, I might have Aaliyah as my 'badass,' with Nika as my backup. Both were aggressive on the boards against a very aggressive Marquette team.
 
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The deacon said:
With due respect, Skeets, that 'bonehead' turnover should have been credited to Aaliyah. It was right in front of me, and I was shocked Aaliyah didn't expect the pass.

Agreed we want Paige to shoot more, but if Aaliyah had been paying attention, she'd have had an uncontested layup and it would have gotten her (and the team) off to a positive start.

Geno can rant all he wants. I'd want my best player to play to her instincts, and passing to a teammate for an easy layup seems never a bad move (if said teammate is awake).

By the way, I might have Aaliyah as my 'badass,' with Nika as my backup. Both were aggressive on the boards against a very aggressive Marquette team.
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you have a point

but i think liya was -- rightly -- thinking at the start of the game 'my first priority is to set the tone on the offensive glass in this situation. that's key against this team and for my team. i can set an example immediately by getting in position for the rebound. paige is our best scorer and when she has such a clear shot she of course is gonna take it. ... oops. that was a mistake.'

i felt that liya was doing the right thing and the 'oops' was paige's fault. 100%. her 'instincts' are sometimes wrong, and this was a prime example that deserved geno's notice.

paige taking the shot rather than passing would have gotten the team off to a better start than making the pass for a potential liya layup. a missed shot is an acceptable outcome, but the turnover on the first possession is a disaster.
 
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PacoSwede said:
you have a point

but i think liya was -- rightly -- thinking at the start of the game 'my first priority is to set the tone on the offensive glass in this situation. that's key against this team and for my team. i can set an example immediately by getting in position for the rebound. paige is our best scorer and when she has such a clear shot she of course is gonna take it. ... oops. that was a mistake.'

i felt that liya was doing the right thing and the 'oops' was paige's fault. 100%. her 'instincts' are sometimes wrong, and this was a prime example that deserved geno's notice.

paige taking the shot rather than passing would have gotten the team off to a better start than making the pass for a potential liya layup. a missed shot is an acceptable outcome, but the turnover on the first possession is a disaster.
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That's how I saw it. Aaliyah looked to be getting in position for a rebound. She had her back to Paige and in hindsight Paige should have taken the shot. Kinda tough to say the turnover should be on Aaliyah.
 
Skeets said:
That's how I saw it. Aaliyah looked to be getting in position for a rebound. She had her back to Paige and in hindsight Paige should have taken the shot. Kinda tough to say the turnover should be on Aaliyah.
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Sometimes it takes " two" to make a "bad" pass or a turnover! In this case, maybe it
was just a case of " bad things happening to (two) good people !!!"
 
Zarathustra said:
Sometimes it takes " two" to make a "bad" pass or a turnover! In this case, maybe it
was just a case of " bad things happening to (two) good people !!!"
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that's letting paige off the hook as i see it: she made the crummy decision, liya not so much.

i don't expect paige to be perfect. anybody could have decided 'i'm gonna pass up this good shot for a better shot.' i hear that preached over and over, by media commentators and i suppose by the uconn coaches. it makes sense. it's a good tactic for the 'team' approach.

but there are some variables. for nika, seeking a 'better shot' is clearly preferable to shooting the 'good one.' same goes for kk and ash, to a lesser degree, etc.

but paige is a special case. paige isn't an ordinary shooter. she is exceptional -- an extraordinary shooter and scorer. what would be a 'good shot' for others is in fact a 'great shot' for her. she should not be passing them up.

yet she can't seem to get past the 'get everyone involved' ethos, which nika adheres to and is admirable -- and sadly missing in many players -- but for paige also is detrimental to the team at times. it's tough to see because she is a great talent as a facilitator, but she is an even better scorer. she needs to embrace that for the good of the team.

geno, the great coach, has been trying to get paige to realize this from Day One -- with limited success. it's tough for paige because in some sense she is attempting to reconcile geno's advice with her core principles. she'll have to do it to become a better ballplayer, but her values as a good person may try to veto it.
 
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