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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 4344919, member: 9844"] I hope so. One of the overall disappointments for last year's team was their overall PER (player efficiency rating) numbers vs. the prior year. I remember comparing those after the first 6 games last year and the only player who had improved at that time from the prior year was Paige. Everyone else was worse not better, including Dorka vs. her Ohio State numbers. That was shocking almost beyond belief, to have close to a whole team of returnees and collectively not improve. Uconn's scheduling had something to do with that, because as usual our schedule was front loaded with difficult games. I was comparing their PER numbers after 6 games vs. their whole season numbers from the prior year, and the easier part (our conference schedule) was still coming. As a result as we went thru the easier conference schedule most players improved, but the final season numbers still wound up worse than the prior year for everyone except for Nika who wound up a little better than the prior year. Paige's numbers because of playing games after the injury fell back below her prior season by year end. I think expecting some improvement from returning players is quite normal, it doesn't always turn out that way, and if anything it should be even more so with a team returning just about everybody from the prior year. That is why I was so surprised by last year. This year we lose some players, but hopefully with quite a few returnees coming back we can see a significant bump from some of them. Aaliyah might have the potential for the biggest increase, but if I was a betting man I like the odds of improvement from Azzi and Caroline a great deal, and believe Dorka playing full-time C in her second year with the program is a pretty good bet too. [/QUOTE]

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