Thanks to free tickets from Huskeymaniac, I was at Barclay's last night. They were punishing Paige whenever she was moving. We are going to see this all year. It didn't matter at all though last evening. My five top takeaways were these:
1) Sarah is gifted, there is no other way to describe it. She made the UL defenders look helpless. An extraordinary all around player and what a head for the game. That pass to Q on the fast break brought the house down.
2) The team defense was at a February level last night. They were stifling. I watched carefully a UL out of bounds play. We had 5 switches. It became a 5 second call.
3) Ash being aggressive and scoring is a game changer. Let's see if she can do it against ND. She is going to get there this year. It's part of the maturity issue that Geno was talking about. When she does it consistently it takes the pressure off of everyone else.
4) UL is very physical and at times unruly and I was worried all game. That was a nasty pick on Azzi. Fervently we hope she is okay. Her all around game is actually better than it has ever been. And her shooting? What a stroke. That one drive move on the baseline and backhanded scoop layup was textbook. During the game at commercial timeouts they had on these quizzes with Azzi and Paige. Azzi is hysterical and very, very smart.
5) This is a NC caliber team. It's been said repeatedly by old dude and it is spot on that the post game is the key. The two bigs have to improve and develop. If Aubrey is even 85%, it will be huge. She looked good in warm ups. They only have to stay in the games, defend and rebound, reduce errors, and be a threat underneath. We have such great guards/forwards where the scoring will come from. Ice is going to break out soon though. She has much greater presence than last year. You can feel it. Her problem is her lift. She has to rely more on positioning and boxing out than Sarah for example who can simply see the ball, get the ball.
Go see our team in person. They are addicting!
1) Sarah is gifted, there is no other way to describe it. She made the UL defenders look helpless. An extraordinary all around player and what a head for the game. That pass to Q on the fast break brought the house down.
2) The team defense was at a February level last night. They were stifling. I watched carefully a UL out of bounds play. We had 5 switches. It became a 5 second call.
3) Ash being aggressive and scoring is a game changer. Let's see if she can do it against ND. She is going to get there this year. It's part of the maturity issue that Geno was talking about. When she does it consistently it takes the pressure off of everyone else.
4) UL is very physical and at times unruly and I was worried all game. That was a nasty pick on Azzi. Fervently we hope she is okay. Her all around game is actually better than it has ever been. And her shooting? What a stroke. That one drive move on the baseline and backhanded scoop layup was textbook. During the game at commercial timeouts they had on these quizzes with Azzi and Paige. Azzi is hysterical and very, very smart.
5) This is a NC caliber team. It's been said repeatedly by old dude and it is spot on that the post game is the key. The two bigs have to improve and develop. If Aubrey is even 85%, it will be huge. She looked good in warm ups. They only have to stay in the games, defend and rebound, reduce errors, and be a threat underneath. We have such great guards/forwards where the scoring will come from. Ice is going to break out soon though. She has much greater presence than last year. You can feel it. Her problem is her lift. She has to rely more on positioning and boxing out than Sarah for example who can simply see the ball, get the ball.
Go see our team in person. They are addicting!
UConn beat L'ville 52-28 on the boards and there's already a guy whining about their lack of rebounding. 
