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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 4668593, member: 12088"] I think they have plenty of athleticism of the muscular variety. Aaliyah Aubrey Ayanna in the front court, not even counting the untested, are magnificently athletic. In the backcourt, we need to have faith that the previously injured are healthy, and if they are, they have plenty of the muscular variety of altheticism. And Nika (who is as physically strong as anyone in D1) and Inês the Fierce can lead the untested towards the sort of efforts we'll need. This group looks to me to have all the prerequisites to play 40 mins of aggressive Uconn defense. While we're on the topic, if we mean the skilled sort of athleticism (which usually points toward offense), our core group is supremely skilled -- Paige Azzi Aaliyah Caroline Nika Aubrey -- and we have reason to believe that several of the untested have excellent skills as well, Ice KK Ashlynn Q and Jana. And if we mean the mental sort of athleticism, mental toughness, it's hard to imagine anyone more skilled in this department than Paige Azzi Caroline, with Nika Aaliyah and Aubrey close behind them. These girls all know what winning, and toughing out a win, looks like. We'll have to see how the others develop in this regard. Just thinking of Azzi under this last heading: last season what we saw before her injury was the supreme 4th quarter player -- and we saw flashes of this same profile the previous season in the games against Villanova (the loss), Marquette, Tennessee, to use a few examples. Last season against Texas, NC St, and Iowa, what we all saw was a series of so-so shooting performances in the first half of games, followed by eruptions of scoring in the second half. Opponents would shape their defense to cope with the eruption when it would come, but there was no dealing with it. After her injury, opposing teams played warily around her for fear that she'd find her range. Unfortunately, she only really found it in the Baylor game, when she outscored the entire Baylor team in the third quarter, effectively putting the game out of reach. That Paige and Azzi -- if that's who we see come November -- with Caroline and Aaliyah filling up the gaps and Aubrey disrupting opposing teams, and Nika organizing the whole thing, that team will be very hard to cope with for any opponents. [/QUOTE]

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