Replicant...your optimistic report if true...doesn't bode will for the opposition. I mean we have lost arguably the best woman player to ever wear a UConn uniform as well as her little side-kick Lorin. All of us know that we can not replace Maya...she was a unique player, a single player replacing her exact skill set is not realistic. However, UConn has always been known for its teamwork. Teamwork is exactly what will be needed this year for UConn to make a realistic run at a championship. Replacing Maya by committee is indeed possible, however, it requires a number of players stepping up. Bria and Stefanie were valuable contributors to last year's effort but given the fact that they were only freshmen, they were only just beginning to tap into their true potential. If what you say regarding their progress is true...many of us, me included will have to adjust our expectations for them as well as UConn as a team. When one sits down with a pencil and begins to assign numbers to the players based on their performance from last year and then you include the potential of the three freshmen coming in this season...it is hard to project anything but a high scoring team. This team will score a lot of points in a hurry. Geno will try to take his foot off the gas and he will insert the reserves but this years bench will be much better than last years nearly non-existent bench. It will be hard to keep the score down. Three point shooting will be impressive and as some have said it will make life easier for the slashers and post players. There will be many high scoring games...I think we will see something in the 86 point range fairly consistently. This is troublesome for the opposition because their game plan will include two things: 1. Trying to keep UConn under 80 points. 2. Trying to figure out how to score in the mid-eighties themselves (not too many teams will be able to do that against UConn). Additionally, if UConn is able to put a suffocating man to man defense on their opponents it could get ugly real quick for some teams. I believe that this year's team because of its improved depth will concentrate on using a very tough man to man defense. They will press often and for great lengths of time. This will be the first area that Geno will back off of when his team starts blowing another team out. He will back of the press and go to a half-court pick up your man and maybe even some zone in an effort to keep the score respectable... I suspect he will not have as much success in this area that he would like and despite his efforts to not run the score up....it will be unavoidable.
UConn returns from Last Year - 59.3 points; 29 rebounds
Tiffany Hayes - 13.7 points; 4.6 rebounds
*Stefanie Dolson - 13.6 points; 7.3 rebounds *her average for the last 16 games.
Bria Hartley - 12.4 points; 3.6 rebounds
Kelly Faris - 7.8 points: 6.7 rebounds
*Caroline Doty - 6.8 points; 2.5 rebounds *her average for the 2009 - 2010 season
Heather Buck - 2.0 points; 2.1 rebounds
Laura Engeln - 1.6 points; .7 rebounds
Michala Johnson - 1.3 points; 1.5 rebounds
If UConn is going to average 86 points a game, they will need to get 26.7 points and if UConn would like to match their 42.2 rebounds per game they will need to get 13.2 rebounds from a combination of their returning players and their three incoming freshmen.
If we conservatively assign rebounds and points to the incoming freshmen we can determine what we will need from our returning players.
Kaleena Mosqueda Lewis - 12 points and 4 rebounds
Brianna Banks - 7 points and 2 rebounds
Kia Stokes - 4 points and 5 rebounds
This brings our totals to: 82.3 points and 40 rebounds. Therefore in order to achieve 86 points a game and 42 rebounds a game we would only need 3.7 points and 2 rebounds from our returning players. I am pretty confident that between Bria, Stefanie, Tiffany and Kelly, that this task will be easily accomplished and probably exceeded.
