Some thoughts on the ND game:
- A big game on the biggest stage, ND in front of a packed house in South Bend along with a national tv audience. Geno acknowledged yesterday that he would learn a lot about his team by how they responded to this environment.
- The last time UConn won at Purcell was 2018 when freshman Christyn Williams went off for 28pts. Since that victory, not a single current Husky has played a game in South Bend.
- Clearly, the Huskies were not up to the challenge today. Miles was outstanding with her ability to attack the basket and run the offense, and the rest of the ND lineup chipped in.
- In the 2nd half, with Azzi out, UConn went with their best defensive 5, subbing Ayanna for Azzi, and that started to turn the tide somewhat.
- With that said, UConn struggled to score without Azzi on the court.
- I would love to believe that Amari could drop shots from the arc when it really matters. Time will tell.
- The good news is that it’s the first week of December. Plenty of time for UConn to fix things and get everyone healthy.
- Time to lick our wounds and get ready for Princeton.
MY take on the beatdown, and after watching many reuns of Irish defeats to us, I could see their relish at this debacle. However, that's no excuse to go after Nika, not unlike undercutting our bigs during one of their championship losses.
During this year's winning streak, Awbrey hasn't been called on to be our critical outside shooter. She's made a few, but her focus has been slashing to the rim, leading the fast break, and harassing their shooters. She has heard Geno's advice, to "do what you do well", and she has flourished at that. Today, we needed her make the intermediate jumper, or beat the outside defender and then complete the short jumper, because they were not letting her get to the rim, her specialty. We were left with Lou, as the main pure shooter, and it wasn't enough. ND has a lot of fire power, and with that big lead, they were ALL loose as geese.
Hoping Azzi is not critically injured. Go Huskies.
Not sure why Griffen continued to take all those outside shots, long after it proved not to be working. Surely you have something else you can run in lieu of that, anything. Even with your best long-range shooter sidelined. And then he sends Aubry to the bench, as though she had done something wrong, after which the comeback efforts immediately fizzles out.
Inexplicable. Especially coming just one game after he said they have been encouraging each player to find the one or two things that they do very well and focus on that.