Today was a perfect storm for our team,
1) obviously, Azzi getting hurt was a big difference, and please don't tell me that prior to her getting hurt that she did nothing, the game is played in forty minutes, it's not like ND was the first team to limit Azzi's scoring early in a game.. We have all seen her come back in the 2nd half and torch other teams..
2) Anytime the refs allow the game to be played as physically as they allowed today UConn will have to be shooting well to overcome that. our offense and defense are more effective when the game isn't physical, Nika and Ayanna are the only natural, aggressive players on this team defensively, and Aubrey sorry.. Only Lou is aggressive on offense.
3) Geno got outcoached today, for the life of me why was Geno okay with AE not hedging hard on the screens at the top early on, her dropping back to stay connected with the bigs allowed their guards to attack the rim and shoot uncontested shots to keep ND in the game early on, their team was bigger and stronger, which means they should also be slower, so rotate defense and use your quickness to steal the ball, not get caught behind their bigs and be overpowered..
4) Amari's 6-5 could have helped us today, she was not hesitant being left alone and made 2) 3's whereas others on our team other than Lou were hesitant..
With all of that said, this is only one game, but as history has shown us, this is exactly the type of game that has stopped us from getting #12, we cannot play soft when the game is allowed to be physical by the ref's No one other than us Uconn fans will feel sorry for us, be the aggressor from the get go, use pump fakes more often, draw contact and force the ref's to call fouls on teams who play that aggressive against us.. Azzi has to learn from Paige how to be dramatic in letting the ref's see that she is being manhandled when trying to come off screens.. No one on our team has mastered drawing fouls for a good few years now, we are always seeking to get clean looks, let's learn to put teams in foul trouble every once in a while, please....