ND Postgame Thread

[Boreifs]

#FreeDeberry today was if any day has been the biggest sign she needs to play man

Check out the defensive end. Ebo manhandled her. She is still a talented project whose light has not yet come on.

 

[Jumpy Radar]

This week, I posted a comment warning the forum to beware of Notre Dame because of their talent & motivation. I couldn't believe that I received a dozen "dislikes", more than the total I have received the past three seasons!
I wanted to say, "I told you so", but I honestly feel that Azzi's injury prevented UCONN from proving me wrong. Can you imagine Notre Dame playing this game without Olivia Miles??

That is why I reserved my comments this year until;l after our first rivalry game (Notre Dame). Yes, we are short-handed so I don't believe anyone expected that we could go undefeated. But this type of game exposes weaknesses as someone mentioned in an earlier post, and that's good because we have a lot to work on as a team. Although we did lose quite convincingly, I am still proud of the ladies and what effort they could muster.

Olivia Miles was awesome today. The only player on our team (and this is my opinion) that I believe could have matched her confidence and aggression is out for the season (P. Buckets). With all this said, I truly believe that we will be one of the 4-5 teams, in the end, vying for the chip. Go Huskies!

 

[oldhusky]

Outrebounded badly is very disappointing. Clearly Notre Dame's defensive game plan to give Aubrey perimeter shots worked like a charm, probably better than they expected. With Azzi out, that meant Caroline needed to be that perimeter threat instead and she wasn't. Lou did her part when it was needed, but scoring for most was hard to come by.

Also disappointed we couldn't affect Miles much. Nika put in the effort, but Miles was able to do much of what she wanted to. Now we have to wait and see if the injury report is worse than the game. With Dorka and Azzi out we are vulnerable probably to any team in the top 50 or so. Not saying underdog, but if we play poorly games we could lose, with little margin for error. Games that if healthy would be a gimme, but now could be up for grabs. We could use some good news on the health front in the worst way.

 

[Bama fan]

Notre Dame had more fouls, more turnovers, but way more rebounds. Tough loss, hope Azzi is okay. Amari with two games as a contributor.

 

[jaydee602]

As a UCONN fan, I despise Notre Dame. But I have great respect for Coach Ivey. She wins & loses with class unlike her predecessor, and she is a teacher of players. They feed off her competitive passion.
That being said, I can't wait to play ND again to exact revenge on them.

 

[wingsfan055]

Thank God we got Lou in the portal. She played 40 minutes. She put in 21 points today & was not afraid of the physical play. She took plenty of hits.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Azzi played 13 minutes and had zero points. The defense was in her shorts. Having her out made the ND defense adjust.

Kudos to Lou for finding some spots to shoot from.

Azzi is not aggressive enough, It just doesn’t seam to be her nature. The ND guard wanted to crush UConn’s will, and she pretty much did. Azzi needs to get a killer instinct.

 

[UConnCat]

The rebounding difference was in defensive rebounds and that was because Notre Dame didn't miss many shots and UConn did. The offensive board numbers were about even.

 

[Kaizen]

With no Azzi, no Dorka and limit Caroline playing, I give credits to the rest of the team to play this game until the end.

Anyone knows why Caroline played only 13 mins? Is she not fully recovered yet?

 

[uconnfan68]

Poor Princeton. At least Carla will understand.

Let’s see who shows up first. I didn’t recognize some of them today.

 

[Dezoworld]

Nika with only 5 assists, Edwards with only 5 rebounds. Sometimes, size matters.

I thought Geno should of tried Armari a little earlier because we was getting out rebounded and getting torched in the paint. Hopefully he realizes he should start recruiting more bigs. 3 bigs 6'4 and up I suggest

 

[UConnCat]

Anyone knows why Caroline played only 13 mins? Is she not fully recovered yet?

She looked off from the moment she stepped on the court. Whether it's the neck or recovering from the surgery she still isn't right.

 

[uconnfan68]

Anyone knows why Caroline played only 13 mins? Is she not fully recovered yet?

Other than poor play and no hustle?

 

[Redux]

When UCONN got the game to single digits, a feww AZZI baskets could have turned the tide.

That lost possession after the technical foul shots was I think where she was most missed, the most important moment of the game to me. That had been the only stretch where UConn had ND back on their heel, but immediately it was back to ND being in charge. Even with the turnover, a couple of baskets by Azzi could have kept our momentum. Instead ...

 

[CTtoSanDiego]

Anyone knows why Caroline played only 13 mins? Is she not fully recovered yet?

I hope it's because she was TOTALLY ineffective and not because she has lingering injury issues....

 

[PAHuskeyFan]

Sorry Guys... 5 Mike"s Mango didnt get it done. I thought it was happening in the 3rd... but no go. Now I am buzzed AND bummed.

I love these Huskies.

 

[darrell]

Good news regarding Azzi.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Anyone knows why Caroline played only 13 mins? Is she not fully recovered yet?

Again, Caroline is really out of shape and has a lot of work to do in the gym to get back in shape before she will provide any meaningful help for this team. Just was her she is really struggling to get up and down the court. She just needs to put the work in to get into game shape.

 

[fomalhaut]

Bad day for ranked teams, as Maryland, Creighton, and Marquette have also lost so far. Louisville is down late in the first half. I guess Virginia Tech over Tennessee isn't an upset, as VT is ranked and Tennessee is not. Usually Connecticut can avoid the upset bug on days like today, but not this time. Also broke a decent winning streak in Jimmy V games.

Another odd thing which I don't think is normal: the telecast was running several minutes behind real time: when I checked the ESPN box score when it went to commercial, with Connecticut ahead 11-9 on the telecast, Notre Dame was ahead something like 18-13. Before the halftime show ended on ABC, they were at about 8:30 of the 3rd quarter in reality after Connecticut made a small run.

 

[Blond D.]

LOL.,,.How about when Aubrey went up to block a shot & annihilated the shooter because of a pump fake. It's part of the game with two ultimate competitive teams.

If you watch the replay, the ND player had lost the ball and run underneath Aubrey. There was no place for Aubrey to come down. Not saying it wasnt a foul but not all Aubrey's fault.

 

[Florida Fan]

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.

 

[UConnCat]

 

[Huskie02]

Absolutely - Tip my hat to Coach Ivey and to the Notre Dame team. They played better than us today. Nothing more to say other than let's pray that Azzi's injury isn't that serious and let's get ready for Princeton.

Didn’t realize ND was so big not only

Pretty easy to diagnose. ND controlled the paint on both ends. UConn outrebounded 39-26. Everything looked easy for ND, hard for us. Losing Fudd hurt, but to be honest, probably would not have made this a win. Uconn/Fudd was playing poorly when she got hurt. AG/CD a combined 1-15, 5 personal fouls, 4 turnovers, 1 assist. Ugh.. They couldnt compete with ND's size, physical play, and aggressiveness. The others played as well as they could. Ugly loss that exposed our Achilles heel - lack of size & post play. Dorka will help hopefully when she gets back.

 

[TCC Kid]

If you watch the replay, the ND player had lost the ball and run underneath Aubrey. There was no place for Aubrey to come down. Not saying it wasnt a foul but not all Aubrey's fault.

A foul is a foul if the refs call it, Aubrey could be wearing a halo and it's still foul.

 

[jaydee602]

Azzi played 13 minutes and had zero points. The defense was in her shorts. Having her out made the ND defense adjust.

Kudos to Lou for finding some spots to shoot from.

Nan, do you really think ND could have held Azzi down for forty minutes? She has started slowly before, but usually finds her groove. And the defenders would have exerted more energy trying to limit her shots.