1. No PG for UC.... Nonsense! Bria Hartley while a natural 2 can play the point as good as anyone; Doty was recruited by UConn to play the point; Tiffany has played significant minutes at the point and has done very well at the position. KML can also take some of the point guard duties... While not in the elite category at all both Brianna Banks and Laura Engeln have played point in high school. What we have in UConn is a cadre of gifted guards who can play the point guard position by committee. By the way who leads in the assists to basket ratio? Who leads in assists to turnover ratio?
2. No Post toughness or Post presents. The word is actually "presence"...and as far as post presence is concerned both Dolson and Kiah are capable of shutting down Peters and Achonowa. Achonowa is all that anyway. UConn is ranked 6th nationally in rebounding. And, when UConn played ND on their home court the rebounding was 43 rebounds for each team. I hardly see any advantage here. Peters suffers from the same problem Dolson does...staying out of foul trouble. Peters wears her emotions on her sleeve and it doesn't always suit her and remember she is playing in the House that the Huskies built so don't expect the referees to give her the benefit of the doubt. Finally, as far as toughness goes I call BS Dolson has proven that she can respond when she has been called out...she turned her season around last year and she was only a freshman. I wouldn't be surprised to see Dolson have a great game tonight. By the way, I really am not that impressed with ND's post presence.
3. Poor team defense.......Cannot keep their man in front of them. More nonsense...team defense is fantastic! As of February 7, the Huskies (21-2, 9-1 Big East) lead the nation in scoring defense (44.6) and field goal percentage defense (.300), which would account for team single-season records if the season ended today. They would also tie the Division I record in field goal percentage, which they set during the undefeated season of 2009-10. As far as one on one defense is concerned sure now and then they get beat by their man but so does everyone else...it is the team defense that matters...that is and always has been UConn's formula for success. UConn, who is ranked sixth nationally with a plus-12.7 rebounding advantage, has held 13 opponents to their lowest scoring output of the season.
4. Cannot stop the dribble drive and ND will expose them over and over They have had problems stopping the dribble drive when the opposing team initiates contact and gets the refs to call the blocking foul when many times it should have been called a charge. When UConn is allowed to play their defense they are able to stop dribble penetration well enough to hold opposition to less than 45 points. The problem is Notre Dame will need to stop UConn from scoring 76 to 80 points. This is a task that gets more difficult when you are getting called for reach-in fouls and behind the back pokes that actually hit more body than ball. I think it will be ND who will be exposed in this game and it will be ND who will be scurring for adjustments come Big East Tournament and NCAAs.
5. Poor spacing on offense that causes poor passing and no open Passing lanes. More nonsense, this team has been by and large a good passing team...they are young and they do play 3 freshmen so some mistakes have been made and unfortunately at the worse times...the KML turnover at the top of the key in the last ND game comes to mind. However, when a team has 579 assists on 845 made baskets for 68.5 percent of its baskets are off of assists...I wouldn't call this team a poor passing team. Turnovers have been a problem...and this is being addressed in a big way.
6 ND is too physical and they will force 20 turnovers Min. This may be true...but don't expect ND to be able to get away with the same level of physicality it gets away with in South Bend in Hartford tonight. How many turnovers will ND have? To date for 2012 they average 16.8 turnovers per game and when they played UConn on their own court they had 20 turnovers themselves. On the other hand, UConn averages only 14.6 turnovers per game... While Notre Dame was able to force 27 turnovers during their meeting with UConn at South Bend don't expect that to replay out in Hartford...I expect the law of averages will favor UConn here.
7. Bria has lost her confidence and misses too many open J's Bria is a shooter with a shooters mentality...she like all players have bad games...she has not lost her confidence...she will shoot he way out like all good players do. Bria is a big game type of player...let's see now what did Hartley do against ND on their home court...hmmm, let me see now...oh yeah...that would be 25 points, 6 assists, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block. No it isn't UConn fans who have to worry about Hartley...it is ND fans who should be worried.
8. KML is still a freshmen and is prone to mistakes to cover up for the other poor guard play. True, but she is one heck of a freshmen, she will be the BE freshman of the year and she is in the running for the national freshman of the year and she is getting better all the time... How much do you want to bet that she has a better game than her last outing in South Bend? Let me help you decide she scored 7 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 6 turnovers. She will play much better this time around and that doesn't bode well for ND.
9. Too many players playing out of position. Geno is right when he said players do not know how to play BB from a court management and skills and missing BB IQ.......Too many AAU games with poor fundamentals and no coaching. You are comparing apples and oranges when you are using Geno's comment about AAU games and poor fundamentals with his current group of UConn players. First of all these players have been playing in the UConn system for years now and the freshman have been playing in the UConn system since August. The post season is here and they are not freshman anymore... Secondly, Geno recruits kids who can play basketball, they can play defense, they can score. Sure it is an adjustment to go from high school to college division I but these kids have been put through the paces, they have been baptized by fire and now they are expected to perform. Geno was making a general broad based comment regarding the difference to old school players and modern day recruits who were brought up in the summer AAU system which by the way is the same system that the current kids from Notre Dame were brought up in as well. By the way, KML has an exceptionally high BB IQ...Geno has said so on a few occasions.
10. College coaches are now left to start remedial BB....... Nothing to do with how this game is going to conclude. Both Muffin and Geno have had the same set of variable with regards to teaching remedial BB to their players. Neither one of them has an advantage here.
Notre Dame's advantage is Skylar Diggins and Novesel...they are the real deal...but, they can be contained. They also have an advantage in that their team is older with 4 seniors, two of which are 5th year seniors... UConn is very young with only one senior...but like I said earlier at this time of the year there are no freshman. I fully expect UConn to win by double digits tonight.