Necessary or Sufficient Conditions for Starting

[diggerfoot]

I enjoyed the Adamec piece on Butler, noting as well that it lends itself to that frequent debate about who starts. I have yet to detect any rule that suffices for a necessary and/or condition for starting. Enough freshman have started to rule out the condition of upperclassmen/greater experience, while the five best have not always started if one of them was a freshmen such as Sales, Ralph, Taurasi, etc.

The rule of who works hardest in practice has been suggested, yet despite Auriemma's short memory Dolson was not noted for being one of the hardest workers her freshmen year, Though a starter. That does lead me to what I think are two semi-rules that nevertheless have been broken. For positions 2-4, the most interchangeable, experience weighs heavily. All the superstar freshmen who did not start were slotted in these positions. For positions 1 and 5, the most specialized in the UConn system, Auriemma seems to favor grooming players for those positions even at the expense of overall experience or talent. Though even these two rules do not prove to be necessary or sufficient, broken at the least by Cash.

Still, my entry into "who starts" for the beginning of next year, based on these rules, would be the specialized Jefferson and Butler being groomed at the 1 and 5, while the 2-4 will be filled by the experienced Stewart, Nurse and Tuck. As the season progresses these rules become even more breakable, but that's how I think it will start out.

 

[msf22b]

Reasonable Digger
But you're leaving a whole lot of scoring prowess on the bench
And your starting group seems a bit thin from the 3-point line.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Not sure that the three will be thin, though obviously KML's departure takes away an irreplaceable type of scoring for UConn. But each year is a new year, and likely UConn will return to historic norms for threes rather than shoot the huge number they have taken with KML in the lineup. As to who will shoot the 750 or so 3-pt attempts next year, the Huskies have two guards in MoJeff and Nurse who have been knocking them down at 50.5% and 41.5%, though this year they have deferred somewhat to the greatest shooter of all time. Stewie could go back to making the 3s a more major part of her game to draw defenders outside, and she would likely do better with more attempts than the 31.5% she hits this year. Tuck seemed a bricklayer for the first half of the season outside, but then she had a stretch where you couldn't leave her alone out there. In addition, the reserves have gotten about a third of UConn's minutes this year, and Chong and Ekmark will pick up part of the load and freshman KLS likes to live out there and shoots a nice percentage.

As to who gets to start, sure sometimes to especially need to give a young PG some experience, and sometimes you need a big body at center, and a freshman is the best option as a work in progress that like Tina may pay huge dividends down the road.

 

[CocoHusky]

The one, perhaps only, uncompromising criteria for being a UCONN starter is the ability to defend your position. UCONN has been blessed with enough good offensive players and a system that scoring is hardly ever an issue.