I watched the highlights of the final of their conf tournament vs James Madison and they don't just shoot 3s. They took a lot of mid-range shots and looked very good. It seems like all their players can shoot 3 as well. It should be a good game to test Uconn's perimeter defense. It is hard to tell how fast they are.
I just watched those same highlights, following your lead. I agree it’s hard to say how fast Ark St actually are. But they definitely like to run and they are gunners. They were badly outplayed in the first half by JMU but came back with great energy in the second and won it in OT.
I was mainly looking to see what sort of
defense they play. It looks like a sagging zone alternating with a frenetic switching man defense. They do a full court trapping press some of the time. But they are vulnerable to transition buckets on the back end of it. This appears to be a team speed issue and leads them to back off the press. They gave up a lot of 3s in the halfcourt man defense even though they have a frantic rotation. And this despite the fact that JMU mainly didn’t use screens to force switches. They were able to create open 3s individually.
As for their
offense, for the most part JMU did not close out well on the perimeter, even though they got a couple of flashy blocks in the first half. This allowed for lots of 3s that were open enough.
Against UConn’s offense, I suspect their rotations will not be quick enough especially given our shooters. And there’s no way they are big or strong enough to keep Sarah or Jana off the offensive glass, and the high-low game will be impossible to stop. They are also not very good at stopping back door cuts.
Will UConn’s defense be able to close out effectively against their perimeter game? I think so, but they are sure to hit some of them. They have a good perimeter passing game, but I think Paige and Sarah will take that away. They have no high-low passing game or screening-cutting game. Their guards like to drive in from the wing. I suspect Kaitlyn Azzi KK and Ash will shut that down very effectively. This means the perimeter game won’t have the benefit of guards slashing to the rim to create perimeter openings.
Arkansas St was a defensive power in their conference, rather like Jackson St had been last year. And their offense benefited from this. But when they came up against UConn it was clear they weren’t prepared for defense and offense on that scale. I have a feeling Arkansas St will have a similar experience. Look for UConn to open a big first half lead, and Arkansas St to make a 4th quarter run powered by perimeter shooting that will fall short
