Notre Defense

[Woof 101]

I have seen every excuse, reason and lame story of why we lost last night. What ever happened to the UConn fan so many across the country considered smart fans?

These are all facts but can anyone on this board give another team credit for winning rather than make excuses for why we lost? Muffy does not just have a great guard tandem but she has her team playing fantastic defense!

The turnovers and low scoring percentage are not just due to a bad day...It is not over, we may get another shot at them for the big one. For now they have the spoils for this season and should be recognized for this.

 

[The Don]

I find myself agreeing with all you have said. Much as I was disappointed with the outcome, I feel calm about the whole situation. Stewie is getting better and better after her prolonged slump. KML had a poor shooting night that likely will not happen again. Bria continues to make slow steady progress. We were able to come back from a 12 point deficit and take a lead before succumbing. All the games we lost were agonizingly close. I like our chances should we meet them again

 

[Icebear]

Credit does go to the ND defense but saying that is a dead end when trying to solve how one changes the outcome. Some are things you cannot impact, some you can minimally impact, other things you can address and hopefully use to alter the outcome. All have been present in each of the UConn-ND games. The challenge is to sort them out a to put your energy towards the ones that can bear the most fruit. Officiating is largely a dead end and can only be impacts minimally, mostly between games and by campaigning carefully by a sideline coach even to getting T'd up. If you are going to address it, you do so at your own risk. You just need to overcome the officiating. It can be useful to watch film to see if there is anything you are doing differently than your opponent or things that lead to miscalls to minimize them but beyond that let it go.

Hiding your weaknesses and vulnerabilities is a limited technique that can only mask your weaknesses for so long. In a long season or when playing an opponent who knows you well these often get revealed and you become more vulnerable to being exploited. Muffet has played us many times and knows all of UConn's tendencies and the limits of our personnel.

Understanding a opponent's defense or offense and what they are doing and understanding and teaching techniques to counter it is on the other hand a much more promising approach and understanding what you can do to them offensively and defensively exploiting the opponents tendencies and vulnerabilities is better yet. Somethings will not be helpful because you do not have the right personnel for such an approach. Others can bear fruit. Geno's changing to the trapping defense against ND is an example of an adjustment that bore fruit.

The goal is to prepare for how the opponent will attempt to exploit your weaknesses and either hide it or block it. At the opposite end of the court you and they attempt to the reverse.

 

[trisailin]

Basketball (as are most sports other than the raw strength/endurance competitions) is all about creating and preventing mismatches. On offense, you try to create a mismatch - in time (you get to the spot before they do), in space (they are over there, you are over here), in size (tall player against shorter), in speed (faster vs. slower), or in any number of other possible combinations. On defense, it's all about minimizing first any mismatch created and secondly minimizing the damage that can be done once a mismatch is created.
In all four of our losses, what I saw is that some of the time, UCONN figured it out and some of the time, they didn't. The very fortunate thing is UCONN DOES have the personnel to be able to create and prevent those mismatches and in each of the games, (any) SINGLE correction would/could have resulted in a different outcome.

- on edit - ok - Baylor would have taken more than a single correction.

 

[Icebear]

Basketball (as are most sports other than the raw strength/endurance competitions) is all about creating and preventing mismatches. On offense, you try to create a mismatch - in time (you get to the spot before they do), in space (they are over there, you are over here), in size (tall player against shorter), in speed (faster vs. slower), or in any number of other possible combinations. On defense, it's all about minimizing first any mismatch created and secondly minimizing the damage that can be done once a mismatch is created.
In all four of our losses, what I saw is that some of the time, UCONN figured it out and some of the time, they didn't. The very fortunate thing is UCONN DOES have the personnel to be able to create and prevent those mismatches and in each of the games, (any) SINGLE correction would/could have resulted in a different outcome.

- on edit - ok - Baylor would have taken more than a single correction.

Well said.