While Egypt is not a good measure of anything for these players, there were some things that were comforting from UConn's standpoint:
1) Azzi is finally looking like the player she has been hyped to be. Beautiful shooting stroke, good body control, excellent court awareness to know where her teammates are both on offense and defense, hard to disrupt her momentum when making a move on offense.....she just needs to develop a little more quickness of feet and better use of hands on defense. She is not going to be Nika on defense but if Azzi learns a few tricks from her, all the better.
2) Seeing more of Amari is nice. It is true that bigs take longer to develop but I like where she is starting from. Good body control and good court awareness. Solid skills, good hands and, it appears, more offensive repertory around the basket than Liv as a freshman. I don't think it will take as long as it did Liv to learn to play effectively in the low block. Despite the depth of the UConn team this year, I think she will finish the year in a better place than Liv did her freshman year. Part of the reason is the overmatched teams in the Big East - lots of playing time for the reserves.
3) Both are unselfish.
Wondering.....who is that shorter guard Johnson?.....some impressive 3pt shooting from her (though she missed a layup). Also, surprising how those Egyptian girls play - better than I expected - wonder where they learned to play the game.
As to who would be the roadblocks in UConn's path to the NC2022, most likely Stanford and South Carolina. For Stanford, it has less to do with adding Betts than their having finally succeeded after so many close tries to win the NC during that long drought. That should give them more confidence. Adding Betts & company reinforces that.
As for UConn, the only foreseeable element in the team's arsenal that may be lacking a little bit is overall team speed to turn them into a smothering full court pressure defense. Going to be a fun year following them.
