- Stanford played 5 players 6-2 or taller, 4 players were 6-3 or taller. They lost by 25.
- Cal played 5 players 6-2 or taller, 4 players were 6-3 or taller, including Wooden Award finalist (late season list) Kristine Anigwe. They lost by 35.
- ND's Jessica Shepard scored 10 points on 5-13 shooting in 36 minutes. But those fabulous guards kept ND in it to keep the margin of loss 9.
- Texas's vaunted scary frontline four scored 28 points among them and shot 12-26 and one person, Jatarie White, had 18 of those points, the other, um, not so much. Texas's guards had 43 points in the 4 point loss in Texas.
- South Carolina's All American A'ja Wilson shot 4-18 to score 14 points in a 25 point loss in South Carolina.
For all the stressing over opponents' heights, the huge teams haven't had a lot of success against UConn. Well, neither has anyone else but you get my drift. If a team relies on its bigs to lead them to victory, they could be out of luck unless they have fabulous guards that can challenge the Huskies (see ND and Texas). And it took them superwomen-type efforts to keep the loss under 10. Sure, UConn could lose but height isn't going to be the determining factor.
I think HuskyNans and a few others comments are very accurate and to the point. Bigs very rarely beat us unless they are of the quality of Griner. Even Wilson who so many think should be NPOY, couldn't come close to getting it done(and she's a very good big though hardly a great one).
It brings us to the philosophy about how one plays a strong inside, big presence. Yes a team helping defense on those bigs is very important but what caused the problems for SC was outside pressure on the guards making them unable to start their offense from their accustomed places. Pushing them further out and pressuring the guards works much better than collapsing and double and triple teaming. Interestingly enough this is what the current U Conn women's team is best able to do. In most cases this feeds right into who our team and players are. Quick cohesive strong pressure outside followed by our quickness to assist inside when the ball gets in there. This again disrupts the big teams offense and also takes time off their true control of the ball. It often makes them rushed in the shots they take. Actually this outside pressure (with the help of a big inside presence) is what MS brought against U Conn last year. They disrupted our offense and ball movement. I think it most negatively effected Pheesa and Kia. Pheasant had her worst game by far of the year because she was more pressured and then this led to her shots being off a bit and not falling in. If you let her and Kia do their things, generally watch out! Teams like ND generally do this better than teams with two bigs. In that game especially at the start but also on our last offensive possession pressure on the ball is what caused us problems and led to Saniya's poor choice of when and how to put up a shot, even when she was feet from the basket.
Yes it's wonderful to recruit and bring in some bigs, but except for a very few, out most successful bigs were very mobile, excellent passers with great movement and footwork. Stewie was so special because she had both being a big but quick as heck for that size.
I think once we lost to MS because they disrupted us and our style and game plan and we should have been disrupting them.
Bronx23
