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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5108875, member: 12088"] That’s a heckuva lot of stats. My head’s still spinning. I wonder how much of the difference you’ve highlighted comes from Coach Gottlieb’s inexperience or her choices. She took over a floundering program and seems to have successfully rebuilt it through effective recruitment. USC is now considered a title contender. But she did it by building a game plan around her major recruit. This makes sense in the abstract. But it seems to have entailed relying more on what Juju brought to the program than on developing the areas where her 18 year old self was weak. I don’t blame Coach Gottlieb for this. She may not have had a lot of better choices. But it is also easier to recruit kids if you can assure them they are already stars rather than telling them they have a lot to learn. Geno talks about this often, how it’s easy to find kids who already know how to score, but a lot harder to find ones who are willing to learn what they aren’t already great at. This typically involves learning to play team defense. In interviews after she announced her commitment, Sarah remarked that Geno and CD told her what she still needed to learn. This is apparently what sold her on UConn. I have a feeling Coach Gottlieb did not approach Juju in the same way. In Coach Gottlieb’s defense, I saw a report that Juju had a procedure to address an injury to her right hand and has spent the summer working on using her left hand and going to her left. This was part of the scout on her, that she mainly likes to go to her right. We may see a new and improved Juju this season. And perhaps this indicates a new phase in Gottlieb’s efforts to build USC into a perennial contender. It also leaves me wondering if her pitch to new recruits has evolved in the meantime. Paige was a significant talent in high school and, like so many before her, she chose the harder path, to come to Storrs and develop herself. She chose to be part of something bigger than herself and, as a result, she became the bulwark of a great program, not just a star on an uneven team. Sarah made a similar choice, as did Azzi. They focused on what they could become and how they could contribute rather than on what they already were. I don’t really know what Gottlieb offered or what Juju wanted. The pitch may have been something like “help me build a program.” Or it may have been “Let me build a team around you.” I suspect it was more the latter than what Geno seems to say: “You have so much to learn.” Is Paige a better player than Juju? In the abstract, maybe not. But in context she definitely is. She’s a better defender and passer, and a more versatile scorer, and even appears to be better in the clutch. She’s all those things on a team that demands more things from her. Could Sarah become the better player, too, even better than Juju? The same answer might well apply. She is already a great talent. On the other hand, Juju is also a great talent and it’s wise not to underestimate such people. [/QUOTE]

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