Parallels to 1997

[FridaFriend]

The 1996-97 Tennessee team defeated:
#12 Kansas
#14 Notre Dame
#11 Texas Tech
#13 Texas
#4 Alabama
#15 Vanderbilt
#9 LSU

They lost to:
#11 Louisiana Tech
#5 Georgia
#1 Stanford
#22 Arkansas
#1 UCONN
#2 Old Dominion
#19 Florida
#12 LSU
#6 Louisiana Tech
Unranked Auburn in the SEC tournament

And during the regional final against UCONN, the announcers pointed out that every member of the team had been out with an injury for at least one game during the season.

 

[UcMiami]

Worth noting, Tennessee in 1997 played an insane schedule that was probably the toughest schedule of all time. 29 of their 39 games were against NCAA tournament teams, and 15 of their 39 games were against teams that made the Final Four or were top 3 seeds. I could see UCONN losing potentially 5-7 games before the NCAA tournament, but 10 would surprise me. As long as the Huskies get a top 4 seed, they'll be in a favorable spot to get back to the Final Four, as they'd host the first 2 rounds and then host regionals in Bridgeport.

Yeah, it was the days when the SEC had a lot of ranked teams so the conference regular season was loaded - not unlike the BE in circa 2010

 

[boontonbomber]

Check out the 2015-16 team - 9 players getting meaningful minutes because he had 9 players he could trust. He has done it when he has had the horses, he just doesn't have the horses most years. (And this is true for a lot of coaches as well - good coaches don't throw unprepared players onto the court and hope for the best.)

Yes, of course, best 1-9 in team history. So, he has 5 who had starts last year, Aubrey, who he's anxious to have return; Dorka, who he certainly has trusted this year; and 2 freshmen, who he seems to be comfortable with. Why not play them? At least in league games. If for no other reason, I would think that they could apply greater defensive pressure, by keeping fresher legs on the floor. Admittedly, not many great defenders in the group, but if they want to win championships, they better get better. I think most importantly, if he can get to trust more players, it will really cut down on the wear and tear, especially for Evina. If anything happens to her, that's it.

 

[hoophuskee]

? Perhaps I am misinterpreting you. I’m reporting on Auriemma himself viewing the 1997 response as an emotional collapse over what happened to Ralph. Whether it happened or not (it did), or whether it was justified or not is beside the point, that was how Auriemma viewed their response.

But perhaps your three points are just adding further weight to my conjecture? It is hard to tell.

I'm sorry I missed this before.

Adding - however I expect we're going to be up and down (still a pretty good team. Win some ugly etc). I was listening to some guy on youtube speak of how UCONN wasn't impressive vs UCLA. Among nearly everything else he said which I felt was wrong - this too - in terms of he was evaluating UCONN by measuring "how impressive" they were. Needless to say I feel he and whoever is part of their site have a bigtime bias against UCONN even though the guy suggested he was a UCONN fan. You were suggesting that this injury was a major blow as was Geno, right? I agree. They aren't trying to be "impressive" and they will have some continued "funks" along the way.

I think these injuries at once are near-term catastrophic. However through catastrophe you survive. Right now UCONN just needs to survive and slowly get others back (but expect soem "funks.".). Some think a few days or week etc and you should be fine. I think no way. There is less margin for error. The UCONN players are not pros and none of the active are superstars (at the moment). Just as we hear throughout our lives that all-star teams are flawed; this team in a lower-level way is an all-star team. For consistency purposes, a few weeks together playing a new way than before with such drastic change won't be so easy to adjust for non-pros with limited margin of error. You agree?