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Message: [QUOTE="TheFarmFan, post: 3252925, member: 9403"] [ATTACH type="full" alt="45858"]45858[/ATTACH] The 2015-16 statistics don't exactly suggest that KLS, Williams or Collier were unproven - just underutilized. Their stat lines were pretty dang impressive for being options #4-7. And Nurse actually had the worst FG% of the bunch. And the even utilization rates aren't that different - those four scored 4 fewer points per game in the preceding season than Dangerfield, Walker, Williams, and ONO did. I agree that they had bigger shoes to fill than the 2019-20 crew does, but I would remind again that you need to compare to the competition, and I will maintain UConn was indisputably among the three best teams going into the 2016-17 season, whereas I am not even sure UConn is among the top 4 best teams this coming season. There are so many more new pieces to this team, they don't have the confidence of a team that's won 4 straight championships, and Baylor and Oregon seem to be a step function better positioned to make a title run from day one than any other team. That doesn't mean the UConn pieces won't all fit together (especially if Westbrook is cleared for play). Another way to put it: if you ran 100 simulations of the 2016-17 season, I think UConn wins the national championship in at least 40 of them, and probably closer to 50. The Morgan William clutch shot was beyond fluky, and UConn had already beaten SCar by 10 earlier in the season. I'm not sure I'd give UConn more than 30 out of 100 right now even if I were being generous, with so many open questions about Westbrook, new faces, etc. And with Ionescu returning for a final season when she probably would have been the #1 WNBA draft option, you have to think she will do everything in her power to win a championship. I'm not sure I sense the same kind of hunger from this UConn team, though it'll be interesting to see what emerges. I have much higher expectations from UConn for 2020-2021. This season feels to me more like a transition to the next championship-caliber era. [/QUOTE]

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