You know - this is the second year we have faced Q and Syracuse, it is the second year coach Q has been effusive in praise of Geno and the Uconn program both pre and post game, and that Geno has been pretty complementary about coach Q and Syracuse. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for us fans to be a little gracious in victory and cut him some slack. And he has been the opposite of quite a few coaching in never once supporting the idea that Uconn is bad - his answer this year was particularly telling. He said, he would not be having to sit in his pre-game presser and answer questions for 30 minutes if they were playing any other team in the tournament and that was good for basketball and for Syracuse.
I didn't see anything in the game that suggested Syracuse was being overly physical or playing a dirty game while they were getting their doors blown off. There was no submarining of jumpers and the hands to the face were what looked to me to be the standard 'stuff happens' in games. While Kia went off in the first half, after half-time she got very few shots in the second half and had to bank the one she made in - we have played a lot of coaches who haven't been able to make changes in their defense through the whole game - I thought Syracuse made adjustments in the first half (Kia once she got in rhythm made some pretty well contested shots and some pretty deep threes too.) I thought they didn't extend the game unnecessarily and they took their whipping in a stand-up way. Syracuse has never been the evil empire, and the on court issues we had are almost a decade ago.
[And no, the shot Lou took was no where near a flagrant foul - neither of the Day sisters is that smooth with their movements and are very lanky - it was an attempt to block Lou's shot, but the way Lou extended put her face between the defender and the release point and she got hit not by an elbow but by a forearm. And while it was not I am sure pleasant for Lou, it wasn't either particularly dangerous or malicious in any way.]
