Aaliyah deserved to get yelled at. She basically allowed an Arkansas player an uncontested layup because she had 4 fouls. Geno was yelling at her to at least get her hands up.
and the most important part of all of that "learning" must come from the highly paid foursome on that bench. you make it sound like the learning should be self-guided. and most of that learning must come in practice, not during games. when was the last time UConn had a really strong defensive team? who is mainly to blame for that? they won with Stewart because she was a one-person bail-out option. they will never win another title unless the coaches do something about the defense.
IDK.... I haven't been to a UCONN practice lately. I'm pretty sure that "highly paid threesome" is still running the same defensive shell drills that were being taught to the Stewie teams. Learning is this case is not self-guided but at some point "individual" defensive pride, accountability and growth has got to kick in. I'm putting this one squarely on the players. Two years ago when Geno commented about players not responding to coaching I suspect this was a part of what he was talking about.
You are right that one great player surrounded by the right players can make a dominant team. However, eventually they face a team that simply has too much talent and the great player just is not enough! This is what happened with Bird in the National Championship game. Magic cancelled Bird out and the rest of the team simply could not match up.
We played some of the 3rd and 4th quarter without a post player. Did Dorka see the 4th quarterr? But hey it's first game for everyone including coaches.
Or..., the opposition plays that individual very physically within the rules (?) and basically mugs them.
Paige is 20 years old and in tremendous shape. The idea that playing a lot of minutes will some how result in her being physically unable to continue is absolutely not true.
Your observation about beating the ball carrier to the spot is something my old coaches drilled into us. Only problem is a lot of refs don’t ascribe to that theory.
Yeah- just keep telling yourself that.
Guards are going to get beat sometimes but when they know they have a good shot defender or blocker it allows them to play up on the ball carrier. It’s thought when a team has really good three point shooters who can also penetrate.Pick your poison. Where is Stewie, Tina, etc
Injuries can happen anytime. Nika sprained her ankle twice last season. It had nothing to do with how many minutes she played last year. How about Aubrey and Saylor who were both injured in practice?
Regarding your first paragraph: Absolutely agree that the players need to step up and take pride in stopping their opponents, but I would assume that you would agree that at some point the coaches should be held accountable, also. Of course, you may think that they are doing all they can do already, based upon results from years gone by. I was close up yesterday, and heard little, if any, communication. To me that is definitely a coaching thing. Seems to me that they either recruit players who can become good defenders, or they figure out how to get those they have to play better defense. For sure, most players coming in these days have spent little time thinking about defense. I thought Geno's lament was a bit lame. We do see other teams playing pretty solid defense( Berube's teams, for example); there are coaches who somehow, SOMEHOW, are figuring out how to get players these days to pay attention to the other end of the floor.
I never heard Geno state he’d like to reduce Paige’s minutes. After the Arkansas game, in his postgame presser, I did hear him suggest that maybe he would play Paige 40 minutes every game.
I heard that from coach, also. And still don't really know what that means. There is one ball and one basket at each end. What will we be saying about South Carolina? Unorthodox or just really good? We were sloppy and didn't look like a team at all. Understandable at this point. Nothing matters now except getting better and grooming this team towards the Big Dance. We are in good hands.
They looked fabulous on a few offensive plays. They never looked fabulous on defense.
So when the Huskies were up 17-2 at the start of the game, or when the started the second half on a 10-2 run, you don’t think defense had anything to do with it?
RIght after he said that maybe he would play Paige for 40 minutes, he immediately said that was not what he wanted, and he did it only out of necessity. He still hoped and expected that there is enough talent on the team that it won't be necessary for Paige to play that much.
How many championships do you have?
There isn't one solution for the entire team because every player responds differently to different stimuli. One player may well respond better to a carrot, but another might not respect you unless you use a 'stick'. I'll trust Geno to know who responds to what, and how to get the best out of them because he has spent time one-on-one with them, sees them every day, knows their personalities, and is a coach who seems to have had phenomenal success developing young women into some of the most professional and skilled players and people to come out of the college sports system. Also, I have no doubt that Geno appreciates each and every player on his team. If he sometimes screams at them courtside during a game, so be it. If they can't handle it, they are in the wrong place. If the players can't handle Geno's way of doing things, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have committed to UConn to begin with. It's no secret how he coaches. There are no participation trophies handed out in April and I'm pretty sure no player on any of Geno's teams has ever in their lifetime had one of those on their mantle.
Oh brother.
Right on. It's like they didn't have the maturity to maintain their defense after AR called a time out to stop the bleeding.