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Message: [QUOTE="DogMania, post: 5096686, member: 21"] I really enjoyed reading all the great observations and analysis. No need for me to rehash many of the individual performances which were well described. Samson definitely struggled on the defense end. Found himself pushed to far under the basket, and far too often out of rebounding position when trying to contest or block shots. Now I don't think he needs to rack up a lot of rebounds, but like last season's bigs, whoever is at the 5 and 4 just needs to block out and let the 3s, 2s and 1s come in and clean up the defensive glass. Last season Newton, Cam, Castle and even Diarra would swoop down on snatch their share of rebounds. (Hum...I wonder if it's worth the staff digging up some tape on Dennis Rodman for Sampson to study to improve his D and rebounding. Their probably around the same size and level of athleticism.) UConn is not going to be an eye popping big's rebounding team, but we need Samson, Reed and whoever is playing the 4 to keep the other teams bigs from collapsing the pocket around the basket to keep our team rebounding from giving up many second chance opportunities. The other observation was I'd like to see them maintain their motion offense longer. They seemed to bail out a tad early with players trying to take their man off the dribble and/or drive into traffic a tad too soon with a lot of time on the shot clock. Most of the roster are new to their roles, and some new to the system, so it will take time, which is completely understandable. It's so early in the season, and team oriented stuff (multi-action motion offense, team defense/rebounding) will simple improve as the season goes on, where they will be a title contender by the end of the BE regular season, if not sooner. IIt's great to be a Husky fan. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach