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Message: [QUOTE="Alydar, post: 5266079, member: 730"] My thought too. I'll say that Strong was the key to both wins in the FF and for the win at SCar in Feb. Not due to her great scoring but with her rebounding. In the 1st period of the 1st SCar game. She had 6 defensive rebounds while SCar had 6 offensive boards in the entire game to Sara's 15 drbs. SCar's offense (79pts/game) lived off 2nd chance pts and pts off To's. Strong took away the 1st and UConn's low TO rate took away the 2nd. The Gamecocks' 79pt offense got 58 & 59 in the 2 games largely because SCar's front court was physically dominated by a freshman and I think it damaged their confidence going into the 2nd game, where Strong did it to them again. Staley and most fans pointed to UConn's thirteen 3pters as the key in Feb. and SCar worked between the 2 games to stop those and did a great job at it in the final. But UConn's 3 stars can all score at 3 levels and by drawing SCar's defenders out to the arc there was a gap from 8-15 feet and UConn exploited it. [/QUOTE]