Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="hoopsnloops32, post: 4575814, member: 3464"] Not sure you want Raven Johnson on Azzi- Azzi would be able to shoot over her and post her up. If UConn plays a predominately plays a line-up of Lou, Nika, Azzi, Dorka, and Aaliyah they lose imo. Beal shuts down Azzi, Johnson Shuts down Nika and Cooke stays on Lou. Then you're a relying on the front court to outscore South Carolina's which imo isn't going to happen. In this scenario Dawn forces Lou/Aaliyah/Dorka to initiate the offense. If I were Dawn the game plan would be to aggressively pressure the guards and force Aaliyah and Dorka to beat them down low by denying them the ball around the perimeter. That is slightly harder to do with Azzi back because 1) its an extra guard you have to face guard the whole time and 2) Unlike Nika she is an elite 3 level scorer with size so over denying and pressuring her could lead to some easy baskets. This should effectively win South Carolina the game though as they have the athleticism and bodies to effectively disrupt our offense. Another option Dawn has is having Boston guard Aaliyah and make Dorka have to beat Cardosa or Saxon from the perimeter and driving to the basket. Thats would I would do if I were Dawn and think it could be a nightmare for our offense. However, there are some tactical move Geno can make to force Dawn to make some adjustments herself - which she is excellent at making btw - but could change the game from last match up. 1- Play Aubrey over Nika and have Fudd run the offense. This gives UConn some interesting match up opportunties on both sides of the ball. South Carolina can either take their best defender off of Azzi and hope Cooke or Johnson can shut her down despite give up 3-4 inches. Or they put Cooke or Johnson on Aubrey who would be a big mismatch height and speed wise for them and hope we can't take advantage. OR they take Cooke or Johnson out and put Amihere on Aubrey which has its own trade offs on the other side of the floor. 2 - Press. South Carolina doesn't average very many turnovers but if UConn can bring their press back from the grave and keep South Carolina from setting up their offense or even playing half court defense at all that could be a big. They don't even need to necessarily turn South Carolina over a bunch- just throw their offense out of rhythm and disrupt what they want to. It also could force them to play a smaller line-up which could be advantageous due to the potential mismatches above. It would be interesting if we met again. For that to happen though Azzi would have to return to November/December form and Aaliyah and Lou to January form and those are a LOT of ifs. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,453

Messages: 4,396,846

Members: 10,208

Latest member: gemini*trvl