St John's Postgame Thread

[oldude]

1. Bruin fans, to the extent they exist, didn't grow accustomed to such an otherworldly standard over the past three decades. Also, I'm sure anyone with any connection to the Los Angeles area is right now greatly preoccupied with other events.
2. I'm not sure whether the official record will reflect this as a neutral court contest, but the game was relocated to Long Beach, over 30 miles away from UCLA.
3. Cori herself in the postgame interview expressed dissatisfaction with the performance.

All your points are correct. But you make my point as well, that UConn WBB fans are, shall we say, a little spoiled in their expectations?

 

[Zarathustra]

Very nice clarifying comments from Geno after about
the 16th minute of this Post Game Presser. EG... not
having to score 100 points, getting time for the "Subs"
and that, when he does that, it will LOOK "bad", and finally his short term and
long term thoughts on JANA.... If you did not watch the
whole "presser", try watching it and starting it at about minute 16.

 

[Plebe]

All your points are correct. But you make my point as well, that UConn WBB fans are, shall we say, a little spoiled in their expectations?

Meh, amazing success breeds high fan expectations. Not sure you can have the former without the latter, unless there were never any fans to begin with.

 

[ThisJustIn]

Appreciate the sarcasm, but she wasn't involved. 5 shots is not involved. Rebounds have nothing to do with offensive involvement either.

Nor do assists, I guess.

 

[oldude]

Meh, amazing success breeds high fan expectations. Not sure you can have the former without the latter, unless there were never any fans to begin with.

Before Geno arrived in Storrs, there weren’t any fans to speak of. So I guess this is all Geno’s fault…….

That includes UConn becoming the 1st WBB program in history to generate over $3 million in revenue.

 

[Jaml]

2. I'm not sure whether the official record will reflect this as a neutral court contest, but the game was relocated to Long Beach, over 30 miles away from UCLA.

Roughly the same distance from Storrs to Hartford.

 

[Plebe]

Roughly the same distance from Storrs to Hartford.

With the key difference being that UConn elects to regularly host home games in Hartford, whereas UCLA doesn't ordinarily play home games at Long Beach State.

Also, the traffic on the 405 renders even short distances excruciatingly distant.

 

[Plebe]

Before Geno arrived in Storrs, there weren’t any fans to speak of. So I guess this is all Geno’s fault…….

That includes UConn becoming the 1st WBB program in history to generate over $3 million in revenue.

"All his fault"? Not sure about the negative spin, but Geno himself has talked before about being in some ways a victim of his own success. There is surely a natural correlation among many variables: team success, program revenues, his own salary, and fan expectations are just a few.

Back to the last night's game. There were pluses and minuses to the performance overall, but at a "macro" level what stuck out to me was just the overall low energy throughout the portions of the game I watched. I did miss the first quarter and small portions of the fourth.

 

[HuskyNan]

Fans have been paying attention to Geno. For 40 years he has said that the score is irrelevant; the aim is to do things right.

TBF, that was before his realization that freshmen didn’t have to sit on the bench until their sophomore year. Caroline caused an epiphany - even the guys that have been nervous and tentative in their first few games can evolve quickly and provide valuable depth. KK and Ash most likely cemented the idea. Problem with freshmen, though, is that they’re notoriously inconsistent. We can see Jana and Morgan rounding into form but they still have their moments and maybe they, and other youngsters, aren’t as likely to provide the flawless games Geno used to aspire to.

He seems pretty chill about the unevenness of games this season. Guess he’s still developing too

 

[ERWUC65]

TBF, that was before his realization that freshmen didn’t have to sit on the bench until their sophomore year. Caroline caused an epiphany - even the guys that have been nervous and tentative in their first few games can evolve quickly and provide valuable depth. KK and Ash most likely cemented the idea. Problem with freshmen, though, is that they’re notoriously inconsistent. We can see Jana and Morgan rounding into form but they still have their moments and maybe they, and other youngsters, aren’t as likely to provide the flawless games Geno used to aspire to.

He seems pretty chill about the unevenness of games this season. Guess he’s still developing too

I, too, am amazed at his demeanor so far this season, although I also detect a simmering just below the surface.

 

[Sluconn Husky]

Nor do assists, I guess.

A couple of her assists were in transition. That's spontaneous, not team initiated.

If you're okay with her taking 5 shots a game, so be it, but I don't know how you square that with the notion she was used on offense.

 

[oldude]

"All his fault"? Not sure about the negative spin, but Geno himself has talked before about being in some ways a victim of his own success. There is surely a natural correlation among many variables: team success, program revenues, his own salary, and fan expectations are just a few.

Back to the last night's game. There were pluses and minuses to the performance overall, but at a "macro" level what stuck out to me was just the overall low energy throughout the portions of the game I watched. I did miss the first quarter and small portions of the fourth.

Sorry you missed the 1st qtr, which was UConn’s best by far, after which the game was effectively over for all intents.

 

[sun]

The team chemistry changed for this game in part because of Azzi's aggressiveness. She's more mobile on the court than Sarah & also has more seniority which led Sarah to not need to score as much.
Azzi was taking more of the shots.
Other UConn players were also much more aggressive scorers including KK, Jana, Ash & Morgan.
Sarah was aggressive on defense reflected by UConn holding St. John's to scoring 17 points less than their game average.
Also note that Kylie Lavelle averages 16 points per game for St. Johns yet only scored 7 points against UConn.
The fact that Sarah only scored 6 instead of her PPG average of 16 shouldn't be such a big deal. As a team UConn scored 7 points under average which reflects that St. John's played a hard fought game at home.
That other UConn players compensated for Sarah's lower scoring reflects how much UConn's scoring options are growing, especially due to Azzi being on the court
Sarah stayed busy feeding others with assists.

 

[EricLA]

It was a meh game. UCONN's problem, IMHO, is that their inconsistency often lasts an entire quarter. Against USC, we got down big early, had to mount a mammoth comeback, but ultimately fell short. Against any top 10 team, that won't cut it, and efforts like we saw against SJU last night might well result in bowing out in the NCAA's in the sweet 16.

Honestly, I get that people want to be positive about the effort, players, etc., but we still need to be realistic. AT THIS TIME IMHO, this team MIGHT make the elite 8. It would depend on the matchup. But there is no way this team (as it's constructed and playing right now), makes the final 4.

There were some really good things in the game. I think KK continues to show spark, fire, and energy, and if she can consistently make 3's (like 33%, not 8%), she will be a major weapon. I think Jana continues to improve, and she's better than Ice by a fair bit at this time. Ash is solid and you know you are going to get major effort from her. Morgan is solid and the first "post" off the bench now (ahead of Ice, shockingly).

And you know that Sarah, Paige, and Azzi can all go off at any given time. One "meh" game from all of them doesn't concern me.

On the flip side - our half court offense is weak. If we aren't forcing TO's off our defense, we struggle in the half court. Cait seems not to have improved at all this season. I was NOT expecting her skills to improve, but I WAS expecting her chemistry with the team to improve. She still gets caught too often in no man's land with the ball, and honestly, I like KK at the 1 better than Cait at this time. Also this team gives up way too many open 3's and we often get lucky if the other team misses.

Don't know what's going on with Ice, but something ain't right with her. The fact that she's behind Morgan on the depth chart for the 5/4 position is troubling. And Q - she's an adventure out there and really seems no better than last season.

Let's be honest. Give SJU all the credit in the world for "in your face defense", but they are just not as good as the other elite teams out there and if we struggle against them, imagine what it will like against a much better team. We went thru a 5 minute stretch scoring 1 point. I get playing the subs and giving them scratch to get experience in games, but even some of our poor stretches include most of the starters on the floor.

Bottom line is that this team not only hasn't managed to put together a 40 minute performance, generally they put together about 20-25 +/- really good minutes a game. The rest is average. I get that he's tinkering with the roster, and there is still room for growth, but to pretend everything is great is just people wearing blue blinders...

 

[Dugway]

One thing I can never get over about the BY is that UConn can go on the road, against a tough defensive team, win by 26 points, in a game that was never in doubt, and still have fans complain.

Last night UCLA, the #1 team in the nation, beat a mediocre PSU team at home by only 16 pts. I’m sure that Bruin fans must be calling for Cori Close to be tarred and feathered.

Even Megan Culmo was grousing after the game about UConn’s performance. God knows what it will be like if and when Geno hangs up his coaching whistle.

You are absolutely correct. The BY crowd has it's expectations. Valid or not, fan's do have their expectations!

By in large it appears that the expectations are that we should score more points. By simply watching the thread(s) where we all predict the upcoming score for the next game, we see that the average guess is that UConn will score 82 points against our Big East opponents. Some folks will have a guess in the 90's, some guess in the 70's, however the average is that we will score about 82. That is the expectation!

From a defensive perspective, the BY crowd's expectations are that our opponent will score about 50. Some guess as low as the mid-30's, most are in the high 40's or low to mid-50's, and it all math's out that we expect to give up about 50 against the Big East.

Margin of victory, based upon an exception of 82 for UConn and 50 for our opponent, is a 32-point win. That seems to be where most BY fan's expectations are. That is what people guess, UConn will beat our Big East opponents, regardless of which team that is, by about 32 points. On Jan. 5th we beat Villanova by a score of 83 to 52, more or less right at expectations and the Post Game thread had virtually everyone praising that effort.

We are winning most of our games by 26 to 27 points. We've not once been tested in the Big East; I doubt that will occur this season at all! So, if we win by 27 what really is the difference between that MOV, and a 32-point MOV? To get that extra five point MOV, do we risk having one of our key players get hurt late in the game? Does it say to the opposing BE coach, we here at UConn are going to do everything in our power to run up the score on you? Because 32 is so much better than a lowly 27-point blowout?

The flip side to 'the BY has over expectations on offense', is our actual scoring inconsistencies. I think this is scary to the BY faithful! The Villanova game, when we scored 83 and received high praises in the comments; our scores by quarter were 23, 20, 23, 17. We at the BY loved it! Other games however we have a score by quarter more typical of yesterdays: 25, 11, 18, 17. Another example was the 26-point margin of victory on Dec. 29th against Providence: 28, 17, 11, 11! Yes, we won by 26, and yet still the comments were nasty.

I think the concern folks have with eleven-point quarters, is that if a Big East caliber opponent is capable of holding us to only 11-points, is it not possible that a supremely talented defensive team could also hold us to that same 11-point quarter? And possible they do it two, three or even four times in a game? Is it possible that we will run into some supremely talented defensive team during the tournament? If the tables are flipped, and UConn is held to scoring 51 or 52, will we lose that game? It certainly is not going to happen during Big East play. But if it happens during the tournament, are we, or are we not going to be going home without the twelfth championship? I think this is what scares many BY fans and why they lash out when they see an 11-pt result in a second quarter against St. John's.

 

[freshler40]

It was a meh game. UCONN's problem, IMHO, is that their inconsistency often lasts an entire quarter. Against USC, we got down big early, had to mount a mammoth comeback, but ultimately fell short. Against any top 10 team, that won't cut it, and efforts like we saw against SJU last night might well result in bowing out in the NCAA's in the sweet 16.

Honestly, I get that people want to be positive about the effort, players, etc., but we still need to be realistic. AT THIS TIME IMHO, this team MIGHT make the elite 8. It would depend on the matchup. But there is no way this team (as it's constructed and playing right now), makes the final 4.

There were some really good things in the game. I think KK continues to show spark, fire, and energy, and if she can consistently make 3's (like 33%, not 8%), she will be a major weapon. I think Jana continues to improve, and she's better than Ice by a fair bit at this time. Ash is solid and you know you are going to get major effort from her. Morgan is solid and the first "post" off the bench now (ahead of Ice, shockingly).

And you know that Sarah, Paige, and Azzi can all go off at any given time. One "meh" game from all of them doesn't concern me.

On the flip side - our half court offense is weak. If we aren't forcing TO's off our defense, we struggle in the half court. Cait seems not to have improved at all this season. I was NOT expecting her skills to improve, but I WAS expecting her chemistry with the team to improve. She still gets caught too often in no man's land with the ball, and honestly, I like KK at the 1 better than Cait at this time. Also this team gives up way too many open 3's and we often get lucky if the other team misses.

Don't know what's going on with Ice, but something ain't right with her. The fact that she's behind Morgan on the depth chart for the 5/4 position is troubling. And Q - she's an adventure out there and really seems no better than last season.

Let's be honest. Give SJU all the credit in the world for "in your face defense", but they are just not as good as the other elite teams out there and if we struggle against them, imagine what it will like against a much better team. We went thru a 5 minute stretch scoring 1 point. I get playing the subs and giving them scratch to get experience in games, but even some of our poor stretches include most of the starters on the floor.

Bottom line is that this team not only hasn't managed to put together a 40 minute performance, generally they put together about 20-25 +/- really good minutes a game. The rest is average. I get that he's tinkering with the roster, and there is still room for growth, but to pretend everything is great is just people wearing blue blinders...

There are some good realistic points you have made. The team core is just evolving. The first period of the St John' s game was a hopeful view of the future. WOW! This was balanced with Geno continuing to view his bench with solid minutes of court time in subsequent periods.
He needs 8 solid players three with offensive skills and two others producing 8-10 points a game in longer minutes. As properly pointed out, our half-court game needs a boost against the top teams and teams that play a slow clock. The double high post on offense seems to offer the most potential for setting picks and pick and rolls. Hope we see more of that with the three jump shooting guards in the mix. This type of offensive could also produce more foul shoot opportunities than hunting three-point shots. A quick pace of play is much to our advantage but needs impressive defensive rebounding from Sarah and El Alfy.

 

[HuskyNan]

I think the concern folks have with eleven-point quarters, is that if a Big East caliber opponent is capable of holding us to only 11-points, is it not possible that a supremely talented defensive team could also hold us to that same 11-point quarter? And possible they do it two, three or even four times in a game?

What we’ve learned is that Big East teams can hold the end of UConn’s bench to 11 points in a quarter . Woo

Is it possible that we will run into some supremely talented defensive team during the tournament?

How much do you think the end of the bench will play against supremely talented defensive teams? How many of those teams are there, anyway?

 

[packwrap]

---

It was a meh game. UCONN's problem, IMHO, is that their inconsistency often lasts an entire quarter. Against USC, we got down big early, had to mount a mammoth comeback, but ultimately fell short. Against any top 10 team, that won't cut it, and efforts like we saw against SJU last night might well result in bowing out in the NCAA's in the sweet 16.

I'm surprised at your thoughts, as you are one of the most knowledgable posters here.

The team that plays the round of 16 thru our last game will as usual be reduced to 6-8 players, and will play hard for 40 minutes. That team barring injury will be the best team we have fielded since Collier/KLS, and clear best of Paige era.

It has little to do with how we play against St Johns in January.

I would at least wait til TN/SC games (even better til Big East tourney) before composing a eulogy.

 

[sun]

I appreciated how hard the team worked to make mid-range & inside shots.
They also worked hard to draw fouls.
Even Q attempted to make an inside shot near the end of the game while she was way off balance.
But at least she was trying to draw a foul in the process.
I don't think that folks are appreciative enough of the amount of aggressiveness shown regarding attacking the basket that the team is showing now.
Since the team has been inconsistent shooting 3's, taking more mid-range & inside shots signals an improvement.

Playing a tight press defense involves a lot of technicalities that end up getting reflected in the final score.
There are mistakes happening that aren't being called and the games are more rough & tumble due to playing at high speed.
Of course playing a tough defense creates some additional burdens for the offense.

Folks are so concerned about winning #12 that they don't have the patience to see what it really takes to get there.
It's a slow painful process.
Whether they win #12 or not is secondary to learning how to play the game the best that they can while making as few errors as possible.
Just have patience & appreciate whatever growth that they can accomplish as a team.
The progress of each of the UConn players has been pretty good.
They all have some swagger & soring 2 points is better than missing a 3 pointer.
Azzi, Jana, KK and the rest seemed to be working really hard in this game.
Missing 2 three point baskets from UConn's final score isn't a big deal considering how much more they all attacked the basket in this game.
I'm admire the team more than I admire Meg Culmo trash talking about their effort.
Plus Paige just made her way back onto the court.

 

[ERWUC65]

It was a meh game. UCONN's problem, IMHO, is that their inconsistency often lasts an entire quarter. Against USC, we got down big early, had to mount a mammoth comeback, but ultimately fell short. Against any top 10 team, that won't cut it, and efforts like we saw against SJU last night might well result in bowing out in the NCAA's in the sweet 16.

Honestly, I get that people want to be positive about the effort, players, etc., but we still need to be realistic. AT THIS TIME IMHO, this team MIGHT make the elite 8. It would depend on the matchup. But there is no way this team (as it's constructed and playing right now), makes the final 4.

There were some really good things in the game. I think KK continues to show spark, fire, and energy, and if she can consistently make 3's (like 33%, not 8%), she will be a major weapon. I think Jana continues to improve, and she's better than Ice by a fair bit at this time. Ash is solid and you know you are going to get major effort from her. Morgan is solid and the first "post" off the bench now (ahead of Ice, shockingly).

And you know that Sarah, Paige, and Azzi can all go off at any given time. One "meh" game from all of them doesn't concern me.

On the flip side - our half court offense is weak. If we aren't forcing TO's off our defense, we struggle in the half court. Cait seems not to have improved at all this season. I was NOT expecting her skills to improve, but I WAS expecting her chemistry with the team to improve. She still gets caught too often in no man's land with the ball, and honestly, I like KK at the 1 better than Cait at this time. Also this team gives up way too many open 3's and we often get lucky if the other team misses.

Don't know what's going on with Ice, but something ain't right with her. The fact that she's behind Morgan on the depth chart for the 5/4 position is troubling. And Q - she's an adventure out there and really seems no better than last season.

Let's be honest. Give SJU all the credit in the world for "in your face defense", but they are just not as good as the other elite teams out there and if we struggle against them, imagine what it will like against a much better team. We went thru a 5 minute stretch scoring 1 point. I get playing the subs and giving them scratch to get experience in games, but even some of our poor stretches include most of the starters on the floor.

Bottom line is that this team not only hasn't managed to put together a 40 minute performance, generally they put together about 20-25 +/- really good minutes a game. The rest is average. I get that he's tinkering with the roster, and there is still room for growth, but to pretend everything is great is just people wearing blue blinders...

A couple of comments on your comments: First, the SJU defense is probably no more or no less stalwart than the other top Big East teams and the 2nd quarter (11 points} was solely due to poor shot selection, poor execution and no energy. In review, I noted that many of the missed shots were short, resulting in a lack of offensive rebounding opportunities. Second, I was on KK's bandwagon for starting at PG instead of Kaitlyn, but I fell off after this game, as she showed a lack of discipline and, like most of the team, was out of sync on offense. Only 9 points from the PG position is unacceptable.

 

[Longtime fan]

It is her favorite opponent.

And there are strong family ties to Seton Hall.

 

[Longtime fan]

Good game but need to be better
Does anyone here think that this would be best line up
Paige….pg……Azzi…..Shade….Strong and Jana????

Hard to beat.

 

[maple]

Also, the traffic on the 405 renders even short distances excruciatingly distant.

Hated any time I had to drive it.

 

[RoadMaster]

Photo dump..

 

[Vowelguy]

That team barring injury will be the best team we have fielded since Collier/KLS, and clear best of Paige era.

People loved Aaliyah when she was here. 9 months later she's chopped liver. Ditto Muhl. They have left gaping holes, esp AE, that have not been filled. Yet.

Right now, I'd say last year's team was a little better. But there's a lot of time and healing left.