St John's Postgame Thread | The Boneyard

St John's Postgame Thread

oldude

oldude

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Some thoughts on the St John’s game:
  • Very nice start tonight by the Huskies. 7/8 Huskies who saw PT in the 1st qtr scored as UConn shot a sizzling 71%, while forcing the Red Storm into 7 turnovers. The 2nd qtr got a little ugly as UConn’s multiple player rotations seemed a bit out of sync
  • Azzi is known as a great offensive player and shooter, which she demonstrated again tonight. But Azzi is also one of the best on-ball and off-ball defenders on this team. Her defensive footwork is flawless, and she gets her hands on the ball a lot.
  • Jana continues to progress slowly but surely in both big and small ways. She's moving better to the ball on rebounds, defending the paint, setting screens, posting up stronger and closing out on shooters all the way to the arc.
  • Great to see Paige back on the court. She did look a little rusty in the 1st half. But she got in going in the 2nd half from midrange, where she is absolutely deadly. I guess we will all have to wait for the next game to watch Paige hit 2,000 points...,:(
  • Jana, Sarah, Paige, Azzi & KK, the lineup UConn used for a very brief time in the 3rd qtr is the BIG GAME lineup for the Huskies, imo.
  • Morgan has really solidified herself as a regular rotation player. She does everything well.
  • Seton Hall is up next on Sunday. Could we see Aubrey on the court? :)
 
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A win is a win, and the end of the bench got some useful minutes. Paige looked a bit rusty, Azzi looked great and Sarah was subdued but influential. The big 3 only took 23 shots and scored a combined 31 points. The other 40 points came mainly from Ash Jana Morgan. In a way, the best part of the game was seeing the rotation players play competently. They didn’t score a ton, but they played pretty good D.
 
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oldude said:
Some thoughts on the St John’s game:
  • Seton Hall is up next on Sunday. Could we see Aubrey on the court? :)
Expand ...

Has there been a recent on Aubrey suggesting she's this close?
 
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Geno and the announcers said SJU is a good defensive team. Shooting 57% against them is pretty good. As Geno noted, the half court offense could be better. Sarah had a quiet night, and neither Paige nor Azzi got enough shots. Not bad for a road win in which we just covered the point spread.
 
oldude said:
Some thoughts on the St John’s game:
  • Very nice start tonight by the Huskies. 7/8 Huskies who saw PT in the 1st qtr scored as UConn shot a sizzling 71%, while forcing the Red Storm into 7 turnovers. The 2nd qtr got a little ugly as UConn’s multiple player rotations seemed a bit out of sync
  • Azzi is known as a great offensive player and shooter, which she demonstrated again tonight. But Azzi is also one of the best on-ball and off-ball defenders on this team. Her defensive footwork is flawless, and she gets her hands on the ball a lot.
  • Jana continues to progress slowly but surely in both big and small ways. She's moving better to the ball on rebounds, defending the paint, setting screens, posting up stronger and closing out on shooters all the way to the arc.
  • Great to see Paige back on the court. She did look a little rusty in the 1st half. But she got in going in the 2nd half from midrange, where she is absolutely deadly. I guess we will all have to wait for the next game to watch Paige hit 2,000 points...,:(
  • Jana, Sarah, Paige, Azzi & KK, the lineup UConn used for a very brief time in the 3rd qtr is the BIG GAME lineup for the Huskies, imo.
  • Morgan has really solidified herself as a regular rotation player. She does everything well.
  • Seton Hall is up next on Sunday. Could we see Aubrey on the court? :)
Expand ...
Agree with the big game lineup. Another question I have is who should be the principle PG when both Kaitlin and KK are in at the same time. It seems like Kaitlin is the primary, but I think it should be the other way around. Kaitlin is more of a 1/2 combo guard that seems to be struggling a little bit trying to be a pass first PG, whereas that is more natural for KK, and Kaitlin's ability to score might be more valuable when a couple of Paige, Sarah and Azzi are not on the floor IMO.
 
Vowelguy said:
For a team without a dominant post game, 29% from 3 is disconcerting.
Expand ...
The right players are taking the shots. If Paige and Sarah’s combined 0-4 from three is deducted, the team shot 40% from the arc.

The team anttempted only 14 threes. Kind of indicative of a strange reluctance to shoot on everyone’s part tonight
 
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Interesting to see Sarah not look for her shot tonight, but I am amazed at her basketball IQ. As others have mentioned, she's like a big cat, deceptively quick and amazing hands. Like Paige she reads the court and anticipates, as if she's a second or two ahead of everyone else.

Once Morgan trusts her offensive instincts, she will make a dynamic tandem with Sarah for the next 3 years. She obviously has offensive skills, and there is much more to be plumbed.

Hopefully, Paige will come out on fire on Sunday and get the celebratory hugs out of the way early.

St. John's is scrappy, played hard, stayed true on the defensive end. It makes it hard for a finesse offense like UConn's to appear fluid. The UT game will be a fascinating watch to see how UConn responds to an uptempo pace - the opposite of the slow down tactics in the Big East.
 
pghhuskydoc said:
Jana did well in the minutes she played. She’s a work in progress, but she is definitely making progress.
Expand ...
Yes. Everyone agrees Jana is "coming along" and "making progress". I agree. However the key to moving past "coming along" and breaking through the "making progress" wall is getting more effective minutes with the same or as many of the starting five players as possible and more than a couple of minutes at a time on the floor. What Jana needs now more than anything is continual, uninterrupted and meaningful time on the court to refine what is being preached and stressed in practice. She also needs to be fed the ball a lot more when she clears out her defender under the basket.
 
WiseWillie said:
Yes. Everyone agrees Jana is "coming along" and "making progress". I agree. However the key to moving past "coming along" and breaking through the "making progress" wall is getting more effective minutes with the same or as many of the starting five players as possible and more than a couple of minutes at a time on the floor. What Jana needs now more than anything is continual, uninterrupted and meaningful time on the court to refine what is being preached and stressed in practice. She also needs to be fed the ball a lot more when she clears out her defender under the basket.
Expand ...
Geno isn’t going to wear out key players, or risk their getting hurt in a blowout, just to get Jana more experience.
 
As far as basketball games go this one was as forgettable as they come. We played pretty well actually, but nothing stood out that created excitement. Everyone scored, no one lit it up. Kind of strange in as we have three players in Paige, Azzi and Sarah that can put up.big numbers. All 3 could score 20 a night if they got enough shots. Which brings me to my only complaint. Sarah took 5 shots. No way Sarah should take that few shots in a game. Just no way.
 
A good win against a scrappy, good defensive team.

The starting 5 is getting better. The chemistry is developing.

Paige & Azzi are going to be tough to stop.

Jana had a good game. The progress is there. She showed she can be a physical force in the post.

Quiet game for Sarah. Good game for Ash coming off the bench. Morgan is also improving.
 
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Good win against a pesky team. The freshmen are making their mark in the game very nicely. Every body ate except Q ,but she only played minutes. Ash is still hitting her 3's and Jana looked good on rebounds and lay-ups.Morgan was a burst of energy off the bench and the Starting 3 scored below normal, but was not needed to score more. Again we led in all statistical categories. Uconn is ready for all the BE teams ahead and then the play-offs. GO FRESHMEN!!!! GO SOPHOMORES!!!!! GO HUSKIES!!!!!
 
I haven’t watched the game. But 71 points against St John’s is worrisome. I know Geno is letting the bench play more but again this competition we have to be better offensively, no?
 
Maybe it's just me but it seems every game there is a different squad on the floor at different times. Of course there's always a need to rest players and to protect them if in foul trouble, but the in and out so far doesn't seem that. It seems to be more experimenting with lineups.

It might be the same or almost same starting five but then from there it becomes a game of flip flop with subs coming in and out. Cohesiveness? In tonights game the in and out of players shows itself with the pitiful low scoring 2nd quarter. What is that supposed to teach a team? That playing around with the lineup can cause disruption and lack of cohesion? Its the middle of January. It might be time to settle and stay with it unless there's a good reason not to, not just to continue experimenting.
 
I’ll preface this with I’m glad it’s a win.

After doing better on 3PT shooting % in the last few games, we revert back to shooting poorly from the arc. I really hate that this keeps happening. I guess it doesn’t matter as much as long as we keep rebounding well and/or making baskets consistently inside the arc, but it’s still worrisome. It has definitely affected us in big games already and will continue to do.

Felt like we coasted for a lot of the game. Still seems like Geno is mixing and matching lineups and far be for me to question a HOF coach, but I kind of would prefer a more solid rotation at this point. I don’t know. I think sometimes it really messes up our offensive flow, however. We keep having these scoring droughts and cannot play a solid four quarters.

I was mostly impressed with the improvement in Jana’s play tonight, but I have to agree with Meg’s in game comment that she needed to stop looking for the refs for whistles (when they clearly were not going to call some of the physicality).

Sarah had a quiet night but Azzi, Shade, and Paige all scored in double digits. Also shoutout to Morgan for 7 points. I think she’s going to be vital for us moving forward so she hopefully will continue to be a solid bench player. Interesting that the bucket to assist ratio was 2:1.

I saw on Twitter that someone mentioned they felt like this year the team seems more “blah” in games at times because the past few years they were always crippled due to injury and so every game felt that much more critical. I think I’m inclined to agree.
 
There wasn't the big score for Azzi tonite, but her decisiveness and speed were really impressive. And the youngsters continue to impress. I'm starting to feel Morgan will spend much of her career as an ace. I'm starting to expect her shot to drop.
 
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