Starting Five...Next year | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Starting Five...Next year

Centerstream said:
There will be a Blue team and a White team and as the BE season progresses they will alternate "starting".
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Reading your post made me think that there will be clues in next summer's scrimmages. There will be lineups that will "click" and it's a mystery as to what they will be.
One thing about minutes will be how many different roles players can fill. There won't be much difference between the 1-4 slots and players who can play multiple roles will have an edge. Anyone who proves they can defend in the paint will see time since that seems to be the thinnest area. And no one has even broached the possibility of a grad transfer filling the backup post role.

EDIT: Apology to CoCo who sees a grad transfer starting.
 
JordyG said:
Not going to happen. Both Meg and CW WILL start next year. The real battle will be at the 4. My hope is that Edwards is such an energy force that she sets the house afire. That said, AG probably wins that race with Edwards and Anne behind the. Ania will probably back up both CW and Evina with Paige pushing for either guard spot.
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For the first half of this season it has been:
1 CD
2 CW
3 MW
4 KI
5 ONO

currently,
1 CD
2 AM
3 CW and MW
4 ?
leaving 5 ONO alone underneath

Ania has taken over for KI but she is playing a 3 with MW sometimes a 3, but more times than not a 4 .... her natural position is a 3 or even a two but needs must. There really is not a clear 4 in the current lineup. It seems Geno is trying to get AM playing the two and using her vision, iq and passing ability and in at least two games it worked with some success. CW doesn't pass and isn't a shooter. As a model for a UConn 3, KML could shoot the three, drive, pass and post up and play decent defense. MW fits this mold.

next year.... lot of question marks
1 PB
2 (Ania, Nika, Evina)
3 MW (CW, Aubrey, Mir)
4 (Edwards)
5 ONO (Gabriel)

It doesn't happen often but yes I think PB steps in as a starter. I don't know what to expect from EW next year. Two knee surgeries and she is still wearing a brace from the last surgery. She won't start off the year 100% and her minutes will be limited most of the season I think. I think we'll see ONO and Edwards on the floor together a lot. Gabriel will take time but could surprise. A good defense creating turnovers to a backcourt of PB, Ania/Aubrey, MW/CW could be special not to mention a spattering of Nika, Mir and EW.

Who rises to the 2 and the 4? How will Coach design the team around the talent available. I think the 4 is the critical position. MW is more a 3 than a 4, but there is no clear candidate other than Edwards for the 4.
 
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I agree that speculation will be far batter much later. Once thing that is being missed I think is that although there will be very good HS players coming in next year they WILL be freshmen. It WILL be different for them. And unfortunately that also includes Evina who do to injury and eligibility issues has not had any quality time to learn the UConn offense. Watching helps but doing is better. At least she has D1 experience (ok i won't go to the questions of is Tenn D1 haha). Paige likely will be a star but I think it will take until around January.
 
soxfan23 said:
This is just utterly absurd, and you know it. This has to be nothing more than a weak attempt at trolling, because I refuse to believe that somebody would ever be crazy enough to propose such a lineup! If you think that Griffin, McClean, and Edwards are going to start over Walker, Williams, and Westbrook, then you should immediately be committed to an insane asylum for further testing!
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It's a winning lineup based on solid basketball principles w/ no prima donnas.. u need to chill...
 
HGN said:
Jingo , I know that Janga is legal in some states now for medical purposes, but you should leave it alone if you thinking an AA candidate like Meg will not be in the starting 5. Uconn's returning senior and AA not in Geno's starting 5 ? Though I do believe there could be 2/3 starting positions potentially up for grabs , I don't believe Meg's is one of them.
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We'll see .. I haven't seen evidence that Megan is team-oriented .. wishful thinking on my part..
 
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Jingo said:
i have stated in other posts that my starting five for next year will be Liv, Aubrey, Mir, Aaliyah & Paige with an emphasis on defense, rebounding, hustle and attitude, i.e. Celtics basketball with Liv playing the role of Bill Russell. Lots of scoring in transition via steals and traps. The game plan is to hold the opponent to 40 points while the Huskies score 60, eh?
This lineup renders the opponents 3-point shooting to moot as Aubrey, Mir et al extend our half-court defense out to the arc [and beyond] while Liv protects against layups ... exciting!
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This lineup would make this years team look like the 2015-16 Warriors. Not a chance.
 
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So in your mind a starter only has to play 30 minutes a game but doesn’t actually have yo on the court at the opening tip .... interesting
 
IMO, Paige is the only incoming player that will have an impact next year. The 2 other recruits are just too raw & green. Evina is coming off back-to-back knee surgeries (at least the 1st one was major, possibly the 2nd). I would not count on her to play or be the same player she was based on past injury profiles.
 
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BostonBay said:
IMO, Paige is the only incoming player that will have an impact next year. The 2 other recruits are just too raw & green. Evina is coming off back-to-back knee surgeries (at least the 1st one was major, possibly the 2nd). I would not count on her to play or be the same player she was based on past injury profiles.
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You realize that UConn has 5 incoming recruits next year not 3? From all accounts and sources on campus that I have, they say that Westbrook's 2nd surgery was nothing more than a revision that she had already planned on getting, but accelerated her timeline when she realized that she would be out due to ineligibility ruling. I know she has had some issues with her knees but I don't think any of her surgeries were significant enough to be deemed career altering.
 
soxfan23 said:
You realize that UConn has 5 incoming recruits next year not 3? From all accounts and sources on campus that I have, they say that Westbrook's 2nd surgery was nothing more than a revision that she had already planned on getting, but accelerated her timeline when she realized that she would be out due to ineligibility ruling. I know she has had some issues with her knees but I don't think any of her surgeries were significant enough to be deemed career altering.
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A revision? done on New Year's eve when every one else was home for the holidays (or just returned). Doesn't seem scheduled to me. More likely she tweaked the knee while she was home.
 
soxfan23 said:
You realize that UConn has 5 incoming recruits next year not 3? From all accounts and sources on campus that I have, they say that Westbrook's 2nd surgery was nothing more than a revision that she had already planned on getting, but accelerated her timeline when she realized that she would be out due to ineligibility ruling. I know she has had some issues with her knees but I don't think any of her surgeries were significant enough to be deemed career altering.
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Who is “they”? You are working contrary to evidence. NCAA final denial for Evina was November 2019. That second Surgery was January 2020. UCONN stated that both Evina and Crystal were thought to be back from surgery and ready by the start of the official practices. We are about 5.5 months and an additional surgery behind where we were told Evina would be. Evina just got off crutches three games ago.
 
CocoHusky said:
Who is “they”? You are working contrary to evidence. NCAA final denial for Evina was November 2019. That second Surgery was January 2020. UCONN stated that both Evina and Crystal were thought to be back from surgery and ready by the start of the official practices. We are about 5.5 months and an additional surgery behind where we were told Evina would be. Evina just got off crutches three games ago.
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Ok what is so hard to understand?

Westbrook initially had surgery this offseason in June and was expected to be ready by start of official practices.
Westbrook starts ramping up her rehab just prior to start of season and realizes knee is not where had hoped it would be
Westbrook returns to Dr and a second revision surgery is planned for immediately after this season(April?)
Westbrook gets final ruling from NCAA regarding eligibility in November
Westbrook decides to move up the timeline on her revision surgery now that she has the year off
Westbrook has revision surgery in January
'
So, I guess I don't understand how this is "contrary to evidence" or how "Westbrook is 5.5 months behind where we were told"? She could have been ready for the start of the season. but chose to have another surgery.
 
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CajunHusky said:
A revision? done on New Year's eve when every one else was home for the holidays (or just returned). Doesn't seem scheduled to me. More likely she tweaked the knee while she was home.
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Do you have any idea on how long it takes to schedule and coordinate for surgery? You think Westbrook went home, mysteriously gets injured the ONLY time she is NOT competitively playing the sport, flies back to UConn, meets with the appropriate UConn team doctors and ortho staff(during Christmas mind you), and gets scheduled in under 5 days? No, I think I am going to stick with the she decided in November to have the revision this year and the earliest date they had open after Christmas was either 1/30 or 1/31. The news broke on 1/31, she could have had the surgery a couple days earlier for all we know.
 
PB, CW, MW and Liv.

Don't know the 5th starter but I don't believe it will be EW. EW hasn't played competitive ball for a year (not going to count practices or summer ball) and I think Geno will be cautious with her to start season. Also, I take from what many say is that EW can play pg comfortably (so I'm guessing because I didn't see her enough- I don't know.). UCONN will be a fastbreak offensive team trying for a lot steals etc thus I think at least to start games he won't want to risk his two pgs getting into foul trouble as an example. SO one will come off the bench. Maybe later in season she will. Of course if NMuhl is terrific then that might make the point mute. I know nothing of her.

I think it will be fascinating to see between AM, AG and MM which one breaks through as a possible starter (or gets much more minutes) and how many minutes will the other two get.

For the reg. season, I wish Cox from Baylor came back and I wish Ionescu did too along with their bigs (ofc I know they can't.). Because I want to see next year's UCONN team play as many big teams as possible - in particular the top 10. I want to see if our smaller lineups (or maybe AE with size but youth) can impose our will upon the bigger teams and what lineup/ style/personnel it would take to make that happen.

Next season is fascinating.
This season too ofc.
 
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BostonBay said:
IMO, Paige is the only incoming player that will have an impact next year. The 2 other recruits are just too raw & green. Evina is coming off back-to-back knee surgeries (at least the 1st one was major, possibly the 2nd). I would not count on her to play or be the same player she was based on past injury profiles.
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Two other recruits? Missing a couple.
 
Jingo said:
i have stated in other posts that my starting five for next year will be Liv, Aubrey, Mir, Aaliyah & Paige with an emphasis on defense, rebounding, hustle and attitude, i.e. Celtics basketball with Liv playing the role of Bill Russell. Lots of scoring in transition via steals and traps. The game plan is to hold the opponent to 40 points while the Huskies score 60, eh?
This lineup renders the opponents 3-point shooting to moot as Aubrey, Mir et al extend our half-court defense out to the arc [and beyond] while Liv protects against layups ... exciting!
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Similar to you prediction that Griffin was going to lead the team in scoring (granted she could still do it, if she averages 43 ppg over the next 14 games, she'll need more per game if UCONN doesn't make the NC game :D), this one isn't going to be accurate either.

You're not very good at this prediction thing, eh?
 
HGN said:
Jingo , I know that Janga is legal in some states now for medical purposes, but you should leave it alone if you thinking an AA candidate like Meg will not be in the starting 5. Uconn's returning senior and AA not in Geno's starting 5 ? Though I do believe there could be 2/3 starting positions potentially up for grabs , I don't believe Meg's is one of them.
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Janga?

41IfP57EcxL._SY355_.jpg


I think you mean Ganja, mon. :cool:
 
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soxfan23 said:
Do you have any idea on how long it takes to schedule and coordinate for surgery? You think Westbrook went home, mysteriously gets injured the ONLY time she is NOT competitively playing the sport, flies back to UConn, meets with the appropriate UConn team doctors and ortho staff(during Christmas mind you), and gets scheduled in under 5 days? No, I think I am going to stick with the she decided in November to have the revision this year and the earliest date they had open after Christmas was either 1/30 or 1/31. The news broke on 1/31, she could have had the surgery a couple days earlier for all we know.
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The only important facts - none of which appear in your post:

It was announced on Jan 2 (UConn Blog) that EW "underwent left knee surgery on New Year's Eve"

everything else - my statements included - are conjecture.
 
soxfan23 said:
Ok what is so hard to understand?
So, I guess I don't understand how this is "contrary to evidence" or how "Westbrook is 5.5 months behind where we were told"? She could have been ready for the start of the season. but chose to have another surgery.
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What so hard to understand is why you keep saying things like she "chose" to have another surgery that she "already planned on getting" and thus minimizing the second surgery as if it were no big deal. There is no evidence of either of those things. The fact is Evina "required" a second surgery. This is not some elective plastic surgery we are talking about. A second surgery means the first one didn't work and as of now we don't know if the 2nd surgery worked either.
 
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ucbart said:
Evina
Anna
Christyn
Megan
ONO
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Bingo. For those with longer memories, Diana didn't start her freshman year until an injury forced Geno to put her in as a starter. Nykesha Sales didn't start as a freshman. Maya didn't start right away, again, until an injury forced her to start.

You know what freshmen DID start? Stef Dolson. Know why? Tina had just graduated and Geno's only other option for size was Heather Buck.

My point is that Geno has NEVER started a freshman unless he had no other choices. Next year we will have so much talent that he won't NEED to start Paige. He has said it's generally too much pressure on a freshman.

Perhaps I'll be surprised and he will start Paige. She certainly has the right attitude, confidence, moxie, etc. But I just don't think so. Having said that, she may get more minutes than starters.
 
EricLA said:
My point is that Geno has NEVER started a freshman unless he had no other choices. Next year we will have so much talent that he won't NEED to start Paige. He has said it's generally too much pressure on a freshman.
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I think you may have answered your own question................Westbrook is the only "returning" option at point guard and she is coming off of a significant injury and has actually never run the UConn offense herself. Add to that the fact that she has already proven to not be the most efficient point guard around and that leads me to believe that PB will be Geno's point guard of choice..................oh, that and the fact that PB is one of the most talented point guards to reach Storrs in the school's history...............
 
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