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Message: [QUOTE="diggerfoot, post: 3965654, member: 1673"] The 01 team is generally considered to be UConn’s greatest collection of talent, but they underperformed. Subsequent interviews suggested the chemistry was not working. Auriemma, for example, made a quip about Ralph and Abrosimova not passing to others. The TASSK squad acknowledged some coolness from the upperclassmen. After Abrosimova went down they played Notre Dame better than before. After Ralph went down they still prevailed against Notre Dame thanks to Bird at the Buzzer in the BE championship. During the NCAA tournament the team was playing as well as they had all year until the second half of the Notre Dame, and why not? Surrounding Taurasi remained three future Olympians who had significant roles in the championship in the year prior, plus a center who set a record for blocks in that NC game. In contrast, Stewart’s supporting cast her freshman year had one player with a role in a previous NC, Faris and no future Olympians. We struggled against Notre Dame all year in 01, but even moreso in ‘13 when a Diggins led ND squad won the three previous games. Yet we lost in ‘01 and Taurasi was a major factor in that loss, going 1/15. We won in ‘13 with Stewart scoring 29 points to exorcise the ND demon. I do consider what Taurasi did in ‘03 and ‘04 to be a greater challenge met. You speculate that Stewart would not succeed in the same position. Whether true or not we won’t know, it’s mere speculation, Stewart was not presented that opportunity. We do know that Stewart rose to every challenge she was presented while Taurasi failed at one. The challenge she failed at her freshman year was similar to Stewart’s, except that Taurasi had the stronger, more NC experienced supporting cast, while Stewart faced a ND squad with greater overall talent and had owned us previously. [/QUOTE]

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