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Message: [QUOTE="diggerfoot, post: 3966292, member: 1673"] I don’t think you really mean where your argument leads, but I’ll address the major claims. UConn teaches a read and react system and the point guard in particular is supposed to be able to assess the opponent’s defense and direct the offense accordingly. This was particularly true for Bird, who was considered the best PG in the country even as a sophomore and for whom Auriemma once charged “If anything goes wrong it’s your fault.” For better or worse, Bird considered Taurasi the best player on the team even as a freshman. Perhaps this factored in to her not curbing Taurasi, perhaps not, but in theory it was her responsibility. You can fault Bird, but she is the greatest decision-making PG in the history of the game. You can fault Auriemma for his philosophy of read and react with the PG firmly in charge, but it’s part of a philosophy that has won more championships than any other. In any case I said Taurasi’s poor performance was a major factor, which is different from saying the main factor, so which one you want to hold more accountable for not curbing Taurasi matters not to me. As for Taurasi being a bit player, she started 14 out of 33 games, most of them leading up to and including the tournaments. She averaged 23.9 mpg and 10.9 mpg for the season. Stewart also started 14 games, out of 36. I could not track down mpg for that season but it was in the same ballpark. I believe Taurasi was all-tournament in the Regionals so there was every reason to believe this “bit player” could also play a major role in the FF. I suppose you make the point about “bit player” to emphasize Taurasi was not in charge of the team as a freshman. True enough, the same could be said for Stewart. Yet at least the PG in ‘01 thought Taurasi was the best player on the team and chose to get her the ball. Dolson expressed a similar sentiment, saying her goal was to get Stewart the ball even though she was only a freshman. The difference being that when Dolson got her the ball in the FF against ND, Stewart delivered. If you put Stewart on the ‘03, ‘04 teams, the 5’11” Turner would likely have played SG, which she played in HS, instead of a very small PF. A downgrade from Taurasi at SG definitely, but then our front line would have been 6’4” and 6’3” rather than 6’3” and 5’11”. If you don’t think that a significant improvement for the team don’t let on to all the folks on the BY clamoring for bigs. You would have a superb player in big moments in either case. I don’t know what the outcome would be. [/QUOTE]

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