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Message: [QUOTE="wbball novice, post: 3116906, member: 8663"] Why shouldn't UConn fans be proud? The team got to the Final Four 12 seasons in a row. Come on! UConn was one of the best teams in the country this year, despite the loss of 2 key starters replaced by a freshman and a sophomore who did not have a great freshman year, a very limited bench, and the unexpected loss of a key 6th player to the WNBA. The team faced off against some of the best players in the country and either won or never gave up. And the team was blessed with luck: there were no season or career ending injuries, which would have been a disaster with such a small number of players. Katie Lou Samuelson recovered enough from her late season back injury to play in all of the tournament games. Napheesa Collier gained recognition as one of the best players in the country, respected even by arch-rival Notre Dame fans. Finally, the last game of the season was not lost by a last minute lucky shot, which was the case in the past 2 seasons. It's always better psychologically if you lose fair and square. The UConn - ND game was exciting for fans of both sides and maybe even casual viewers, because the outcome was in doubt until maybe the last 4 minutes, a back and forth battle. However, considered in retrospect, much of it was poorly executed basketball on both sides. It rather resembled Stanford - ND, even (shudder) Missouri State - Stanford. What characterized these games was recurrent situations where there were multiple opportunities to score that were not exploited, not due to stellar defense but because of failures in offensive execution -- flubbed layups, 10% efficiency in 3 pt shooting, turnovers caused by bad passes -- on both sides. The earlier games referred to may not have been blowouts but they did not show women's basketball at its best. In contrast, the UConn-UCLA game had a lot of hardnosed defense; low scoring was to be expected and not due to poor offense. Hard to make your shots if your opponent has you in a (metaphorical) chokehold, but the physical game has always been a part of basketball and to suppress it as unladylike seems a little Victorian and unrealistic to me. Despite the acknowledged weakness of the conference, AAC experience with physical, defensive teams might have been good preparation for UCLA basketball. UConn-Louisville had a good balance between successful offense and defense on both sides and was perhaps the best showcase of the game; lucky to have at least one such a game in the tournament. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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