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Message: [QUOTE="DefenseBB, post: 5176904, member: 7492"] There are few other peripheral items I want to point out: while I understand the 8-9 person rotation issue/stance, the simple fact is Geno and the team are in a new paradigm of rotation options. This is the first year in a long time that he has quality depth (albeit very young). The past two years, he had so many injuries, we lacked numbers and with Azzi and Aubrey now being cleared, we have 12 mostly healthy bodies able to play. Roster overview: This 12 person active roster (sans Caroline/Ayanna) are all highly ranked players coming out of High School. The least ranked player is Kaitlyn who was #66 and Q was #41. Technically, Jana was not ranked but my guess is she would fall in the high teens or low 20s had she been assessed. The point is twofold, Geno has a talented bench AND as he has stated many times, the players earn time in practice so the fact he uses 10 players regularly means all are working their tails off in practice to earn time. The games against the Big East offer our younger players opportunities to garner experience. The other P4 programs get to use their OOC for this experience but UConn does not have that luxury. As such, to me, the assessment of who plays is wholly dependent on the type of team we are playing-Creighton offers a different skill set to defend than does Tennessee, than does South Carolina. In all of D1 Basketball, there are really only 3-5 schools with elite front courts in terms of talent and depth (SC, Texas, UCLA to name 3). We play SC shortly so we shall see how Jana, Sarah, Morgan and Ice can manage. While ND and SoCal have interior size, we either were missing Azzi or she was not fully healthy enough to play and we were able to keep the games close so that adds an interesting dynamic back if we play them again-a fully healthy and functioning Azzi. Geno will use any of 11 players (assuming Aubrey can regain her game legs) to best match up as he deems fit so it will not be just an 8 or 9 set player rotation but the best 8-11 group he feels matches the opponent. I also think there is a bit of over exuberance about Kaitlyn Chen's game vs. Villanova. Before I parse that, I want to point out a key factor in the last two games-Paige had 8 & 9 assists vs. just 2 turnovers as well as 18 and 21 points which also resulted in Blowout games against two usually steady programs. Paige handled the ball more often thus freeing Kaitlyn to play more "off guard" and still be effective as a passer. Geno addressed this in his post-game Villanova presser with Paige bringing the ball up in the middle of the court. This aspect is really the key to us evolving as no one sees the floor like Paige so we should have the ball in her hands more. Geno also alluded to using Chen and KK to produce different looks for the other teams to have to defend. I truly liked this comment and gives me hope on our other players development with Paige putting them in positions for success. This is not a knock-on Kaitlyn but she is not Paige. Kaitlyn Chen: There is the very good, the good and the not so good. The very good: Kaitlyn is an experienced guard who knows how to pick her spots on what she can do well and what she can't. She is good against smaller and the mid-major teams. She has a great back board shot and knows when to drive to the basket. The good: Kaitlyn has improved her Assist to turnover ratio with 2.03 (75-37) over her Princeton days (1.46) and her normal FG% has improved to 51.1% vs, her career of 46.5%. Her 3 pt shooting is about the same with 32.4% this year and 32.8% last year and 29.3% for her career. In short, she knows she is not a 3 point shooter and only reluctantly shoots them. Against the 4 better teams on our schedule this year (UNC, Ole Miss, ND and SoCal) she shot 10/20 so she can pick her spots and I would encourage her to shoot more as 5 shots a game is not a lot. The not so good: Her A/TO stats against those 4 teams point out her issues with ball handling and decision making as she had 10 assists/11 Turnovers. I also question her quickness and ability to defend against elite guards like Hidalgo, Miles, Watkins, Spear or Johnson to name a few. How will she handle the Tennessee press is another concern I have where I feel KK's speed and her quickness is better for us. That said, keeping her as the starter makes sense with KK providing energy and tenacity off the bench but it is NOT a lock that Kaitlyn has earned all the time due to ONE GAME. We have to admit that this 7/8 FG and 2/3 3-pt FG was the aberration of her career as she never had a game like that at Princeton. As a pre-emptive strike on the common Oldude refrain of "Kaitlyn killed Columbia", Ms. Chen was 6-2 in her career against Columbia with her last two years being 3-2. Her stats were good, not great with 17.6 pts per game for all 8 and only 15.6 for the last two years. Her A/TO line was 35/22 for all 3 years with 8 games but only 25/19 for the last 5 games-again, good but not great. I would not qualify that as "killing Columbia". In her sophomore year, Kaitlyn was the 3rd option on the Tiger team behind Abby Myers and Julia Cunningham. If Kaitlyn can find a way to contribute on a nightly basis with 10 pts per game (up from her 6 right now) I would be ecstatic. The other observation is with Paige as the primary ball distributer the dynamic process with Sarah is remindful of IonescuHebard duo with Sarah being a much better all around player than Ruthy ever was. Against Villanova, with Paige as the primary ball handler, she and Sarah had 8 assists to each other! This team will only go as far as Paige, Sarah and Azzi can carry them with key contributions from Jana, Chen, KK and others and it will be a rotating cast of contributions. [/QUOTE]

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