The Bright Side - Christyn Williams

[CL82]

I loved seeing Christyn's intensity last night. Crashing the boards for rebounds and shooting while still in the air, slashing to the basket, etc. She was electric. If she can give us that intensity every night we'll do well this year.

Baylor may be the toughest team on the schedule and we hung with them for 3 quarters. It was a learning experience for a young team. Let's regroup and adjust against the AAC teams and then make a statement versus Tennessee.

 

[Dokey]

Yup, but Oregon is far better than Baylor.

 

[veryolddog]

You are correct CL82, Chrystin played well and tried very hard. Very positive impact.

 

[bearforce]

Chrystin Williams is awesome.

 

[Longtime fan]

That was an amazing bit of athleticism. I finally realized, however, that she is left handed...so it was a bit less magical than I first thought. Great, nonetheless. The odd thing about CW is that she is better when shooting pressure-filled acrobatic shots than open shots. Too many times yesterday, as the game wore on ( fatigue?), she had "open" threes and missed every one of them. And Crystal missed pretty much all day long. She does seem beaten down ( injured?) a bit too much already.

 

[oldude]

Yup, but Oregon is far better than Baylor.

“Oregon is far better.” Not sure where you come up with that assessment. Baylor won the last meeting between the two schools. Preseason rankings had Oregon #1 and Baylor #2. Oregon lost Carzolo and replaced her with Moore. Baylor lost Brown and Jackson and replaced them with Smith and Cooper, not much of a drop off, and as Geno pointed out, Baylor is much more athletic than last year, and they can attack you in more ways offensively.

If the Lady Bears and the Ducks face each other again during the Big Dance, from what I’ve observed of both teams, I think Baylor comes out on top once again.

 

[Longtime fan]

“Oregon is far better.” Not sure where you come up with that assessment. Baylor won the last meeting between the two schools. Preseason rankings had Oregon #1 and Baylor #2. Oregon lost Carzolo and replaced her with Moore. Baylor lost Brown and Jackson and replaced them with Smith and Cooper, not much of a drop off, and as Geno pointed out, Baylor is much more athletic than last year, and they can attack you in more ways offensively.

If the Lady Bears and the Ducks face each other again during the Big Dance, from what I’ve observed of both teams, I think Baylor comes out on top once again.

At half-time show yesterday, Sue Bird ( who lost to the ducks ) said they are ( her view ) "the best team in the country." Time will tell. But, based upon our performance yesterday, there will be 6-10 teams as good or better than this UCONN team. Which makes the trip to the final four a huge challenge. And unless we see a metamorphosis, from Olivia we have no shot. So we must put our trust in Geno and CD et al, and see what they can build. But this was a whupping !

 

[Bama fan]

I loved seeing Christyn's intensity last night. Crashing the boards for rebounds and shooting while still in the air, slashing to the basket, etc. She was electric. If she can give us that intensity every night we'll do well this year.

Baylor may be the toughest team on the schedule and we hung with them for 3 quarters. It was a learning experience for a young team. Let's regroup and adjust against the AAC teams and then make a statement versus Tennessee.

Nice post! But remember that there is no silver lining bright enough to prevent some Boneyard naysayers from painting dark clouds around them!

 

[oldude]

At half-time show yesterday, Sue Bird ( who lost to the ducks ) said they are ( her view ) "the best team in the country." Time will tell. But, based upon our performance yesterday, there will be 6-10 teams as good or better than this UCONN team. Which makes the trip to the final four a huge challenge. And unless we see a metamorphosis, from Olivia we have no shot. So we must put our trust in Geno and CD et al, and see what they can build. But this was a whupping !

Sue didn’t play against Baylor. If she did, she would have a great basis for comparison. I could be wrong, but I think UConn matches up better with Oregon than with Baylor. We’ll find out soon enough. I’m not sure that there are 6-10 teams better than UConn and I wouldn’t necessarily describe a game that was a 1pt difference with 4 minutes to go as a “whupping!”

 

[Dokey]

“Oregon is far better.” Not sure where you come up with that assessment. Baylor won the last meeting between the two schools. Preseason rankings had Oregon #1 and Baylor #2. Oregon lost Carzolo and replaced her with Moore. Baylor lost Brown and Jackson and replaced them with Smith and Cooper, not much of a drop off, and as Geno pointed out, Baylor is much more athletic than last year, and they can attack you in more ways offensively.

If the Lady Bears and the Ducks face each other again during the Big Dance, from what I’ve observed of both teams, I think Baylor comes out on top once again.

I watched both teams play this season. I repeat Oregon is better. Far better.

 

[oldude]

I watched both teams play this season. I repeat Oregon is better. Far better.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but with a healthy Cox in the lineup I just don’t see it that way.

 

[Longtime fan]

Sue didn’t play against Baylor. If she did, she would have a great basis for comparison. I could be wrong, but I think UConn matches up better with Oregon than with Baylor. We’ll find out soon enough. I’m not sure that there are 6-10 teams better than UConn and I wouldn’t necessarily describe a game that was a 1pt difference with 4 minutes to go as a “whupping!”

I think you have to look to the final score and how many minutes UCONN had the lead. Otherwise, if we scored the first bucket, you can say we were dominating for a while. We were close for a long time, but never took the lead. And they grew theirs. Take a look at Olivia's face and tell me she didn't feel 'whupped."

 

[Longtime fan]

Sue didn’t play against Baylor. If she did, she would have a great basis for comparison. I could be wrong, but I think UConn matches up better with Oregon than with Baylor. We’ll find out soon enough. I’m not sure that there are 6-10 teams better than UConn and I wouldn’t necessarily describe a game that was a 1pt difference with 4 minutes to go as a “whupping!”

True. But she played against Oregon and watched the Baylor game with a professional's eyes. If you don't respect her opinion, then I understand your view. I happen to think Sue Bird knows what she is talking about.

 

[jonson]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but with a healthy Cox in the lineup I just don’t see it that way.

As as an Oregon fan, I'm not sure I do either. At the very least, I'd drop the "far" when comparing the two teams. On the other hand, it's worth noting imo that Oregon and Baylor were tried with a minute to go in last year's final four, and that Baylor team had a healthy and well-conditioned Cox, whereas Oregon was playing with Hebard hobbled by a knee injury sustained toward the end of the Pac 12 season. I do agree that UCONN matches up better with Oregon than it does with Baylor and won't be surprised if UCONN wins this year's game in Storrs. (What's most important to me is that the Ducks play well whatever the outcome.) If the game were in Eugene, I'd expect an Oregon victory.

 

[Woof 101]

Nice to see a thread for Cristyn, it is well deserved. With a tip of my cap @ Kibitzer, she is a badass every game! She has DT moxie in her veins and a joy to watch. Bit of a shame this has already turned into a Baylor / Oregon conversation.

 

[ABCDFE]

I think it’s completely fair to say Baylor is right up there with Oregon. I think Oregon is slightly better and would probably win. Best of 7 series. However in a one and done tournament there are probably 6 or so teams that have a shot, and for teams like UConn if stars align they can win it all too.
The reality is when Baylor has Cox she just provides so much stability on the defensive side, rebounding and scoring. I really don’t believe South Carolina beats Baylor with a healthy Cox.

I love CWs play last night. The dog in her came out from the onset. That’s exactly what we need and though the shots didn’t fall for her (especially 3s) the way she played was tremendous. Walker butted it out against one of the best defenders and defensive teams in the country and you could see Baylor players were trying to shut Meg down. I think Meg even tho shooting percentage wasn’t great provided exactly what I expect from her going forward. Fearless play. Crystal played ok but was taking too many long range shots. I think she could’ve done more to facilitate to get Liv and Kyla open shots to get them involved. Overall UConn battled for a good 35 or so minutes. Baylor is a better team but it’s not like we have no shot at making a deep run in the tournament. We need to make more shots, layups, free throws and then we need a bit more from Liv and Kyla in big game situations. Aubrey and Anna will get better too. If we play a complete game we have a shot and that’s all you can hope for. Obviously if Oregon and Baylor okay their A game we most likely lose, but that’s what makes the tournament special. Kind of like Baylor losing to Louisville with Griner in 2013.
It’s going to be an exciting time to watch UConn basketball.

 

[uconnfan68]

Diana did it better ( ;^) ), but CW was pretty good.

 

[HopJim]

CW can overpower most that guard her with either speed or power. Would love to have her get ball closer to basket, particularly when game on line. Her 10-15' jump shot is normally money.

 

[RogueDave]

CW rose to the occasion, didn’t look like she was playing in quicksand. She needs to consistently play like she did tonight. Intensity and focus was where it should be the rest of the way. Very impressive outing. She proved she can do it. Now needs to bring it like that all the time.

 

[EricLA]

Yup, but Oregon is far better than Baylor.

Wanna try that again? LOL. They just lost to a solid, but unranked team.

 

[Longtime fan]

Diana did it better ( ;^) ), but CW was pretty good.

Cmon, folks. Diana was all world deadly by this point. Christen is still on the way towards that. Our standards are sometimes way too high... Turasi, Maya, Stewart, Tina, etc. But we still have some great players. And several more in the future.

 

[willtalk]

One thing I noticed is that Baylors defense was considerable better last season. Their guards defense especially. Williams is the type of player who will take advantage of defensive lapses that create space and she killed Baylor. She looked constantly open without the ball. Mulkey pulled Landrum who usually is a good defender because Williams was constantly losing her. This is why she got so many O boards in the first half. Even Di Di who was lockdown last season did not play well. I wonder if it is because they had both Brown and Cox in the paint to cover their mistakes and felt more comfortable playing tighter defense. They did not use their really big posts a lot in this game. Sometimes players have good seasons and then never repeat that level again.

 

[Longtime fan]

CW can overpower most that guard her with either speed or power. Would love to have her get ball closer to basket, particularly when game on line. Her 10-15' jump shot is normally money.

That is the whole point. If her shooting from distance was more " money" more of the time, we'd be beating Baylor. And not just her shooting. As has been pointed out, Baylor's shooting was better , all game, from all distances and circumstances. We were awful ( for a UCONN team ) from the non-contested free throw line. What's the excuse for that? Baylor is taller? Baylor is deeper? So give Baylor some credit. They rose to the occasion more so than did UCONN.