The View of a Newcomer

[TheObvious]

This is a first for me, participating in the Boneyard. I think it important to present the platform from which I view the game:

• I have been following Uconn for 20 years. Though I have no association with the University (I’m a Stanford grad) and don’t live in CT, I was attracted to Uconn because of my obsession for Quality, which if we look around is in short supply these days. And the Uconn coaches, players and program are Quality, to this day.
• I refer to Geno as the Lombardi of women’s basketball.
• I played basketball at a Division III college.
• By definition competition is a win-lose proposition. If you can’t accept loss, don’t compete. A bumper sticker says it best: “Winning isn’t everything, but losing sucks!”
• I attend 2-3 games a year and have traveled to 2 Final Fours, one of which we won and one we lost by a buzzer-beater.

That said, a couple of comments on the current situation:

The team’s improvement between GA St and Louisville is dramatic.
In my view we lost the game because Louisville made crucial 3-pointers in the 4th Q and we did not, at least until it was too late. At the same time I remind myself that we have two of the finest outside shooters in basketball sitting on the bench, injured.

Hopefully we’ll be at full strength come March. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to that. We may not win the Championship, but I want to be along for the ride.

 

[Performance]

I totally agree with your assessment and like you I will be along for the ride!

 

[UcMiami]

Great first post and welcome to being an active member of the board. I agree with all your points.

I would say the thing we are missing most at the moment is consistency from the active players on the team - they can all be great in spurts or even for a whole game, but they all can disappear for stretches or complete games. And that consistency issue shows up at both ends of the floor.

Paige when health was good at feeding a hot hand, and when needed could carry the team herself. Without her the team as a whole is struggling to find that quality.

Maya Moore, DT, and Stewart all had a knack of settling their teams - they would make a play early in a game and you could see the team sort of relax with the sense of 'OK, we got this' - we saw this at Uconn, and those that watch have seen it in their pro careers and in their USA careers as well. Paige has that quality as well.

 

[LoboDays]

I don’t see how you could watch Liv, CW and EW in the Louisville game and think there was a drastic improvement from the GT game.

Paige is the best player in the sport. One of the best of all time. But, she was on the floor in last season’s Arizona game and this season’s SC game. For me, the jury is still out when it comes to getting this team to come up big in 4th quarters of close games against the top teams.

 

[EricLA]

Post more, lurk less!!!

 

[Centerstream]

Can anyone think of an avatar for TheObvious????????
I am guessing that @Biff has a couple of samples.

 

[Jmsdawg]

My Take, I feel UCONN is an elite team and has an elite coach. An elite team does not go undefeated very often when you play other elite teams so why am I concerned about UCONN being 6-3 this early in the season, all three loses had a common base, in particular, a bad fourth quarter both defense and offense. Fourth quarter fatigue normally is directly related to depth and I feel fatigue is a definite factor in the UCONN losses. Certainly injuries have contributed to the depth problem but IMO depth has to be developed via playing time for the nonstarters. Case in point, Ducharme is obviously talented but her playing time before the injuries was limited. The comparison with South Carolina, another elite team with an elite coach, clearly shows SC bench is being developed via playing time. To me that says UCONN MUST DEVELOP ITS BENCH PLAYERS.

 

[Javafan]

To me that says UCONN MUST DEVELOP ITS BENCH PLAYERS.

Not allotting bench players with playing time had been Achilles heel for the Huskie for quite some time !!

 

[MilfordHusky]

Can anyone think of an avatar for TheObvious????????
I am guessing that @Biff has a couple of samples.

 

[tomcat]

I don’t see how you could watch Liv, CW and EW in the Louisville game and think there was a drastic improvement from the GT game.

Paige is the best player in the sport. One of the best of all time. But, she was on the floor in last season’s Arizona game and this season’s SC game. For me, the jury is still out when it comes to getting this team to come up big in 4th quarters of close games against the top teams.

I agree with the second half of this comment and totally disagree with the first half.
First, the disagreement: Anything, anything at all, would have been an improvement from the GT game. IMHO, the GT game may have been the worst game played by a UConn women's basketball team in over a decade. The performance in the Louisville game, particularly the play in he second half of the third period, was outstanding compared to anything shown in the GT game.

Then, the agreement: I think this poster is correct that UConn still, has a ways to go to get to where the team can be relied on to play a consistently strong fourth quarter against decent teams. If they are being challenged, they have a hard time running their stuff effectively, and against a strong defensive team like Louisville, they are at sea.

 

[cohenzone]

I agree with the second half of this comment and totally disagree with the first half.
First, the disagreement: Anything, anything at all, would have been an improvement from the GT game. IMHO, the GT game may have been the worst game played by a UConn women's basketball team in over a decade. The performance in the Louisville game, particularly the play in he second half of the third period, was outstanding compared to anything shown in the GT game.

Then, the agreement: I think this poster is correct that UConn still, has a ways to go to get to where the team can be relied on to play a consistently strong fourth quarter against decent teams. If they are being challenged, they have a hard time running their stuff effectively, and against a strong defensive team like Louisville, they are at sea.

They had basically two days to adjust without Paige vs GT and no Nika either. They are playing generally much better on offense having more time to adjust. I’m not sure who anyone thinks can come off the bench to come close to running the team like Evina who herself is not a natural point guard. There is nobody else right now. She is playing almost the entire game and on bad knees to boot. She is clearly gassed. Playing really short handed we almost beat LVille and it took a few of their kids who haven’t been making 3s all year to hit them. That’s hoops. I have no clue who everyone thinks isn’t being developed. Azzi is hurt. Olivia isn’t nearly as ineffective as some here think, certainly not to the point where DeBerry should be taking a lot of her minutes. She has been getting minutes lately. Gabriel is apparently also not physically ready.

Missing Paige plus Nika basically puts our other guards out of position. Not a good thing in hoops at this level. Christyn definitely loses a lot with Paige gone. They played a really good game against a really strong team. We just can’t be the same without Paige. Few teams are as good when a key piece is missing and when that piece is the national player of the year, some wins are just going to be harder to come by. Hopefully Nika and Azzi will soon be back and if Azzi is anywhere near her billing, we should be a tough out especially if Caroline can be consistently dangerous and if Aliyah can find her mojo. Missing Aubrey is also pretty hard to replace for what she does. I am one who found our play against Louisville encouraging.

 

[Skeets]

No! Too obvious.

 

[Alydar]

Bueckers Fudd and Mühl are able to play pg. Westbrook has done it at Tenn but by default, just like now. Her best place is at 2/3. Stanford hasn't a true pg either and it showed in both games. If Henderson had still been out Scar might not be undefeated today.
If UConn was only missing Bueckers I'd be more concerned. I'll wait until 2 of our 3 pg's get back in play for a couple of weeks.