NGL, I was anticipating a tough game, but a lot of what happened seemed very un-UConn like. UCLA going 71% for 3 pt in the first half was unreal. I'm not totally surprised of the result though. Loved Amari battling in the post on defense, however she reminds me of me, with some indecision on offense read/react, a paralysis by analysis. The bigger picture was going up against the #2 team in the nation after finding out a key starter and scorer is out for the year. Definitely not ideal. Coaches had to piece the team together both mentally, and tactically in a short time period.
That being said, I'm glad we had this game now in November. There is so much time left to rethink the starters, the sub pattern, who needs to do what, how we counter another team with size. If we were in March, there would not be much, if any time to recover and reconstruct the team, Shea's injury in the 1st round of the tourney in 1997 completely turned everything upside down, and the team never really recovered. Per Geno postgame, "Our combinations are all screwed up right now, so that's gotta get sorted out."
Geno has said that he intentionally plans the "murderer's row" schedule early, as he wants to play a competitive schedule so there aren't any surprises in March. A 3-2 record today is not going to doom us. Let's see what happens and look for both individual and collective growth within the team.