Gutty performance.
I’ll first focus on the last 5 minutes. Uconn down by only 3. The threes they gave up in the last 5 really hurt to go along with 5-6 TOs/fouls. Not sure why GA didn’t have IB in the game during some of this stretch. She still looks a bit unsure of herself under pressure sometimes, but Maryland was licking their chops going for the ball every time uconn was taking the ball up the court when she wasn’t in. Replacing CD (known to be a 3 pt shooter) with Yanna tells me GA didn’t have faith in CD from 3 and wanted Yanna in the game. AE gave an AA performance today – wish she could have done this against ND. Maryland looked to be playing without any bigs – they seemed really small and we couldn’t close out on them. The huge quantity of TOs tell you all you need to know about how valuable NM is.
AE looked to run out of gas at the end – making several mistakes. She had a TO, missed shot, two fouls, including one against a three pt shooter. Tough for her to protect the paint and run after the three-point shooters as well and then ask her to score and rebound and help with the press. Was that really an over and back?
I get the feeling that Uconn would have won easily with just one of any of their players that were out. I think Maryland had roughly 15-20 more shots than uconn. If they miss a couple of those threes, it’s a different game as well. Anyway, I’m not worried about Maryland.
Also, great midrange shots from yanna earlier in the game. After she hit the first, the next time, she was able to take her man to the rim, but unfortunately missed the layup. This was a mini-breakout game for her, where she got two mid-range shots to go. I really think her game will skyrocket the more she can hit the midrange and she looked very natural doing it. I do expect a bigger breakout game soon – over 20 pts.
Some better and some about the same for CD – her lack of quickness shows up a lot on both ends of the court. She needs to be a spot-up three pt shooter with the occasional post up. AG was a monster again. She was too gassed to hit her outside shots, but most of them looked good coming off her hand, she just short-armed them.