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UConn - Butler post game

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Blakeon18 said:
Kelis goes to the hoop often and with zippo fear. Sometimes the shot itself is contested....sometimes not...but it's pretty certain to be taken.

Her outside game? No shooting technique expert here but her form looks good to me. I'm not sure but I don't think I have ever seen one actually go in. I find myself in a huge snit when she misses...I very...VERY...much want to see her swish one. Go Kelis!

I am hoping to see next year Kelis in the regular rotation as a point....behind KK and K9. We know that several other players...notably Sarah ...can do point guard things...but I anticipate significant rotation minutes off the bench for Kelis.
With Azzie leaving I am hopeful that guard Jovana can focus on her shooting when she is in the game....though if she passes to Kelis and Kelils swishes it I'' be OK with that too.

Just checked the season stats: If I am reading them correctly...Kelis has played in 21 games....taken 7 treys...and has hit....well...zero. Go Kelis !
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Decent shooting technique can give you a baseline/floor of a fair/mediocre shooter. To be a real good to excellent shooter you have to add feel, correct arc, and good depth perception. All four can get you to the Bueckers/Fudd level but most don't get there because those last three are innate.
 
I was at the game, lots of fans in pink, and a very nice tribute at halftime to breast cancer survivors and those undergoing treatment.

We got a little bit of snow in Connecticut today but mainly it is freeeezzzing cold, brutal walk from the parking lot to the arena and back. Good crowd, but some no shows, likely because of the weather.

This part of the schedule is the basketball equivalent of baseball's dog days of August. Last season, UConn lost at Tennessee on February 6. The season before, blown out at South Carolina on February 11. The season before that, back to back losses against South Carolina on February 5 and Marquette on February 8. Take the win and move on.

Great ideas to rest Sarah and to pull Azzi early in the third. Seven players played 20 minutes or more. Geno may complain about Shade, but she played 36 minutes, far and away the most. Allie second with 31 and good all around play.

Shade struggled in the first half but came through with a solid second half and was one of five starters in double figure scoring, plus 5 assists. The team hit 20 assists again.

Positives today included forcing 23 turnovers, 14 steals (including 4 for Allie), and a very aggressive double teaming effort, I think they got a couple of ten second calls.

Another positive was the play of Kelis Fisher, who is lightning fast with the ball in her hands, gets downhill in a hurry and can finish at or near the rim. 14 minutes today. Still a work in process, but plenty to work with. Also, happy to see that Jana got 20 minutes and 11 rebounds.

Negatives were unnecessary reach-in/over the back touch fouls, especially K9 and Jana, and traveling calls in the post. I wish our post players would get their footwork out of the way early and go up quicker.

Butler is a well-coached team and their offense ran pretty well when UConn finally gave them some room to breathe.

Chris Daley's post-game comments regarding Blanca were somewhat disappointing, even though they were delivered with a rather upbeat tone. She said that she is working on individual things at this point with not definite timetable for a return. The good news is UConn does not need her at the current time, but hopefully she is back before the end of the regular season.
 
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I lost interest in this game quite early. Maybe it was the weather, absence of Storm, or just me.
I hope games like this will not hurt the team in March.
 
Blakeon18 said:
Kelis goes to the hoop often and with zippo fear. Sometimes the shot itself is contested....sometimes not...but it's pretty certain to be taken.

Her outside game? No shooting technique expert here but her form looks good to me. I'm not sure but I don't think I have ever seen one actually go in. I find myself in a huge snit when she misses...I very...VERY...much want to see her swish one. Go Kelis!

I am hoping to see next year Kelis in the regular rotation as a point....behind KK and K9. We know that several other players...notably Sarah ...can do point guard things...but I anticipate significant rotation minutes off the bench for Kelis.
With Azzie leaving I am hopeful that guard Jovana can focus on her shooting when she is in the game....though if she passes to Kelis and Kelils swishes it I'' be OK with that too.

Just checked the season stats: If I am reading them correctly...Kelis has played in 21 games....taken 7 treys...and has hit....well...zero. Go Kelis !
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We have had a number of freshmen 'shooters' come in and have long 0-fer stretches - was it Lou Samuelson who was famously 0 for California, her first ten or 12 threes (currently 6th best single season/8th best career mark?) Moriah Jefferson was terrible as a freshman and yet ended up almost tying Sue for best 3 point single season record and is 7th in the career record. I think Kelis will be fine, just needs the game to slow down for her.
 
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TUCBTUD said:
Geno Auriemma:

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Love hearing about Geno's growing confidence in Allie. Like Geno, I really thought the Tennessee game showed that Allie can play in big games. I like how's she's driving to the rim, getting steals, rebounding and defending and not just that 3 point shooter. To me, this is the biggest development of the year. Once Blanca comes back we will have an extremely potent bench, which we will need if Azzi has an off night shooting or Sarah is in foul trouble. Blanca and Allie will be counted on in short stretches of very meaningful games.
 
Besides being available at some point on the Fox Sports app, the game replay is scheduled for 2AM tonight on FS2.
 
Centerstream said:
I could be mistaken but I don't remember any other announcers that seemed to talk about fouls so much, especially bail out fouls. And they spoke a couple of times about how the Butler coach was telling the refs about missed calls against his team and the next thing you know, they would get calls in their favor.
The game to me was like a blur. All were playing good but with many of the starters being subbed for so often (it seems), it was hard for those on the court to stay in rhythm, both on offense and defense.
A very interesting game.
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Best to hit the mute button to avoid the inane nonsense from the announcers.
Ever wonder why we have announcers? Couldn't do w/out the Great HR.
Like to try.
 
Blakeon18 said:
Kelis goes to the hoop often and with zippo fear. Sometimes the shot itself is contested....sometimes not...but it's pretty certain to be taken.

Her outside game? No shooting technique expert here but her form looks good to me. I'm not sure but I don't think I have ever seen one actually go in. I find myself in a huge snit when she misses...I very...VERY...much want to see her swish one. Go Kelis!

I am hoping to see next year Kelis in the regular rotation as a point....behind KK and K9. We know that several other players...notably Sarah ...can do point guard things...but I anticipate significant rotation minutes off the bench for Kelis.
With Azzie leaving I am hopeful that guard Jovana can focus on her shooting when she is in the game....though if she passes to Kelis and Kelils swishes it I'' be OK with that too.

Just checked the season stats: If I am reading them correctly...Kelis has played in 21 games....taken 7 treys...and has hit....well...zero. Go Kelis !
Expand ...
Just my 2 cents: I think when players step up a level in competition, sometimes things that they've usually been able to do are lost to them temporarily. Having see a couple of Kelis' IMG games before coming to UCONN, I know that, in the past, she was certainly able to hit 3's.
 
ucmiami2 said:
We have had a number of freshmen 'shooters' come in and have long 0-fer stretches - was it Lou Samuelson who was famously 0 for California, her first ten or 12 threes (currently 6th best single season/8th best career mark?) Moriah Jefferson was terrible as a freshman and yet ended up almost tying Sue for best 3 point single season record and is 7th in the career record. I think Kelis will be fine, just needs the game to slow down for her.
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And who was it that was 0 for America?
 
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Few thoughts:
*the announcers were terrible. Bail out fouls? if Azzi is hit on the arm (which she was), it is a foul...not a bail out foul...
*Love Jana's rebounding. Just wish she'll be less clumsy around the basket...
*Nice game by Allie...great defense with the 4 steals
*our players became very adapt in trying to grab the ball from an opposing players hand and come up with a lot to tie-ups...
*Azzi and Serah had a great first half...second half, not so much
*There is a lot of work to be done on zone defense...UConn just does not do a good job when they switch to a zone.
*Every game i find myself concerned for K9 as she is so aggressive and throws her body everywhere
*Kelis should not shoot 3's this season...hopefully she works on it over the summer and comes back next season as a reliable 3-point shooter to add to her blazing speed going to the basket.
*Everyone scored.
*Hope Sarah and Blanca are good to play next game
*
 
Very good game today. Team adjusted well to not having Sarah. The guards Azzi, KK, Ash, Allie and K9 were very good on both offense and defense.

Serah and Jana were a good 1-2 punch in the post.

This announcing team was pitiful. Not sure the refs were much better.
 
Trey shooting streaks: Remember Maria Conlon? Starting point guard on 2 national
championship teams. I am not positive about this but I believe that Maria...a good outside
shooter...missed 25 treys in row at one point while at UConn.

Word to Kelis: Make one next game...I don't want to fret about it any longer.
Go Kelis!
 
ThisJustIn said:
CD is done with the snow and ice. lol
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Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the crowd. Not every seat had a fanny in it, but the PBA was filled up to the last row, even in the end zones, on a completely miserable early afternoon in Hartford. The car said 5 degree F on the way home. Shoot that rodent that said 6 more weeks of winter.
 
ucmiami2 said:
And it is also not just minutes in games, but 2 hour practices most days, plus weight room/training program, etc. And compared to a game like Butler, the days without games are longer and harder and more intense.
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Early in the season, yes, but I've read that Geno backs off a little on practices when the team enters the home stretch. Still might be more intense than other team's practices.
 
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My theory is that the primary reason Geno didn't play Sarah is that he wanted to better stress test Serah and Jana as centers for extended minutes with no possible help from Sarah, who is much superior to both at scoring, rebounding and defense.

If that's so, I'm not sure how Geno views the outcome of the experiment.

Aside from that, UConn could easily have won this game just with guards—and, in fact, did.
 
At this point Big East games really are not worth paying a lot of money to see. What would be worth a lot , would be to see an intra-squad game.
 
Blakeon18 said:
Trey shooting streaks: Remember Maria Conlon? Starting point guard on 2 national
championship teams. I am not positive about this but I believe that Maria...a good outside
shooter...missed 25 treys in row at one point while at UConn.

Word to Kelis: Make one next game...I don't want to fret about it any longer.
Go Kelis!
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Let's not forget Anna Makurat's 0 for America start.
 
Well, in case anyone wondered what this team would look like if we lost Sarah, here you go. We won, at Butler, by 47. At home, you are talking 50 points. A 32 point win means the loss of Blanca and Sarah is 18 points. And the games without Blanca showed that she is about 2-3 points above those who replaced her. So, Sarah alone, accounts for 15 points on our MOV. That is HUGE!!! The end of our bench, in particular, was pretty mediocre in Q4. They lost to a bad Butler team. Against a good team, we are only 8 deep. Maybe we can go 9 if we get desperate where Serah and Sarah both get into foul trouble.
 
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Husky fanatic said:
Having watched Jana in FIIBA I know she can hit from 12 ft in. Very frustrating to see her not farther wide open shots
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That was difficult to watch. She had many opportunities to shoot the ball from the top of the key, but held it looking to pass which really slowed the offense. Not sure if this was by design, but it let Butler play 5 on 4.
 
Love Kellis. It's apparent so far she can't hit from the outside and you can see the defense left her wide open. Big deal though. A player can turn on. I'd lean toward it's not going to happen this year but next year or the the next or the next anything can happen. Last year neither KK nor K9 shot well. Now this year I expect their shots to go in a lot from the outside. Heck Kelli Faris couldn't shoot at all then her sr year she was over 40%.

The explosivenes Kellis has is electric. That one play she went coast to coast was awesome. To think she knocked out Sarah iin her last h/s game, and she also beat Soniyah Hall's team. She's a talent. As a fan of small ball I'm pretty excited about her possibilites. Her athleticism just has you say "wow."
 
PJCLaw said:
It didn't hurt them last season or seasons before that when they went to the FF almost every year for over a decade.
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I'm with you. I thought the game was fun. They have so many players. I'm not a bench guy but this year this team - it's amazing to see K9 and Allie look so good. And in regard to Jana she is so much tougher than last year imo. And Kellis potential looks amazing.

And I don't understand how this one game is going to hurt them.
 
PJCLaw said:
It didn't hurt them last season or seasons before that when they went to the FF almost every year for over a decade.
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MOST UCONN fans and players are not satisfied "getting to the Final Four," The goal is to WIN THE FINAL GAME.
 
One last observation: KK hit two pull-up jumpers. This is a huge development. She's been trying them over the last couple games, and now they're falling. Nika never managed to develop this shot and it was a significant gap in her offensive skills. I have a feeling she's taking her cue from Azzi Ash and Kayleigh, all of whom can use it to deadly effect.
 
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