UConn coaches spoke to media today (Sept 8)

[Bone Dog]

This year looks deeper than those other years. In fact, if Paige hadn't been injured, I'd say this is the strongest of the rosters listed.

 

[CocoHusky]

Maybe I need more coffee, but I'm confused here. Were the rosters for the 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 rosters omitted intentionally?

Yes. The original premise was a comparison of the rosters of the three teams "immediately preceding Stewie's graduation" compared to the '22-'23 roster.

 

[cancontent]

Geno commenting on HOF inductees and who has not gotten in yet. This sentence stood out

UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma reflects on milestone week for former players

Geno Auriemma and UConn coaches reflect on the careers of Sue Bird and Swin Cash in a week when one retired and the other enters the Hall of Fame.

www.ctinsider.com

“Is Asjha Jones a Hall of Famer? I mean there are people in the Hall of Fame already that haven’t accomplished as much as Asjha did,” he said. “I don’t get to vote so contrary to all those UConn haters out there, it wasn’t my vote that put Swin over the top that got her into the Hall of Fame in case anyone thinks this is a UConn conspiracy here. I had nothing to do with it.”

It's unfortunate he has to put a disclaimer out there. Swin totally deserves being selected.

 

[CocoHusky]

This year looks deeper than those other years. In fact, if Paige hadn't been injured, I'd say this is the strongest of the rosters listed.

Nah. You would have to do a best player next best player comparison. If you disagree with my rankings then please insert your own. Paige is clearly the best player list because she is the only NPOY among those teams. It is after the 1st best player comparison where you see a drastic drop off. It is also not fair to Ice and Ayana because there is no basis of comparison yet but I don't expect either of their contributions as Freshman to be above what say Azura Stevens or senior/junior Gabby Williams or even Freshman Christyn Williams.

Phee	Phee	Phee	PB
KLS	KLS	KLS	Azzi
Kia	Azura	Christyn Williams	Caroline
Gabby	Kia	Crystal	AE
Crystal	Gabby	Megan Walker	Dorka
Saniya	Crystal	ONO	Nika
Natalie Butler	Megan Walker	Kyla Irwin	Lou Lo
Kyla Irwin	Kyla Irwin	Molly Bent	Aubrey
Molly Bent	Molly Bent		Ayanna
			Ice

 

[Bone Dog]

Nah. You would have to do a best player next best player comparison. If you disagree with my rankings then please insert your own. Paige is clearly the best player list because she is the only NPOY among those teams. It is after the 1st best player comparison where you see a drastic drop off. It is also not fair to Ice and Ayana because there is no basis of comparison yet but I don't expect either of their contributions as Freshman to be above what say Azura Stevens or senior/junior Gabby Williams or even Freshman Christyn Williams.

Phee	Phee	Phee	PB
KLS	KLS	KLS	Azzi
Kia	Azura	Christyn Williams	Caroline
Gabby	Kia	Crystal	AE
Crystal	Gabby	Megan Walker	Dorka
Saniya	Crystal	ONO	Nika
Natalie Butler	Megan Walker	Kyla Irwin	Lou Lo
Kyla Irwin	Kyla Irwin	Molly Bent	Aubrey
Molly Bent	Molly Bent		Ayanna
			Ice

I was thinking more of a position comparison, or maybe a mix of position/best player comparison. Accommodations would have to be made for injury as well in such a speculative endeavor. But this is what is entailed in comparing this year's roster before they've played to previous year's rosters.

For example, projecting what uninjured Caroline could have done last year forward to what more experienced and uninjured Caroline might do tells me that Sophomore Caroline could well compare favorably to Sophomore KLS. But that's just loaded with speculation.

Or Dorka v Azura? Who else would we compare Dorka to? Megan Walker?

Obviously no one really compares to uninjured Paige even as a freshman. She's just an outlier.

And Azzi? Again projecting uninjured Azzi forward as a Sophomore, it's not clear to me who we'd compare her to. Christyn? Saniya? Kia?

Granting these projections, It looks to me like the top of the roster gives a mixed result.
First, no one equals Paige.
Azzi and Caroline could be a close call, but here goes.
Second, KLS gets the nod over Caroline.
Third, Azzi surely gets the nod over Saniya, probably over Christyn, and it's tough to call the Kia-Azzi comparison because Kia's D was formidable even if her shooting wasn't at Azzi's level.
Fourth, Phee v AE is lopsided in favor of Phee to my mind in terms of career achievement, but perhaps not as much in regard to what AE could do this year. Still the fact is she has only shown flashes of what Phee did regularly in her last two seasons, and she doesn't have Phee's shooting range.
Fifth, Gabby doesn't really have a match here. Aubrey projected forward and uninjured seems uncompelling as a comparison.
Sixth, Crystal is obviously a much better pg than Nika in any year, though perhaps not quite the defender Nika is.
Seventh, Dorka and Azura or Megan is a wash.

That looks like a split to me from the top of the roster. But the bottom of the roster, not even counting Amari or Ines, just looking at Ice and Ayanna seems likely (I said likely) to be much in the favor of this years squad. I know, they're unproven. But even so it seems farfetched to me that they wouldn't do much more than what Kyla and Molly were ever able to do. If we extend the speculation to include Lou, this seems even more likely.

But this is total speculation, not rocket science.

 

[Alydar]

Yes. The original premise was a comparison of the rosters of the three teams "immediately preceding Stewie's graduation" compared to the '22-'23 roster.

Actually the years I used were 2017-2022.

 

[cancontent]

Maybe I need more coffee, but I'm confused here. Were the rosters for the 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 rosters omitted intentionally?

This was my original question which CocoHusky replied to.

Actually the years I used were 2017-2022.

Were there columns for years 2019, 2020 and 2021? They were not listed in the chart.

 

[jdote33]

Actually the years I used were 2017-2022.

My bad. I was responding to @CocoHusky post regarding the 3 years after Stewie left. so I did omit some teams. Last year's team was really talented but just couldn't stay healthy.

 

[Alydar]

I think that the truth lies at the bottoms of the rosters. In 2019 UConn had 8 players and 2 were Bent and Irwin, fine women and great teammates but very vulnerable on the court. That basically was who UConn had in the event of injuries and we saw Irwin as a starter that year.
This year's team has no stats yet so my opinion is mostly subjective, but UConn this season has 11 players better than Irwin or Bent. In 2019 the team had 6. One can argue that the starters were better but looking at the entire roster there is little doubt about the total roster strength.

 

[CocoHusky]

I think that the truth lies at the bottoms of the rosters. In 2019 UConn had 8 players and 2 were Bent and Irwin, fine women and great teammates but very vulnerable on the court. That basically was who UConn had in the event of injuries and we saw Irwin as a starter that year.
This year's team has no stats yet so my opinion is mostly subjective, but UConn this season has 11 players better than Irwin or Bent. In 2019 the team had 6. One can argue that the starters were better but looking at the entire roster there is little doubt about the total roster strength.

The truth does not lie at the bottom of the roster because those players never get/got a chance to impact the game. If that were true then Stewie's teams with 2 walkons would be the weakest in UCONN history but we both know better than than.

 

[Geew1992]

Maybe I need more coffee, but I'm confused here. Were the rosters for the 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 rosters omitted intentionally?

It’s comparing the 3 teams following Stevie’s graduation with this years team…

 

[CocoHusky]

This year looks deeper than those other years. In fact, if Paige hadn't been injured, I'd say this is the strongest of the rosters listed.

You are moving the goal post here. @Alydar original post said nothing about depth. The post said "Even without Bueckers this is the best roster since Stewart played." The deepest team is not the same as best team.
Chalk it up to recent bias or just pure under appreciation but I'll simply say Kia Nurse can probably guard Paige pretty well because she was national DPOY. Napheesa Collier was on all three of those teams I mentioned who on this current roster is going to guard Napheesa Collier and I haven't even mentioned KLS yet.

 

[Cuango]

Yes. The original premise was a comparison of the rosters of the three teams "immediately preceding Stewie's graduation" compared to the '22-'23 roster.

Following?

 

[Bone Dog]

You are moving the goal post here.

It's true. I shifted the question a little bit... or maybe just interpreted it. The original post left this ambiguous. But given Geno's propensity to play only 6 or 7, it's not unreasonable to focus on that top 6 or 7.

Napheesa Collier was on all three of those teams I mentioned who on this current roster is going to guard Napheesa Collier and I haven't even mentioned KLS yet.

Well, WNBA Phee or KLS couldn't be guarded by anyone on today's team. But Sophomore and Junior KLS could be guarded credibly by Caroline and something similar would be true of Phee guarded by AE. You'll notice, however, that in my analysis I concluded that the post-Stewie teams would probably win those matchups. That's probably not where we disagree.

But when it comes to Paige and Azzi being guarded by Kia Crystal Saniya or freshman Christyn, I think the nod goes to today's team. Could Kia have shut down Paige or Azzi? Maybe, one of them, but not both.

Or perhaps you mean to have Phee guard Paige or Azzi. I think Paige wins that duel decisively. Same for KLS guarding either of them. Neither one had the foot speed on the perimeter for such an assignment, and Caroline is then unleashed. Would you assign Gabby to guard one of them? She had the quickness to do it, but then bye-bye rebounding.

What's more, this is a bigger overall team than the post-Stewie teams. Admittedly they were good at playing above their height. But I still think this is an obvious advantage for today's team.

Of course, this is entirely fantasy speculation. But it is fun to mull over possibilities.

 

[CocoHusky]

Following?

Absolutely. Thanks for paying attention.

 

[Alydar]

Here's my post that started this and as you can read, I talked about the strongest roster, not the best starting 5 or even the best team. This year's team has more talent, period. That is due to it's depth of talent rather than a comparison of starting teams. I used the word "roster" on purpose. It's not possible to compare performance since this year's roster has yet to play a game, despite all the expert predictions on this board.
But remember, this year's team is the only one since 2016 that can win a title. And winning is all that matters, right? I mean 2017-2022 were losing seasons for the Huskies, right? Or at least that's what a lot of people here seem to believe. Anything less than a title is failure?

A really good article. I hope that soon the discussions will be about the active roster. The mourning period needs to end. Not trying to be cold but this is still an uber-talented roster and fully able to win the title. Even without Bueckers this is the best roster since Stewart played.*

* underlining added.

 

[oldhusky]

I was thinking more of a position comparison, or maybe a mix of position/best player comparison. Accommodations would have to be made for injury as well in such a speculative endeavor. But this is what is entailed in comparing this year's roster before they've played to previous year's rosters.

For example, projecting what uninjured Caroline could have done last year forward to what more experienced and uninjured Caroline might do tells me that Sophomore Caroline could well compare favorably to Sophomore KLS. But that's just loaded with speculation.

Or Dorka v Azura? Who else would we compare Dorka to? Megan Walker?

Obviously no one really compares to uninjured Paige even as a freshman. She's just an outlier.

And Azzi? Again projecting uninjured Azzi forward as a Sophomore, it's not clear to me who we'd compare her to. Christyn? Saniya? Kia?

Granting these projections, It looks to me like the top of the roster gives a mixed result.
First, no one equals Paige.
Azzi and Caroline could be a close call, but here goes.
Second, KLS gets the nod over Caroline.
Third, Azzi surely gets the nod over Saniya, probably over Christyn, and it's tough to call the Kia-Azzi comparison because Kia's D was formidable even if her shooting wasn't at Azzi's level.
Fourth, Phee v AE is lopsided in favor of Phee to my mind in terms of career achievement, but perhaps not as much in regard to what AE could do this year. Still the fact is she has only shown flashes of what Phee did regularly in her last two seasons, and she doesn't have Phee's shooting range.
Fifth, Gabby doesn't really have a match here. Aubrey projected forward and uninjured seems uncompelling as a comparison.
Sixth, Crystal is obviously a much better pg than Nika in any year, though perhaps not quite the defender Nika is.
Seventh, Dorka and Azura or Megan is a wash.

That looks like a split to me from the top of the roster. But the bottom of the roster, not even counting Amari or Ines, just looking at Ice and Ayanna seems likely (I said likely) to be much in the favor of this years squad. I know, they're unproven. But even so it seems farfetched to me that they wouldn't do much more than what Kyla and Molly were ever able to do. If we extend the speculation to include Lou, this seems even more likely.

But this is total speculation, not rocket science.

It's pretty good speculation though! I would probably count on Azzi being superior to Christyn and Kia, and like you think that Ice and Ayanna would be much better than the Kyla/Molly level. In fact I think their floor is higher than Kyla and Molly's ceiling. The value of this year's roster vs. some of the others is in the 8-10 range. Some years we had a strong 6th and 7th player but then there was a drop-off after, that with Kyla and Molly being examples. They played to there abilities, but this year the talent at the end of, and maybe just outside the rotation is greater.

Overall a very good analysis.

 

[Alydar]

It's pretty good speculation though! I would probably count on Azzi being superior to Christyn and Kia, and like you think that Ice and Ayanna would be much better than the Kyla/Molly level. In fact I think their floor is higher than Kyla and Molly's ceiling. The value of this year's roster vs. some of the others is in the 8-10 range. Some years we had a strong 6th and 7th player but then there was a drop-off after, that with Kyla and Molly being examples. They played to there abilities, but this year the talent at the end of, and maybe just outside the rotation is greater.

Overall a very good analysis.

Good way to compare them. I was trying to avoid player comparisons because the older players are compared based on who they are now or when they were seniors. How well this roster performs is yet to be decided but simply based on skills/depth/size this a loaded team. It used to be automatic for freshmen to sit unless they were Maya or else the only available (Dolson Hartley) option. But it seems to me that more and more HS players are getting advanced training and are coming to college ready to compete from day 1. Our new guard is the first player in a while to be considered a project, only because of her inexperience.
If they are all working as hard as reported we are in for a great season.

 

[CocoHusky]

Here's my post that started this and as you can read, I talked about the strongest roster, not the best starting 5 or even the best team. This year's team has more talent, period. That is due to it's depth of talent rather than a comparison of starting teams. I used the word "roster" on purpose. It's not possible to compare performance since this year's roster has yet to play a game, despite all the expert predictions on this board.
But remember, this year's team is the only one since 2016 that can win a title. And winning is all that matters, right? I mean 2017-2022 were losing seasons for the Huskies, right? Or at least that's what a lot of people here seem to believe. Anything less than a title is failure?

* underlining added.

Still don't see how you can say this year's team is the only team that can win a title (without paige?) when last year's team made it to the championship game with a semi-healthy Paige and no Dorka. Or did you forget to add some emoji to your post again? Keep in mind that many (not saying you) thought last year teem was one of the deepest UCONN teams ever. SC is still the elephant in the room and will be until Boston departs. I still think many (including you) are overestimating the talent on this roster. Either way we'll know for sure by Thanksgiving.

 

[jdote33]

Positive talk regarding Lou. I don't have a subscription to read the full article.

 

[eebmg]

Positive talk regarding Lou. I don't have a subscription to read the full article.

I have a subscription so I could look. The only real detailed player analysis beyond the small 1 sentence tidbits we have already heard was Lou and I am happy to report Geno and Morgan are really gushing about her. She will be a big piece of what we do on the court. Another Caroline imo

There is some interesting parts regarding Ines's recruitment and some praise about her basketball knowledge that is very positive but with limited tape, she is a big unknown

Not as much on Ayanna (high effort / motor) or Ice (Smooth / Left handed)

Nothing on Aubrey or Amari

 

[MilfordHusky]

Basically, the report on Lou is that she is very polished offensively, can get any shot she wants against the practice players, has a great midrange jumper and a fall-away, and can get to the rim surprisingly easily. All the plays that Fairfield ran were for Lou.

 

[Bone Dog]

There’s lots of great talent that doesn’t come to UConn. And they don’t tend to win NCs. Geno knows how to find diamonds in the rough and polish them. Lou doesn’t seem to need much polishing on the offensive end. Now we’ll see whether he can build a championship team with her. I’m betting yes.

 

[TeamFirst!]

Lou should not really be a surprise. She proved herself over 4 years and averaged around 40% from the 3 point line for 3 of those years. And if you watch her videos she obviously has the skills to get her shot off and convert. After seeing Lou maybe they thought to go to that well again and found Inez. Both maybe went under the radar some in high school. As discussed on other threads, I don't think scoring is going to be as much a problem as people may think.

The strongest team we have has Lou in at the 2 and Azzi as PG but they can't play the whole game so Nika probably still starts.

 

[Carnac]

On Thursday, UConn women’s basketball’s entire coaching staff met with the media. While we often hear from Geno Auriemma, the assistants provided a different perspective than the head coach. Jamelle Elliott focuses on the bigs and Morgan Valley specializes in the guards, meaning they spend more time working with the players on an individual level and might have a different viewpoint on someone than Auriemma.

Collectively, the coaching staff gave the most in-depth preview of the Huskies’ four new players that we’ve received so far.
Valley on Lopez-Senechal: “She's amazing. She's just an awesome kid,” “She's a worker. She's blue collar — doesn't expect anything, doesn't ask for anything. She just puts her head down. We use this system called Catapult, her numbers are off the chain in workouts, the weights, the effort she puts into her workouts, the way she works out — she's here for a reason. It's fun and games, but it's not fun in games for her. She has goals of going to the WNBA and playing in Europe. So she's here for a reason.”

I would love to get a 2 minute report on the progress of the players assigned to each coach once a week. That way we can stay informed and up to date on the progress of each player.