- Joined
- Apr 30, 2019
- Messages
- 1,468
- Reaction Score
- 14,294
Complete Post Game Celebration
Thanks for your thoughts. Don’t lurk so much! We want to hear more from thoughtful people.This season I have mostly been lurking on the BY rather than participating, but I had to speak up tonight because I am SO incredibly proud of the effort that we saw from this team over the past couple of days. When Aaliyah went down on Saturday, I thought that our chances of winning the BET were about 30%, with a close win over Creighton a possibility. Boy, was I happily wrong! Congrats to GT for an impressive run in honor of their late coach, and for their effort tonight. But the effort from the Huskies- just wow! Huge credit goes to Paige for her unbelievable performance in all three games. Her offensive output was ridiculous with 83 points in 3 games, but it was her defense that truly stood out. Rebounds, steals, and blocks, oh my! The Huskies are so lucky to have her. It was the performance from Ice, however, that led to two dominant wins. I don’t know what clicked for her, but she played with skill, intensity, and stamina on both ends of the court, and she did it with only 3 fouls in 80 minutes. Great contributions from KK, Ash, Q, and, of course, the heart of the team, Nika. Each year seems to have a special team, but this group is unique. They play with intensity, fire, heart, and they play for each other. It is a joy to watch! One more tourney to go.
That's just something that the UConn program does: good people come in and become better. There are a lot of things the program does in addition to winning titles, and this year they've already accomplished a lot of them: including immensely rewarding their fans for traveling the road along with them.In the hand shake line, each and every husky went up to Bri Scott and gave her a hug and well wishes!!
We have lots of pairs of great hands with glue on the fingertips, that helps. IMO, I would note the player anticipation and shut down double teams we often employ in the defensive half court. This will expand as our bench depth grows. Our quickness is off the charts. We are freshmen no more! Defense wins and we have it. This team likes to play defense, you can see the sly smiles on their face. WOW.Only 9 turnovers with 4 freshmen playing a total 132 minutes. They had 3 of the 9 TOs
Maybe I'm wrong, but this is Geno's finest hour. He took a desperately crippled team saddled with loss of their Bigs and rearranged the players remaining into a defensive and offensive juggernaut! Tell me he does not deserve COY, c'mon, tell me....Geno, has done an amazing Job with this team. Paige took the leader of the pack mind set all three games and everyone else fell in line. Defense and Rebounding was insane. Ice Ice Brady. So impressed with her. Playing 40 minutes and Staying out of foul trouble while playing quality post defense. 3 freshman playing huge roles in their first ever Big East tournament means sky the limit for UConn's future. Let's Gooooo!
I absolutely loved that. It showed total class. Paige and Azzi know how it feels to be injured, sitting on the bench, watching teammates struggle in a game, and that they sought out an injured opponent to offer support and encouragement is just the epitome of sportsmanship. What great people they are.The Georgetown kids played tough, but not dirty. They have a lot to be proud of—I really appreciated Paige and Azzi seeking out that poor kid who blew out her knee vs. Creighton. 2 programs with a lot of class.
No doubt UConn’s defense is locked in. But there are other factors that contribute to scoring by an opponent.Interesting observation from the last two games with lineup #7. The running average of PPG dropped a bit over the last 5 games, which makes sense for the last 2.5, as we were without Liya. This is entirely unscientific, however the running average of points against and point differential per game is still trending downward, starting at game #25, and it tells me, in my DST sleep deprived and uncaffeinated state, is that our defense has locked in, just in time for the big dance.
View attachment 97553
Just had to add this one..