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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 3929107, member: 9844"] The Uconn culture has consistently put a lot of emphasis on eliminating the negatives. That certainly includes fouls, but also turnovers and low percentage shots. The point about losing teams having to foul at the end of games on purpose is a good one. But also consider how Geno allocates playing time. If you pick up a second foul in the first half you usually sit the rest of the half for example. The players all know that, and are more conservative as a result. Nika had her battles with Geno over fouling and that may have affected her playing time early in the year, Aaliyah as well to a certain extent. Geno frequently tones down a player's style, sometimes reducing their shot attempts, steals, blocked shots etc. in exchange for a higher shooting percentage and lower turnovers and fouls. I think Evina is an excellent example of the "program" effect. At Tennessee she was a high volume medium efficiency player. At Uconn she has been transformed into a much higher efficiency role player. Her points, assists and fouls per minute I believe are all down. On the other hand her shooting efficiency is much better, and her turnovers and fouls are down. Another factor could be Geno's frequent use of a relatively short rotation. I sometimes disagree with that strategy, but I suspect in years when he really didn't want to use the bench (last year except for Aubrey) the starters would exhibit an even lower foul rate, because he would emphasize it even more, to avoid having to use Kyla and Molly any more than he had to. In some ways that limited his options. Releasing the hounds with an aggressive pressing defense wasn't really a viable option last year, because the more likely fouls and extra fatigue factor would mean using the bench more. Next year I am hoping some of that changes. We will have tons of talent not just on the second unit, but the third as well. We also will have the ability to put a unit on the floor made for a pressing defense, if we want to. It is realistic to assume such a strategy would have some downside of more fouls, but perhaps more from the bench than the starters. But the tradeoff could be producing way more turnovers from the opposition, getting far more steals and blocks, and as a bonus get more fast break easy buckets off those turnovers. Last year the risk/reward tradeoff from a pressing defense probably didn't make sense because of having to use a weaker bench. This year I think we could have used it on occasion. Next year I think it becomes a huge potential advantage, and utilizes a ridiculously deep bench for which playing time will be an issue even if we do use 10-11 routinely. [/QUOTE]

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