UConn-Iowa Pre-Game Analysis

[cferraro04]

Caitlin Clark vs Azzi Fudd - Wow! This should be a great match-up...one that I have been looking forward to. Last year it was the Paige and Caitlin match-up that had my attention. This year it could turn into a good ole' fashion shootout. Of course, Caitlin has proven that she will get hers and Azzi has been nothing short of amazing this year. Both women are great basketball players but Caitlin has the better all-around game at this point in their careers. While Azzi can hang with Caitlin in the shooting category, I look to Caitlin to impact the game more with her assists and rebounding. ADVANTAGE: Iowa

Monika Czinano vs Aliyah Edwards - Monika has a scoring edge but Aliyah is consistent on the boards. Aliyah is playing her best basketball right now....her speed, her ability to pull her man out to the foul line and shoot the foul line jumper and her footwork may be enough to give her a slight edge in this match-up. The key for Aliyah is to stay out of foul trouble. SLIGHT ADVANTAGE: UConn

McKenna Warnock vs Aubrey Griffin - I think this is also going to be an interesting match-up. At the end of the day, however, I believe Aubrey will prove to be too athletic for McKenna. Her defensive presence will be disruptive for McKenna. Aubrey will impact this game on both ends of the court. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Gabby Marshall vs Lou Lopez-Senechal - Lou is a natural scorer. Offensively Gabby will not be able to provide the counter balance for Lou's offensive game. Lou will prove to have too much fire-power at this position and will help propel the Huskies to victory. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Kate Martin vs Nika Muhl - Nika Muhl has emerged as the Huskies' floor general. Her head is always looking down-court, she is always leading the fast break and she is really good at finding the open man. With Nika pushing the ball up court I don't see Iowa being able to keep up for 40 minutes. Nika's ability to distribute the ball to players who can score will give her the advantage at this position. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Bench - Iowa has more production on the bench, however, if Caroline Ducharme can round back into shape and Ayanna Patterson can keep improving our bench production will improve and become more of a contributor in our games...for now... ADVANTAGE: Iowa

Intangibles: Neutral court, pretty even in points per game but UConn has played the tougher schedule. It is petty even in 3 pointers per game. Iowa has a slight rebounding edge 43 to 39.5 per game. Assists, Turn-overs, Assist / turnover ration pretty even. Defensively, UConn is more active to ball getting 11.5 steals per game to Iowa's 7.5. The stat that stands out to me is the points off turnovers...UConn really makes you pay if you turn the ball over averaging 27.5 points off turn-overs to Iowa's 16.8. Coaching we will have Chris Daily back on the bench with Geno and there is no better coaching duo in WCBB. ADVANTAGE: UConn

 

[Next 12]

Excellent analysis. I disagree with your first one. Azzi will more than hold her own with Caitlin. I disagree with your bench analysis. With Uconns defensive superiority, we will be the Uconn of old and claim another trophy. All of your analysis's were spot on. great post. GO HUSKIES!!!

 

[Alydar]

Another intangible is that Iowa's starters are mostly seniors. They remember the 20 pt drubbing 2 years ago. I just think that UConn is more advanced as a team at this point.

 

[cferraro04]

I meant to mention the senior leadership on Iowa 5 seniors one fifth year player…now that is an intangible worthy of belonging to that category…good catch! As far as the poster who thinks this thread is nothing but fantasy…I will submit that of course analysis such as this could be wrong but threads like this take into account numerous statistics all based in reality and they provide a different way of looking at a set of data points to help one arrive at possible and probable outcomes …. If reality presents a different outcome than what was predicted then there is a basis to further analyze. Nothing is perfect but none of these exercise are pointless.

 

[Bone Dog]

The matchup theme of your analysis assumes too much. Will Azzi be matched up with Clark? On defense she is unlikely to have that as an assignment. Nor do I expect Clark to be assigned the task of guarding Azzi. If they’re not assigned to guard each other, we might as well compare Clark’s contribution to Nika’s or Lou’s or even Aubrey’s.

Iowa has several good perimeter shooters, Clark among them. Perhaps we could ask how their guard corps compares to ours. They will probably not shoot quite as well as Azzi and Lou, but it might be close. They won’t defend nearly as well as Nika Azzi and Aubrey. Our defense will probably hinder their shot making. Clark will still get her 20. But the entire group won’t score 50, while our guards are likely to score 60.

 

[#12in21]

Having watched both first round games, I think our main advantage is the cohesiveness of how our guys operate on both offense and defense. Both teams have a key player that is critical to the flow of their games, for Iowa it is clearly Caitlin, for Uconn it is Nika. If Paige had not gone down, most likely this contest would be about who can carry their team more ( in points, assists, boards...) Paige or Caitlin. That isn't the case this season though and Uconn is not dependent on their 'best player' to have their best game against a great opponent to win.

If we can disrupt Caitlin's game significantly, not just in her scoring but in her ability to facilitate on offense, we win. If they can make us play a half court game and take away Nika's ability to get the ball up court fast and run our transition game they likely can. I think our team defense, which has improved with each game, will allow us to both disrupt Caitlin's game and allow us to play more at the pace we have thus far this season.

Two other things could be possible issues for us. Aaliyah needs to stay out of foul trouble, if she does and Caitlin has issues getting Monika the ball where she likes it, Aaliyah has the clear cut advantage, being both more mobile and athletic. Secondly, we have to be focused and aggressive. Our offense is dependent on fast paced great movement which sets up our ability to score quickly and in bunches. We can't be tentative. Nika's passes on run outs have been, in many cases, extremely precise - just by the fingertips of opponents and dependent on good hands and quick finishes to the basket.

If we end up in a half court contest, we still could win the game but this would become much more of a matchup between who can dominate Azzi or Caitlin. In that scenario, if we avoid foul trouble to key players, IMO we still should have the edge due to better overall talent but it would mean successfully playing a totally different type of game than we have thus far this year.

I am hoping for each team battling to play their 'best game', Nika and Caitlin are both very intense players and their respective teams feed off of their energy. If this plays out we walk away with another W.

 

[HuskyNan]

Want a laugh? Here’s the dumbest pre-game analysis I’ve ever read. This is what happens when computers write comparative analyses

espn.com

Pregame analysis and predictions of the UConn Huskies vs. Iowa Hawkeyes NCAAW game to be played on November 27, 2022 on ESPN.

www.espn.com

 

[Bone Dog]

I think our main advantage is the cohesiveness of how our guys operate on both offense and defense.

Exactly. This is the way it tends to go later in the season. I’m glad to see it happen this early. One thing it shows is how well our starters know each other — and how quickly Lou has picked up the system and the culture of her teammates. It’s also why Nika is so important.

It’s tempting to think whatever weakness we display on any given night is an individual problem of skill or talent. But when Geno talks about what goes wrong he emphasizes that players were out of position or late getting to a spot. This is how fouls often happen, how shot opportunities are missed and so on.

He’s also quipped after early season games in previous years that “We won this one because we recruited better, not that we played better basketball.” After the Duke win, he said “We played really good defense.” I love hearing something like this in November. Of course, he also needled his players by observing that Duke helped by missing a lot of shots. Geno, what a card!

 

[Brewski]

Nicely done @cferraro04! I loved how you visually laid out the analysis. Your very last sentence in the "Intagibles" section will be a big key. Our coaching staff is by far the best in the country and with only 48 hours to prepare, it's gonna be a big advantage for us!

 

[JellyBean]

Pretty cool pregame analysis. Definitely is going to be a fun game to watch.

 

[Centerstream]

I meant to mention the senior leadership on Iowa 5 seniors one fifth year player…now that is an intangible worthy of belonging to that category…good catch! As far as the poster who thinks this thread is nothing but fantasy…I will submit that of course analysis such as this could be wrong but threads like this take into account numerous statistics all based in reality and they provide a different way of looking at a set of data points to help one arrive at possible and probable outcomes …. If reality presents a different outcome than what was predicted then there is a basis to further analyze. Nothing is perfect but none of these exercise are pointless.

Except you need to check the spelling of some of the UConn people.

 

[jabstep]

Caitlin Clark vs Azzi Fudd - Wow! This should be a great match-up...one that I have been looking forward to. Last year it was the Paige and Caitlin match-up that had my attention. This year it could turn into a good ole' fashion shootout. Of course, Caitlin has proven that she will get hers and Azzi has been nothing short of amazing this year. Both women are great basketball players but Caitlin has the better all-around game at this point in their careers. While Azzi can hang with Caitlin in the shooting category, I look to Caitlin to impact the game more with her assists and rebounding. ADVANTAGE: Iowa

Monika Czinano vs Aliyah Edwards - Monika has a scoring edge but Aliyah is consistent on the boards. Aliyah is playing her best basketball right now....her speed, her ability to pull her man out to the foul line and shoot the foul line jumper and her footwork may be enough to give her a slight edge in this match-up. The key for Aliyah is to stay out of foul trouble. SLIGHT ADVANTAGE: UConn

McKenna Warnock vs Aubrey Griffin - I think this is also going to be an interesting match-up. At the end of the day, however, I believe Aubrey will prove to be too athletic for McKenna. Her defensive presence will be disruptive for McKenna. Aubrey will impact this game on both ends of the court. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Gabby Marshall vs Lou Lopez-Senechal - Lou is a natural scorer. Offensively Gabby will not be able to provide the counter balance for Lou's offensive game. Lou will prove to have too much fire-power at this position and will help propel the Huskies to victory. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Kate Martin vs Nika Muhl - Nika Muhl has emerged as the Huskies' floor general. Her head is always looking down-court, she is always leading the fast break and she is really good at finding the open man. With Nika pushing the ball up court I don't see Iowa being able to keep up for 40 minutes. Nika's ability to distribute the ball to players who can score will give her the advantage at this position. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Bench - Iowa has more production on the bench, however, if Caroline Ducharme can round back into shape and Ayanna Patterson can keep improving our bench production will improve and become more of a contributor in our games...for now... ADVANTAGE: Iowa

Intangibles: Neutral court, pretty even in points per game but UConn has played the tougher schedule. It is petty even in 3 pointers per game. Iowa has a slight rebounding edge 43 to 39.5 per game. Assists, Turn-overs, Assist / turnover ration pretty even. Defensively, UConn is more active to ball getting 11.5 steals per game to Iowa's 7.5. The stat that stands out to me is the points off turnovers...UConn really makes you pay if you turn the ball over averaging 27.5 points off turn-overs to Iowa's 16.8. Coaching we will have Chris Daily back on the bench with Geno and there is no better coaching duo in WCBB. ADVANTAGE: UConn

Very nicely laid out. I think the matchup of Edwards vs Czinano will be the key. Czinano besides having great moves on the block she now has a elbow foul line jumper which she is very accurate. This opens the lane for Caitlin to drive to the hoop. Similar Edwards has now shown she can hit the outside jumper, which opens the lane for our players. Our defense will win the game. Nika and Aubrey will disrupt Caitlin.

 

[Carnac]

Excellent analysis. I disagree with your first one. Azzi will more than hold her own with Caitlin. I disagree with your bench analysis. With Uconns defensive superiority, we will be the Uconn of old and claim another trophy. All of your analysis's were spot on. great post. GO HUSKIES!!!

I second your comment. Maybe I’m missing something, and I admit that I have not seen a lot of Clark in action, but I can’t see what Clark can do or is doing that Azzi can’t or is not doing. Azzi is doing everything Geno has asked her to do, and her team needs her to do.

 

[Bone Dog]

I don't know if this will matter, but Canada leads Croatia 1-0 at the World Cup. I hope Nika won't be distracted today by the loss -- or Aaliyah for that matter!

Thank about divided loyalties!

 

[The deacon]

Well said, Browns.

Carnac, if you're still reading this thread, find a way to watch Iowa play. I make a point of watching as many Hawkeyes games as I can simply because Caitlin is a great player who also happens to be pure entertainment. I don't know if Azzi could develop the ballhandling and passing skills of Paige and Caitlin, but here's hoping she can attain that level as an all-around talent.

 

[TeamFirst!]

I'd like to see Aubrey get out on the break today. When Clark throws up one of those logo 3 point attempts release her and make them pay if she misses. Even the thought of this maybe happening might affect Clark's shot some. One of the best ways to stop a great scorer is to make her work on defense.

 

[hoopsfan22]

 

[hoopsfan22]

 

[cferraro04]

When doing any player by player analysis it is impossible to know for certain who will actually play who as the coaching staff makes those decisions. Oftentimes, these type of analysis don’t always do match-ups based on who actually guards who. Statistics are what they are…Caitlyn has shown she can average high 20s in scoring and can produce 6-7 assists per game. Azzi has shown that she is a pure shooter and can go off for 30 plus points. Azzi has not shown that she is willing or capable of averaging more than a few assists and a couple of rebounds, Lou has demonstrated that she is a classic scorer. Aubrey has shown tremendous athleticism….I think you get the picture. Each team has a persona a character if you will. Match-up analysis in my opinion are more about which player negates best an opposing teams similar player. As you proceed down the roster of starters and players who play significant minutes you eventually see a stronger team emerge. Of course you try to hit upon probable match-ups and discuss how the players impact one another and if you hit three out of five it is still 60 percent. That is part of the intangibles of the game no one is Geno and he will make decisions and adjustments the way he believes will help his team beat a particular opponent and that is why he is one of the best in the nation.

Those that call this exercise dumb or a waste of time seem to want to make this personal. My response would be just don’t read threads like these. If you read the comments in the thread there are some who enjoy these types of threads. After all it is only an exercise, a personal opinion designed to stimulate conversation not adversity. If I offended anyone’s sensitivities I apologize…that certainly was not my intention.