UConn - Minnesota post game thread | Page 4 | The Boneyard

UConn - Minnesota post game thread

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HuskyNan said:
I’ll rephrase - Iowa gave up 90 points to Drake. Not Duke, Drake.
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Iowa feels like the type of team who says “we’ll just score a lot and it’ll make up for any other deficiencies”.
 
"5) l don’t think I’ve ever seem a game before when we’ve had a double digit lead in the second half and took a shot with less than 25 seconds remaining instead of dribbling it out."

Pulido's shot in the championship game against Syracuse (2016)
 
On the plus side we won. A grind it out game as most have noted. The offense never got into any flow creating easy points and points were hard to come by. Minnesota's bigs are big, not so much as in tall but more as being stout. Not very fast or quick or good leapers, but able to hold their position and get rebounds. Lots of rebounds. I'm beginning to think this is something we'll have to get used to.

Ines doesn't seem happy, something I noticed last game. After KKs pull up 3 at the end of the 3rd Q the shot of the bench showed lots of smiles except for Ines. I feel for the kid; she showed flashes of good play last year and now is stuck on the farthest end of the bench.

I thought we'd be a pretty good 3 point shooting team this year. So far in this young season I'm wrong about that.
 
HuskyNan said:
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Could be fluid buildup or bone spurs in her knee, not significant ligament damage, thats causing the current swelling. Won't be sure until the MRI. Even if a minor scope or fluid drain procedure, she's still going to miss some time. But, much better than torn ligaments obviously.
 
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Armed with the box score, I observed a few things that have not yet been commented on:
  • In real time, the first quarter looked like an absolutely horrible UConn performance, and the box score confirmed that. In those 10 minutes, UConn turned the ball over 5 times and yielded 7 offensive rebounds by Minnesota. Along with a few missed layups, that is why UConn only scored 11 points in the quarter. BUT ... for the last 30 minutes of the game, UConn committed only 8 more turnovers and gave up only 7 more offensive rebounds -- not bad at all. So the improved play really began in the second quarter before getting really good in the 3rd quarter.
  • UConn has given up more offensive rebounds that it grabbed in each of the last three games. However, a common and somewhat puzzling pattern is that the difference in second-chance points is not nearly as great as the rebounding difference would suggest. In today's game, Minnesota led in offensive rebounds by 14-9, but UConn had a slight edge in second-chance points of 10-8.
  • I thought this was a better game for Caroline than any of the previous three. Her stat line was decent: 3 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist and only 1 dead-ball turnover in 13 minutes. But she was her usual self in her positioning, and it paid off when she grabbed and scored on the "touchdown pass" late in the first half. I think she is slowly working her way toward performing in games as she apparently does in practice, but it will probably be a while before we see the Caroline of old.
  • In the past two games, Ice has looked really solid, and today she demonstrated that she is a capable jump shooter. She got just 2 rebounds in 17 minutes, but seemed like more of an inside presence than that would suggest. I think we will see a lot of her being paired with Aaliyah in the UCLA game, and I expect her to do well.
  • I think KK's 22 minutes today, not to mention her amazing 3rd-quarter-ending shot, show that she is working her way to playing as many minutes as anyone on the team other than Paige and Aaliyah.
Overall, although the first quarter was truly terrible, I think that there are a lot of positives from today's game.
 
and one said:
On the plus side we won. A grind it out game as most have noted. The offense never got into any flow creating easy points and points were hard to come by. Minnesota's bigs are big, not so much as in tall but more as being stout. Not very fast or quick or good leapers, but able to hold their position and get rebounds. Lots of rebounds. I'm beginning to think this is something we'll have to get used to.

Ines doesn't seem happy, something I noticed last game. After KKs pull up 3 at the end of the 3rd Q the shot of the bench showed lots of smiles except for Ines. I feel for the kid; she showed flashes of good play last year and now is stuck on the farthest end of the bench.

I thought we'd be a pretty good 3 point shooting team this year. So far in this young season I'm wrong about that.
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We would only be good consistently from 3 if Azzi could play and if to even add to that if Caroline would have been much better than expected. I believe it's the concussion. Too weird how Geno is handling her. Start her then only give her 11 - 13 minutes and then seeing ice packs on her forehead? Whether it's that or not such as "still not ready to shake off the past," -- she was anticipated to be a big big part and yet she can't even hit layups or free throws consistently - never mind outside shooting.

But losing Azzi changes the consistency of shooting outside for this team.
 
An ugly win is--a win. The defense was exceptional again, and the offense was very sluggish.

Our rebounding was terrible early, and our turnovers were dumb and numerous. I though Liya was careless and sloppy for the first 15 minutes, but much more effective after that. Paige had a mediocre game for her, under tough conditions. We miss the impact of having Azzi on the floor. Nika scored 11 and worked her butt off on defense. Ice looks to be getting more comfortable gradually. I love KK's energy on both offense and defense. Her buzzer beater reminded me of Lou's shot against S.C. last year. It will be one of the best plays this season. I love Ash's energy.

We need to be better against UCLA. Let's see how that goes. Best wishes to Azzi and Ayanna!
 
HuskyNan said:
I hope folks don’t live and die with every game. Sounds very stressful
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It is. It is. My houseful of holiday visitors noticed and commented on that.

BTW I ruined my status with them as a supposed expert (undeserved anyway) by proclaiming confidently & pedantically at the end "final score; they won't shoot."
 
Happydad745 said:
It could be a real long season.....our defense is tough, but our offense, at times, completely disappears. Fudd coming back might help some, but I'm thinking without our freshmen we would be in lots of trouble.
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Offense stalls when Griffin, Ducharme and Muhl are in the same lineup together with Paige and Edwards. They nonscorers. Geno has some talented players but needs to play a lineup that can compete with the elite teams.
 
Goodgood said:
"5) l don’t think I’ve ever seem a game before when we’ve had a double digit lead in the second half and took a shot with less than 25 seconds remaining instead of dribbling it out."

Pulido's shot in the championship game against Syracuse (2016)
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God, that was such a great moment. I rewatch it every now and again and get just as pumped every time.
 
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Happy to get the win, even if it wasn’t the prettiest.

I feel for Caroline. I still have a lot of hope that she will come on later in the year, but her concussion history worries me so much. I don’t want to sound like a pessimist too much, but even if she is healthy, it seems like sometimes she’s burdened by fears of getting bumped and can’t play as hard or as focused as she wants. And who can blame her for that?

I know Geno and the coaches have supported her the best they can. I just feel for her.
 
MilfordHusky said:
An ugly win is--a win. The defense was exceptional again, and the offense was very sluggish.

Our rebounding was terrible early, and our turnovers were dumb and numerous. I though Liya was careless and sloppy for the first 15 minutes, but much more effective after that. Paige had a mediocre game for her, under tough conditions. We miss the impact of having Azzi on the floor. Nika scored 11 and worked her butt off on defense. Ice looks to be getting more comfortable gradually. I love KK's energy on both offense and defense. Her buzzer beater reminded me of Lou's shot against S.C. last year. It will be one of the best plays this season. I love Ash's energy.

We need to be better against UCLA. Let's see how that goes. Best wishes to Azzi and Ayanna!
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Very similar to my point of view. Without Azzi, there are limited scoring options so we were forcing into Aaliyah in the post at times. A pass down below is not always a good option if the player does not have good position and does not go out with the ball and get it back after restablishing better position. We don't do that and that can lead to turnovers and bad shots which it has.

Paige can't wait for the game to come to her or to be reticent on offense during the game without Azzi. She has to shoot and often especially from the arc. She is third on the team in 3 point attempts, only 2 ahead of Nika. She should be first by a clear margin. No matter how good the defense is, you have to score to win so right now, that is the concern to me. The defense has been beautifully turned up more than a notch but UCLA has scorers so we have to score to win that game.

The question is, where are the points going to come from? Aubrey isn't shooting from the outside, Caroline has not been able to find an offensive groove, and our 3 point game is sparse at best. Clearly, we must rely on our defense but the point is that only goes so far against the elite teams. So, I worry.
 
Centerstream said:
Freshmen were good again and I was really, really impressed with how Q has no fear of going into the lane on both offense and defense.
As much as I would like to see the newbies get more time on the floor, I would rather it is because the starters are playing well and they need to catch their breath.
One thing that really, really caught my attention was our last possession with the shot clock turned off and Ashlynn took a shot with 7 seconds to go. I felt that Minnesota was in end of game mode and I thought we were too. Just seemed kinda surprising.
We need a little more attitude adjusting before we play in the Caymans.
And did anyone else notice that Azzi seemed to be acting different in the last huddle? It looked like she was concerned with something happening across the court.
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Centerstream- - - Ashlynn got carried away with the open shot!
Geno & CD don't like late baskets in large wins!
She'll hear about it in the locker room!
 
Over the off-season, several commented that Nika should develop a mid-range pull-up J. She's starting to show that.

KK's buzzer-beater to close out Q3 was UConn's first made 3 of the game! That whole shot sequence showed skill and smarts. She's way ahead of MoJeff and Dangerfield at this point in her career.
 
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OldSchooler said:
Over the off-season, several commented that Nika should develop a mid-range pull-up J. She's starting to show that.

KK's buzzer-beater to close out Q3 was UConn's first made 3 of the game! That whole shot sequence showed skill and smarts. She's way ahead of MoJeff and Dangerfield at this point in her career.
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Actually Nika made one earlier
 
Geno once said, our 3PT defense is running at the wide open shooter with our arms in the air and yelling miss. I guess that defense finally worked in the first half. If Minnesota connected on more of those threes it would have been much closer.
 
Bone Dog said:
Three years ago, our typical pattern was to go into halftime with a double digit lead. In many cases especially in February and March the game was practically settled by the end of the first quarter. This season it looks more and more like the third quarter is the one in which we blow the game open. I wonder why the change. Is it a conditioning thing? Given D1 parity do we have to run opponents ragged before putting the game out of reach?
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Those days are long gone! The level of play (and coaching) has risen to the point where not only are the teams better but more and more of those teams, even so called “average” teams often have at least one player who can sporadically play well enough to where, coupled with a hot night by the rest of the team, they can push even good teams to the last minutes of the game, thus leading to more and more upsets in the women’s game.

That’s why we’re seeing more of these games like Colorado beating LSU, NC State beating us, K State beating Iowa, Duke almost upsetting Stanford etc. These are just the beginning! We’re going to see many more this season. There might be one team that’s good enough to avoid these kinds of games but it ain’t us! Not yet anyway, and the jury’s still out on them!

The question now, is twofold, can we maintain the current level of defense for the rest of the year and can we get substantially better on offense? If those two things happen and we can stay healthy ( and hopefully get Yanna and Azzi back) then I still like our chances.

We have a lot of talent, some of which is likely to substantially improve over the course of the season, we have a great coaching staff, and most of all, we have the potential difference maker in Paige! Her value in a close game against the kinds of teams we are likely to face late in the tournament cannot be overstated! She is the one thing we have that very few (none imo except possibly Iowa) other teams have! Buckle up!
 
Cuango said:
We have a lot of talent, some of which is likely to substantially improve over the course of the season, we have a great coaching staff, and most of all, we have the potential difference maker in Paige! Her value in a close game against the kinds of teams we are likely to face late in the tournament cannot be overstated! She is the one thing we have that very few (none imo except possibly Iowa) other teams have!
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Yes, as Geno has famously said, “We have ___________ [Diana, Maya, and now Paige] and you don’t.”

It is as it ever was.
 
Centerstream said:
Freshmen were good again and I was really, really impressed with how Q has no fear of going into the lane on both offense and defense.
As much as I would like to see the newbies get more time on the floor, I would rather it is because the starters are playing well and they need to catch their breath.
One thing that really, really caught my attention was our last possession with the shot clock turned off and Ashlynn took a shot with 7 seconds to go. I felt that Minnesota was in end of game mode and I thought we were too. Just seemed kinda surprising.
We need a little more attitude adjusting before we play in the Caymans.
And did anyone else notice that Azzi seemed to be acting different in the last huddle? It looked like she was concerned with something happening across the court.
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It was her amazement that Amari and Ines had entered the game
 
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Urshurak said:
First half was hard to watch. 3rd period was better. 4th was meh.

Most have said it already. Offensive consistency is lacking badly. This coming weekend could be rough. Kansas and UCLA are both much better than MN.
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It's because we have 2 players(Aubrey and Caroline) that start and can't score in a half court offense. Add to them, some of Nika's offensive deficiencies and you see an offense that sputters.

When full healthy, this team should start Nika, Paige, Azzi, Ice and Aaliyah.
 
ucbart said:
It's because we have 2 players(Aubrey and Caroline) that start and can't score in a half court offense. Add to them, some of Nika's offensive deficiencies and you see an offense that sputters.

When full healthy, this team should start Nika, Paige, Azzi, Ice and Aaliyah.
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Again, Nika had 11 points on 5-9 shooting. Aaliyah had 16 points (8-15), Paige had 12 (4-12) and Nika was third high, and the most efficient, scorer. People have been complaining about Nika’s scoring for so long, it’s become automatic, I think
 
Odd thought: Was KK's three pointer the shortest trey ever?
She had lots of momentum and when she took off she was
kinda flying well inside the treyline. Add a few more inches[at least] when she stretched out
her shooting arm...then a couple of more inches as she released with her right hand.
At that release point how many feet were her fingers from the rim? Well under the
distance from the actual line...maybe her trey shot was from 17-18 feet?

Just loved the reaction from her teammates and the UConn fans behind the bench.
Also love the way Ice is doing Ice-Things now...just 4 games into the season.
 
ucbart said:
It's because we have 2 players(Aubrey and Caroline) that start and can't score in a half court offense. Add to them, some of Nika's offensive deficiencies and you see an offense that sputters.

When full healthy, this team should start Nika, Paige, Azzi, Ice and Aaliyah.
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Two years ago, Caroline was one of the better one on one players, particularly off the drive, in the league. Agree that she is struggled today but hopeful she will get her legs under her and get close to her former self.
 
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