I managed to rewatch the game again and got a better sense of it. Three things really stood out.
1) flopping. Texas did a ton of it. Mostly the refs ignored it. I don’t remember Vic’s team bing floppers, but this seemed extreme to me. Trying to take a charge is good D for the most part. But this tactic can get out of hand, and last night I thought it did.
2) the refs mainly did an evenhanded job, but the touch fouls seemed a bit overdone. Some were absurd. AE got caught on this on a drive in the 4th quarter. Aaliyah Moore suffered from a couple of these, too. I don’t think it affected the outcome, at least not much. But it wasn’t encouraging in light of the contact on blocks that they didn’t whistle. Jones seemed to get away with a lot, though this can be hard to tell on video. Also, I can’t help feeling that Lou’s third fouls was a poor call and it kept her off the floor for much of the game.
3) Defense. Texas played really good D much of the time. There were a few comical lapses, but given it’s November they exceeded my expectations. More importantly, I think we played even better D and it was really satisfying to see Nika at work, but also Azzi is an awesome defender. And when Aubrey was on the floor, our switching D was dazzling. Both teams seemed tired at times, and this isn’t surprising considering how hard they worked. Texas got a late run because we were tired, though thankfully Azzi was ready for the moment. She has a real motor.
And, of course, as everyone in the nation now knows, Azzi is a tremendous talent, arguably the best in the land (absent Paige) if she can sustain what she did last night. When I think about what the possibilities were when she arrived in Storrs the year after Paige, Geno must have had NCs dancing in his imagination. The injuries that have beset this pair must have hit him even harder than the rest of us. He’s done such a tremendous recruiting job, and to watch it thwarted by the injury demon has to be crushing.
