UConn-Villanova postgame | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UConn-Villanova postgame

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oldude said:
I think all the freshmen have hit a bit of a wall. Hopefully, they'll climb over it in time for the Big Dance.
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Could be. But what I don't understand about Ashlynn is when the 3s aren't dropping, why she doesn't get in a position to take a mid range shot? And without having to dribble into the middle of the lane. Our freshmen often times don't do that very well.
 
Bone Dog said:
Paige had 4 fouls early in the 3rd. 3 of them were legit calls. One was absurd. And a bad traveling call against Paige in the 2nd, but that was made up for by an equally bogus traveling call against Villanova in the next moment.
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She's lucky she didn't get T'd up, twice. She mouthed off at Olsen, after Olsen got called for a foul.And she got in Dalce's face, after the Dalce-Edwards encounter. The cool,calm Paige has really become much more demonstrative. I prefer the cool, calm Paige.
 
Centerstream said:
Could be. But what I don't understand about Ashlynn is when the 3s aren't dropping, why she doesn't get in a position to take a mid range shot? And without having to dribble into the middle of the lane. Our freshmen often times don't do that very well.
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I sat here saying the same thing
 
oldude said:
A couple thoughts on tonight’s game:
  • First off, credit to Denise Dillon for putting together a solid game plan and to Nova for playing really hard.
  • It’s a good thing UConn continues to play strong defense, because the team has hit a bit of a tough patch offensively. The execution is a bit ragged, and the Huskies have missed a bunch of open shots and layups.
  • Paige has picked up the scoring load, frequently by taking the ball at the top of the key or on the wing and driving into the lane to either score, get to the foul line or both. I would rather see more balanced scoring in the flow of the offense, but if Paige has to score 31 for UConn to win, so be it.
  • Yes, the 4th foul on Paige for boxing out was absolute BS, and the 3rd wasn’t a whole lot better. With both Paige & Nika together on the bench, UConn is just not the same team.
  • It was a long night for the leading scorer in the Big East. Lucy Olsen was 0-7 in the first half and 2/16 for the game. :eek: Credit to Nika, Paige, KK and the rest of the Huskies for getting in her grill all game.
  • Pretty uneven game until the last 5 to 6 minutes, when the Huskies really hit the accelerator at both ends of the court.
  • I’ll take an ugly win every day of the week. :cool:
  • Congratulations to UConn for their 30th conference title. I hope to be around for the next 30. ;)
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As usual,good points all,OD. Re the foul on Paige,though, I thought the whistle was after the box-out . Looked like Paige reached around and hooked Olsen's arm. Of course, my eyes are almost 82 years old.
 
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This was an ugly rock fight. Typical of a UConn/ Nova game.

Paige shoots 11 - 15 for 31 points. That's pretty damn good.

Aaliyah continues to battle and gets another double/ double.

Freshmen look like they might have hit the wall. They will be fine.

Fourth quarter 20 - 9 score buried Nova.

DEFENSE - DEFENSE. Made Nova's life difficult, especially Olsen who shot 2 - 12. Big KUDOS to Nika and KK for their lock down defense on her.

Nika with 6 assists bringing her career total to 625.

A terrible officiated game. I'll leave it at that.
 
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CD post game w/Bob Joyce & Debbie:

Defense: Great, awesome, really good

Couple of times lost our momentum – not smart play

Credited Olson's skill - takes a TON of shots, but also leading assist. Defense took away their leading scorers.

Stuggles on offensive end. Quick shots, missed layups (AE). Then ran our stuff made our pullups.

AE – got players into foul triouble. Best way to neutralize players.

What improved offensively? Change sides of floor, make’em defend us. Taking quich shots, they didn’t have to guard us.

11/14 at halftime… 3.0. One a 2.9. 3.0 + impressive. Reflects student success porgam.

Wait until 7pm on a Saturday at Providence. Not fun. Have to wait for the men’s game. Sold out

Regular season big east title: Tought ‘cause have to do it over a long time. Style of play in league – not easy. Says a lot about the kind of playrs we get, willing to play w/bullseye on back. You can get hot in the Conf Champ but to play a full conference schedule is hard.

Re Nika: Charley house? Elbow? Knee? She said it was an elbow, but I’m guessing she instigated it. :-)
 
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Kaizen said:
KK Arnold has 7 pts, 6 rebs, 3 asts and 4 stls.
She will be really good next year.
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It's all about the judgment for her when she is out in third gear in transition. She has to know when to go, when to pull up, when to pull it out and when not to force a pass. It will come but it is not there yet.
 
HuskyNan said:
To be fair, there were some awful calls on Villanova, too. I thought the sheer number of whistles created a choppy, disjointed, and ugly game.
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The problem is that if you are calling Paige's box out on Lucy Olsen a foul, to be consistent you almost have to call all physical contact a foul and if you do that, both entire teams foul out.
 
boontonbomber said:
She's lucky she didn't get T'd up, twice. She mouthed off at Olsen, after Olsen got called for a foul.And she got in Dalce's face, after the Dalce-Edwards encounter.
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Did you catch Nika turning on Dulce after the Edwards shove, screaming what was probably a string Croatian expletives? That's not a young lady I'd want pissed off at me.
 
When Nova cut the lead to back to 9 in the 4th quarter, and Geno took his 2nd timeout, I was going bonkers thinking "why didn't he save that TO in case we need them in the last couple minutes of the game?" Silly, silly me.
 
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I’ve watched the replay of Nika’s injury several times now. It was a hip check from Olsen that caused the hurt. It didn’t look like a foul. Just bad luck. Also, it looked like Nika jumped into the lane quickly and then was afraid to put her right foot down. May have been trying to avoid stepping on someone’s foot and turning her ankle. So she was a little off balance when she got hit, which probably made it hurt more.
 
1--- Refs were awful the 3 qtrs I saw. How that play on the sideline wasn’t called a foul with Edwards and their big kid was pretty mind-boggling. Why did the Nova center even bother with screening Aaliyah from the ball? Why not just put her in a bear bug then throw her to the ground?

2-- I missed the 3rd qtr will go back and see but the 1st half frustrated Paige wasn't shooting more. In the 4th qtr Nova had no hope to stop her just like the 1st half. . Paige just has to shoot. Win or lose- just shoot.

3-- KK and Ashlynn have had wall crash into them which is expected for freshmen.

4-- Aliyah hit a wall tonight . Not a crushing one-- but she missed point blank shots- imo because she was spent.

5-- Q is so much fun to watch. If you call her a microwave - yet even the microwave is like an icebox compared to her game the moment she steps on the floor. Come hell or high water that player is gonna fire up that shot . . .- and the next . . . and the next and she probably still may feel she isn't getting enough touches. -- j/k.

6--- IMO Ice didn’t play because this was a God-Awful matchup vs Nova. Though maybe she should have gotten 5 or so competitive minutes. But Ice is not quick - so having her defend this type of team with all the movement - Geno may have thought she would have struggled.
 
topogigio said:
Paige's efficiency numbers are quite impressive. It appears when she "shows up" the refs like on her traveling call, they retaliate by calling ticky-tack or phantom fouls against her. My advice to her is to stop the moaning and groaning every time she gets call and just let your game do the talking. Nika had a couple of timely shots, but she is throwing some horrible passes for a senior with her experience.
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Hurley used to hurt the men with his vociferous complaints. His change in behavior made a huge difference in the fouls called against UConn.
 
Few Thoughts:
*Ugly game but i guess it is better to win an ugly game than lose a beautiful one :)
*The refs were terrible for both teams. Paige's 4th foul is a joke of a call. if you call that a foul, you had to call what Dalce did a foul as well.
*This was a game that as everyone aside than Paige struggled to score, i was screaming at the TV whenever someone aside then Paige shot the ball :)
*Paige: An amazing player and she's got the best post moves on the team. When she was sitting on the bench the team looked totally disoriented. We won because we have Paige, and they didn't.
*AE: very strange game. Started so well and then just couldn't hit layups...i assume she just got tired. She does take a lot of abuse under the basket. Still had a double double which became the norm with her.
*Ash: what happened to her 3-point shooting ability? with that said, her 3 in the 4th quarter was huge.
*KK: great on defense but what is up with missing under the basket again and again.
*Nika: when she got injured it felt like the collective heart of UConn Nation stopped for a moment. If was great to have her back in the game and those baskets in the 4th quarter were critical.
*Ice: very few minutes and i assume it was because of the style of play by Vilanova which she is a bit slow for. Did ok in the few minutes she had aside than that shot from the foul line which didn't hit anything.
*Q: got so much potential, needs to get much stronger in the off season. I'm happy that she stopped just hoisting 3 pointers but trying to have a more varied type of game.
*when was the last game that UConn had more turnovers than assists? way too many turnovers and a lot of them were a real head scratcher as in what was she thinking...
*The defense on Olsen was remarkable. in both games this season UConn was able to contain her and while in the first game she had 15, in this game only 6.
*While UConn's offense was not good, the effort on defense was awe inspiring.
*Congratulations for this gritty team for winning the Big East regular season championship!




*
 
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My guess is the team is just board and struggling to get through February and on to the conference tournament and March madness. These conference scrimmages must get tiresome.
 
Paige's fouls, 3rd and 4th, were because her hands were moving around at chest height making it look like she was pushing off. The 3rd was clearer than the fourth. But why those two moments and not many, many other similar ones?
 
Bone Dog said:
Paige had a good game. 31 pts on 11-15 shooting. This is what so-called physical games look like. If Ash had a better shooting night, Villanova couldn’t have played that way. But this is what was possible.

Nika had a couple of clutch baskets in the 4th to hold off the last Villanova run and then Paige slammed the door.

And we played ferocious defense. Ice didn’t play much which was noticeable. No idea why.
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Maybe Geno is sending her a big message!! I realize that she’s trying to gain some stamina after not playing at all last year, but she needs to become a consistent contributor to the team. If she’s able to make 3-4 baskets every game, defend, and stay out of foul trouble, then UConn would become a much better team. I’m still hoping for an improvement from her.
 
21 is the magic number...

UConn 81 - Villanova 60 (first game) - MOV = 21
UConn 67 - Villanova 46 (second game) - MOV = 21

I think the committee just got its answer as to who will be the BE Player of the Year. With Paige going into tonight's game averaging 20.8 points and Lucy going in averaging 23.6 some pundits were thinking that despite how talented Paige is, despite how successful UConn has been even with 5 quality players in the IR list, despite all of it some of these folks we thinking that Lucy Olsen might deserve Player of the Year. Don't get me wrong, Lucy has had a great season but, when it comes to Paige Bueckers...she is the best and then there is the rest. Paige, even with her being in foul trouble and having to sit out for half of the third quarter, still managed to get 31 points and 5 rebounds. Paige was so mesmerizing that I didn't realize that she got zero assists. Holding Olsen to 6 points was a defensive masterpiece and it did not help Lucy's chances of winning the BE POY.

The two stats that jump out at me are as follows: 1. UConn - 40 rebounds, Villanova - 30 rebounds; 2. UConn - 18 foul shots; Villanova - 6 foul shots.

Aaliyah had yet another double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds...how's that for consistency? She was tied for game-best in steals with KK Arnold. They both managed to get 4 steals each.

While the rest of the team struggled offensively...Paige was a picture of efficiency...going 11-15 from the floor shooting 73 percent from the floor, 50 percent from three, and 100 percent from the line.

The only Achilles heel in UConn's offense is its poor 3-point shooting (26.7%).

Defensively this was a "thing of beauty". They held Olse to 6 points and Dalce to 2 points. It took Orihel having a career game to keep Villanova in the game. 15 points, 3-5 from three-point, and 5 rebounds. Kudos to Orihel. I also think that the return of Zanai Jones who scored 10 points gave Villanova a lift. But, at the end of the day, it was another magical 21-point victory for UConn and UConn was able to hold Villanova 19 points below their average. Alas, and conversely it could be said that Villanova held UConn to 15 points below theirs.
Overall a win is a win... Even though there was a bit of a scare with regards to Nika no one got hurt.

Finally, I can only speculate how many points Paige would have had if those two "weak" (Cuomo's words, not mine) were called on her in the 3rd quarter.
 
ABCDFE said:
Haven’t seen the game. Need to have more than Paige and Edward’s in double figures. What’s going on with shade?
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She, like Paige and KK, is in a shooting slump. However, the buckets she made tonight came at the right time. Every time!! And I‘m sure her baskets caused the Wildcats’ hearts to break a little more each time.
 
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