UCONN vs. SC post game thread (merged) | Page 8 | The Boneyard

UCONN vs. SC post game thread (merged)

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Now that I’ve calmed down a bit, here’s my two cents. I had predicted UConn would win by 9 points (I think). I thought that SC would have trouble scoring points because they have in some other big games this year. (UCLA, TX, LSU). I had blind faith in UConn’s defense, so I thought points would be at a premium. Since SC is without Watkins and she was their best defender, I kind of thought we would squeak by them. Never in my wildest dreams did I think UConn would put up that kind of scoring on the road. I’m so happy because the scoring was well distributed. Paige was great at the point. All in all, just a crazy game.
 
Centerstream said:
Did you read the post I replied to (which was a reply to a different post)????
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This is a post to a post from a post to a ... that was a reply intended for Husky Nan's I believe to you. Anyway forgetaboutit.
 
Just finished watching the game. To start off, SC didn't play their best and it wasn't their day shooting the ball so take that as you will. In regards to the team, I'm glad to finally get that signature win that we've all been looking for. Today you could tell UCONN wanted it more and didn't let up at any point in time. In addition, I thought when our bench players were in we didn't see a significant drop in play (like we've seen in seasons past).

Thoughts on the players:
  • Azzi reminded us what a beautiful basketball player she is when she is feeling right both physically and mentally. She was great on both ends of the floor and I think you know she's feeling great physically because she's driving to the basket a lot more. But man that 3 pt shooting is beautiful
  • Paige played a good game for her standards. There were some stretches their that I thought she made some poor passes that resulted in turnovers and she certainly missed a ton of open floaters and a that wide open 3 pointer. To win by this much and have Paige not play great offensively will give us a lot of confidence going foward
  • Sarah is wonderful player. She was so solid and when she's down low she just has a knack for putting the ball in the hoop, not to mention getting almost every rebound that is close to her. She is so skilled. I will say Joyce Edwards is really good and she's barely playing to her potential. She's just not at the basketball IQ and feel of the game that Sarah has
  • Jana showed us today that she belonged. After not seeing this all season, I think she finally played without thinking too much and was aggressive. If she can play like this for the rest of the season, we've got something here because she was really good defensively and played big for us against a big athletic team
  • Chen was solid. She gives us just enough on offense and defense. There are some moments where I think she needs to trust her shot more, but she is being aggressive and on some of her drives today she helped find the right shooters.
  • Shade played great today. I've been waiting for this type of game from her against a top ranked team and she delivered. She was aggressive early on and made shots for us when Paige and Azzi couldn't buy a bucket and that was huge. That's exactly what we need. That third option in this offense when Paige and Azzi get the opponents defensive attention we need her and Chen to deliver as they are really the only outside shooting threats outside of the big 3.
  • KK showed us exactly what it means to impact a game without scoring in bunches. She was relentless on defense and her defense on PaoPao was amazing. I thought she was a total game changer in her ability to disrupt as well as dribble penetrate.
  • Aubrey played some nice minutes and although she isn't finishing around the rim like before she's at least showing us that she's battling for rebounds and running down the floor in transition and I think that will translate for us down the road as she gets more comfortable on the court. I see Aubrey ratcheting up her game during the BE tournament as a defensive specialist, transition scorer, and offensive rebounding savant. These little things will mean a lot in those meaningful games in March
 
Fudd deserves to get a lot of praise for today's game, but it was overall a solid effort.
I loved Shade's energy the entire game. Staley is good coach, and I know going into the game she knew who she was, but I have to think after watching her in that game, she walked away with a different level of appreciation to the energy and effort Shade brings to a game.
It was nice to see Chen have some confidence against a very athletic team. In the prior big matchups she looked overwhelmed at times.
I really hope Jana gets to the movement she had before the injury. Anyone who saw the way she moved prior to the injury, she was very fluid and very athletic and hopefully that crossover is a sign of things to come. In one of the FIBA games I recall watching her go behind the back and then step back and hit a 3.
KK was solid. Just needs to learn even after some impressive rebounds she's not going to get it over 3 big girls on the other team. But she was solid on defense.
Strong was solid as always.
Paige was very good. I love that she realized that Fudd was getting hot and found ways to get the ball to her.
Finally, back to Fudd... people who watched her the past few years when she could play were probably surprised. Fudd can shoot, but to see her back to have an explosive first step and really movie on the defensive end is impressive. It great to see her and Paige healthy and hopefully that's the way we'll see them to finish their college careers.
 
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A couple of keys. A few games ago someone said Geno was going to back off a little and instead of giving the team so many things to think about he would give them less or something like that. Today we were playing relaxed and free. The keys were somebody brought the ball up court and gave it to Paige to control the offense. She got Azzi going. Everybody was relaxed and just played. That was huge. Our focus was on executing plays and we did that well. Playing relaxed was the key. Just for kick just think about some of the open shots we missed and what could’ve been. Hey we aren’t going to out rebound all good teams like we did today. But thinking about it too we as a team could have others shoot a better percentage. Today we had a healthy Azzi who was up to speed. That was one difference. In our 3 losses we didn’t have that Azzi and we didn’t have Griff. We do now and because we do we are gonna be very tuff to beat. Very tuff to beat.
 
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EricLA said:
A couple thoughts as I read thru all the posts...
  • Haven't seen a single SC fan over here congratulating us (it is possible I missed one in the 8 pages of posts in this thread). You know they would have been over here consoling us saying "good effort" had we lost ;).
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I think this was an instance in which there was so much interest in the game that it spawned several different posts in the different forums. There was discussion of the game on the General Women's Basketball Forum and several congratulatory posts from many of our Gamecock friends and regulars. Here are a few of the many:

Visitingcock "The Empire strikes Back. Congrats to the Huskies That was a butt whipping!"

Gamecockfan77 "What a whipping. Congrats."

GamecockFam "Congrats UConn! You guys handed us our worst loss in probably 5 years. Sometimes it be like that... :oops:"
 
Jonathan14 said:
I think this was an instance in which there was so much interest in the game that it spawned several different posts in the different forums. There was discussion of the game on the General Women's Basketball Forum and several congratulatory posts from many of our Gamecock friends and regulars. Here are a few of the many:

Visitingcock "The Empire strikes Back. Congrats to the Huskies That was a butt whipping!"

Gamecockfan77 "What a whipping. Congrats."

GamecockFam "Congrats UConn! You guys handed us our worst loss in probably 5 years. Sometimes it be like that... :oops:"
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Thanks for that! I did not know!
 
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Vowelguy said:
Best games of year
Azzi
Jana

Above average games
Shade
Chen
Griffin

Good solid games
Kk
Strong

Below avg game (not bad, mind you)
Paige
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Agree with your assessments, except Shade and Paige--Ash had significant 3s to get us going and was great on defense, rebounding and sealing off the taller SC forwards on the boards. Just what Geno wants from her! Paige had 10 assists and set Azzi up for free shots on multiple occasions. No way Paige had a subpar game when she had a double double. Their contribution was certainly valuable and very significant to our win!
 
oldude said:
Way too early to say that. A lot of the top teams will be knocking each other off including TX over #5 LSU today, and I expect UConn to run the table on the BE regular season and conference tournament.
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TN loss will keep UConn out of the top 4. UCLA, ND, TX and SC, then USC, UConn, LSU and ? (KY}
 
I'm glad Jana played so well today. Her parents watch every game via the internet in Egypt but with the seven-hour time difference, they have to get up in the middle of the night to watch most games. At least this one was at a decent hour. Hope they enjoyed it!!
 
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tchalla1 said:
Agree with your assessments, except Shade and Paige--Ash had significant 3s to get us going and was great on defense, rebounding and sealing off the taller SC forwards on the boards. Just what Geno wants from her! Paige had 10 assists and set Azzi up for free shots on multiple occasions. No way Paige had a subpar game when she had a double double. Their contribution was certainly valuable and very significant to our win!
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I said Shade had an above average game. Nothing is ever gonna top her IowaSt game.
But this may have been her 2nd best.

Also eye roll on everyone's Paige comments. IT WASNT A CRITICISM.
Would you be happier if I said "The only way we win a big game is if every single player plays out of their minds." ?
 
I rewatched the game and I was even more impressed when I realized that the closest SC got from a couple minutes into the second quarter was 10 points, and that was after it was 31-14 and SC went on a 7-0 run to bring it to 10 before Geno called a timeout. Immediately after the time out UConn went on an 8-0 run to get it all back and held SC to only 2 more point for the remainder of the second quarter. SC never got it less than 20 for the rest of the game. Total DOMINATION!!!!!
 
ABCDFE said:
Just finished watching the game. To start off, SC didn't play their best and it wasn't their day shooting the ball so take that as you will. In regards to the team, I'm glad to finally get that signature win that we've all been looking for. Today you could tell UCONN wanted it more and didn't let up at any point in time. In addition, I thought when our bench players were in we didn't see a significant drop in play (like we've seen in seasons past).
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I liked your entire post and agree with pretty much everything except the bold comment.

I have NEVER understood or believed the whole "just wanted it more". My mini rant to follow is not directed at you, but "experts" (announcers) who continue to peddle that as a legit explanation as to what happens on the floor.

Does any logical person REALLY believe that Geno and the coaches "wanted it more" than Dawn and her coaches? That the UCONN players "wanted it more" than SC's players? It seems to be a lazy explanation as what happens. UCONN simply played their A game, and SC did not. Part of SC's poor play was a direct relation to UCONN's incredible defense and spot on game plan.

I've been observing in several other threads that Geno has a tendency to recruit great all around basketball players who have "average" athleticism, and that those type of players seem like they won't win against superior athletes, who by and large, are now really good at scoring.

My point... going into this game, most seemed to acknowledge that SC had superior athleticism, size, and length, and that would probably be too much for UCONN to overcome.

However, UCONN's help defense was incredible, and their ability to clog the lane and prevent any easy layups for SC was on full display. The lateral movement or our "average" athletes was as good as I've ever seen, and it completely disrupted SC's offense.

Getting back to my original point, our great offense and great defensive plan was not a result of 'wanting it more'. IMHO it was a result of lots of really good practices leading up to this, great coaching, a great game plan, great execution of the game plan, and great leadership especially by Paige...
 
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ConnMotors said:
Come Monday you will see #1 UCLA; #2 Notre Dame; #3 Texas; #4 Southern California; #5 UConn; #6 South Carolina; #7 LSU and #8 TCU
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I think ND goes to #1 after UCLA losing
 
I believe one of the other underrated keys to this game was in the 1st half when Azzi didnt have her shot falling, Shade came in and nailed a couple 3’s. That was huge IMO. We know Shade is a grinder and is going to give you max effort, strong d, sneaky board presence, but her buckets, when she hit them, really pushed our momentum forward.
 
Tonyc said:
A couple of keys. A few games ago someone said Geno was going to back off a little and instead of giving the team so many things to think about he would give them less or something like that. Today we were playing relaxed and free. The keys were somebody brought the ball up court and gave it to Paige to control the offense. She got Azzi going. Everybody was relaxed and just played. That was huge. Our focus was on executing plays and we did that well. Playing relaxed was the key. Just for kick just think about some of the open shots we missed and what could’ve been. Hey we aren’t going to out rebound all good teams like we did today. But thinking about it too we as a team could have others shoot a better percentage. Today we had a healthy Azzi who was up to speed. That was one difference. In our 3 losses we didn’t have that Azzi and we didn’t have Griff. We do now and because we do we are gonna be very tuff to beat. Very tuff to beat.
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This is the time of year where Geno and CD start the build up toward conference tournament and NCAAs. The first part of the seasons is breaking people down, where no player can do anything right (except Precious.) The second is experimenting with the team, the combinations on the floor, and pushing the players hard. And the third part is now, when everything is good, the praise flows, and the team confidence is reinforced. They're first goal, the regular season conference title is in sight. The conference title follows quickly, and then the NCAAs after a break.

And, yes, it works like that every year, and the players gain a little swagger.
 
ERWUC65 said:
TN loss will keep UConn out of the top 4. UCLA, ND, TX and SC, then USC, UConn, LSU and ? (KY}
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The TN loss knocked UConn down to 7. The win over SC, coupled with LSU’s loss to TX will move UConn up to 5. As I said before, there’s still a lot of basketball to be played. Tonight, USC almost lost to unranked Washington, which would have vaulted UConn to #4.

I expect UConn to win all the remaining games on their schedule including the conference tournament. The teams ahead of UConn all face tough games in conference along with conference tournament games where anything can happen.

UConn still has a very good chance of being a #1 seed during the Big Dance.
 
HuskieDawg said:
I believe one of the other underrated keys to this game was in the 1st half when Azzi didnt have her shot falling, Shade came in and nailed a couple 3’s. That was huge IMO. We know Shade is a grinder and is going to give you max effort, strong d, sneaky board presence, but her buckets, when she hit them, really pushed our momentum forward.
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It was 11-11 when Ash nailed her first 3 from the arc. After that shot, UConn led for the rest of the game.
 
Bigboote said:
Yes — UConn shot 44%, SCar 38%. If the rebounding was as last year’s game, SCar likely wins again.
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Not a chance if that's the only change because very few of the UConn's threes were second chance threes, so what will account for the 30-point difference in the three-point shooting? The score, of course, would have been closer, but not a victory for SC.
 
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