I'm envious of the seats you got. Since you were so close to the court, did you notice any UCONN elites in attendance?
KK rather quietly put together a strong game statistically.
If the WNBA has been her goal, she should have been thinking and preparing for it and should have possessed the motivation, engagement, and intensity long before she got to UConn. And after a full offseason and season practicing and playing under the UConn staff, if she still hasn't managed to muster up those 3 traits, there's something wrong with her compete level. With the teammates she has at UConn, that light should have come on no later than last October if not way before. And if this is the case, this may only be part of her problem and I'll leave it at that.
Let's see and then revisit this after the NC game.
While UConn's offense prioritizes movement, an effective post scorer would be happily integrated into the offense. When Serah did get her opportunitite this year, it looked more like a lack of confidence than lack of skill/ability.
Well it was a SJU home game so they had the “ticket rights” so other than Meg sitting with Kathy behind the bench and James Dolan and Val Ackerman were behind the officials desk. Other than that, I saw no one.
I agree. I thought ASH was overused in this game. Luckily, she has the fitness to hold up. But few do.
Last year's small ball was an unstoppable machine yet at the same time Jana's defense on Betts was pivotal so I fully agree. I do think however that a low post only center is not going to get many opportunities in this offense since you are on the high post with your back to the basket but that doesn't mean with these passers you can't make your own. Sure, great defense and rebounds should be enough but I think there is more to Serah offensively than meets the eye and I have struggled with understanding what happened this year. Perhaps a new system, different style of play, willingness to let others do the scoring, lack of passes into her desired positions, motivation? I think we may never know but if she suddenly catches fire I'm going with my original controversial analysis.
The only problem I have with your post is at the end you mention sitting next to Candace Parker. She should not have been in the fan seats but rather as the TV game commentator. As I watched her in the studio crew I was reminded that no play-by-play sidekick was anywhere close to her----polished, mature, well-spoken, fair! A major miss by Fox not using her as its #1 commentator
I don’t think so, when the games are high stakes or close KK is just about as indispensable as Azzi and Sarah IMO. And Ash does have significantly more experience like KK and most importantly they have the total trust of Geno because they’ve earned it and proven themselves for 3 years now. And they are starters which means something come tournament time and Ashley technically plays the 3 spot. While there may still be some misguided KK doubters out there in the BY and beyond the fact is that when it comes to the statistics that matter for a PG ( win %, Assist/TO ratio,defensive efficiency,steals ,shooting percentage) she is ranked amongst the national elite and rightfully and deservedly so. It is tournament time now so why would you think that the playing time will now be evenly split ?
Every kid has aspirations. I don't know what Serah aspires to, but if it's a basketball career after UConn, she didn't do herself any favors during the regular season. I suspected that the whole reason she came to UConn was to embellish her resume for post-graduation. That hasn't happened, yet.
Watching them in warm-ups, it really seems like Jana has a very good mid-range shot, and I can't wait for her to integrate it into the offense - it would really help in keeping opponent's defense honest.
Likely a result of the random substitution patterns in Q4, Ash often got ball late in the shot clock pretty far from basket.
I’d like it if the board as a whole could avoid guessing at a player’s goals, motivations, etc.
I blame Jana's and Serah's teammates for their struggles as much as anything because their attempts at feeding the post where all Jana and Serah have to do is turn and shoot or take no more than one dribble to shoot. Crooks is shorter than both of them and has no trouble getting the ball where she can operate successfully and Iowa has no trouble feeding their post player. Many other teams are better at feeding the post than UConn except when they feed Strong.
