UConn women’s basketball: Five storylines to watch (merged, was Lila Article)

[Bone Dog]

I agree with @HuskyNan , reproducing copyrighted material is perhaps unwise. Yes, news sites also get revenue from advertising -- maybe most of their revenue in many cases -- but it's not up to us to decide when it's okay to pirate their merch.

 

[Carnac]

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ll be making premature judgments after the Texas game.

You’ll have lots of company, like the entire boneyard.

 

[Jackalope]

Why pay a reporter to write an article when the readers go around the paywall instead of paying for a subscription?

Microsoft has a business relationship with the Hartford Courant and the Courant gets some $'s for articles that are posted within msn. If you look at the MSN link I posted there is panel to give donate/support to the Courant as well as a link to more Courant articles on the Courant website.

Microsoft makes their money on advertising and also selling and analyzing your data (Big Data!). The need external news content to get people to visit MSN and also use Bing. As far as I can tell, they have an exclusive with the Courant to repost some of their content.

I've seen digital access to the Courant for $1 for six months. It wouldn't take much from the MSN income stream to adds to the Courant bottom line.

Looking at this another way -- digital subscribers to the Courant and looking for a regional source of news and are willing to pay for having it locally organized (and supposidly with less adds). Going through MSN is topic driven (in our case UCONN Women's basketball). Topic driven readers are less likely to subscribe directly with the Courant. The MSN relationship enables some money to be captured by the Courant that they would never get through subscriptions.

 

[Bone Dog]

Microsoft has a business relationship with the Hartford Courant and the Courant gets some $'s for articles that are posted within msn. If you look at the MSN link I posted there is panel to give donate/support to the Courant as well as a link to more Courant articles on the Courant website.

Microsoft makes their money on advertising and also selling and analyzing your data (Big Data!). The need external news content to get people to visit MSN and also use Bing. As far as I can tell, they have an exclusive with the Courant to repost some of their content.

I've seen digital access to the Courant for $1 for six months. It wouldn't take much from the MSN income stream to adds to the Courant bottom line.

Looking at this another way -- digital subscribers to the Courant and looking for a regional source of news and are willing to pay for having it locally organized (and supposidly with less adds). Going through MSN is topic driven (in our case UCONN Women's basketball). Topic driven readers are less likely to subscribe directly with the Courant. The MSN relationship enables some money to be captured by the Courant that they would never get through subscriptions.

The link you posted seems perfectly appropriate and legit to me. It’s to a site where the Courant makes their content available. I was more thinking of the practice (sometimes seen here) of simply quoting an entire article that’s been paywalled.

Paywalling seems like a shortsighted business practice to me. But I don’t know what the pressures on sites like the Courant are, so they may have good reasons, for all I know.

 

[Bigboote]

Well, I'll take a stab at the five questions: 5 points: what's the rotation, what's Aubrey's role?

In all of this I'm going to assume a typical injury level -- that is, several players banged up and missing a few games, maybe one major injury, but we can't say who that will be.

Who steps up? I think this team is gonna surprise a lot of doubters. I think everybody will step up. If I have to pick one player to surprise, it's Amari. Seeing how active she's been with the team and the work she's put in this summer, I think the only thing that will limit her (and Ice and Ayanna) is the plethora of front-court players. The Big East especially doesn't lend itself to playing three front-court players.

Who leads: Vocal leader and floor general on the court is Nika with strong contribution from Dorka. Off the court in-game leader is Paige. She'll see things from the sidelines that she'll be able to point out to the players on the bench. Away from the court it seems we've seen a lot of leadership from Amari (and of course Paige).

How do the newcomers do?: I'm doing my best to contain my enthusiasm and not jinx them or anything. But, have you seen these kids play?? I'm not as high on Lou as some, but she's a baller, and Geno's said as much. The only question in my mind is how does she fit into the UConn system -- being just one cog in the offensive wheel and having to step up on defense every single possession? Ice is as polished a post player as UConn has gotten in some time. Ayanna is not as polished as Ice, but the sky's the limit for this kid. I haven't seen much of Inês, but I like her attitude. It's too bad UConn didn't get her till so late. She seems like a bright kid who will learn quickly, but I do wish she'd had another couple of months to pick up the UConn way. Among the four of them, we'll see scoring, defense, energy. More importantly, they give much-needed insurance against injuries and the potential for many different looks to the team.

Rotation: Dorka, Aaliyah, Caroline, Azzi, and Nika start. First off the bench is either Aubrey or Lou, depending on what the team needs (instant defense or instant offense). They will both inject energy, though. I think both will play ~20 minutes/game. I see Amari, Ice, Ayanna also getting plenty of playing time, but that might be only 5-10 depending on how individual games go, nagging injuries, and the staff's willingness to go with three bigs. I don't know whether Inês will progress to where she'll be able to direct the team for any meaningful minutes, but I think she and Azzi will probably see 5-15 minutes a game spelling Nika.

One point that wasn't asked but has gotten some mileage on the board is recovery from injuries. I haven't heard anything about Nika's ankle, so assume it's 100%. I have no doubts about Dorka's wrist -- a wrist fracture is usually fully mended and rehabbed in three months or so, and it's in her off hand. Ditto Caroline's hip -- that's about double the recovery time, but she's likely already much healthier than she was all last season. As we've all acknowledged, backs are a different ball of wax, but Geno says Aubrey is 100%. A bulging disk isn't "we're not sure what it is, give her some muscle relaxants), though, so I'm very optimistic. The single thing that concerns me the most is that Azzi has made remarks recently about (IIRC) her foot being okay most days. That was a shocker to me, and I know others have remarked on it too.

 

[Bone Dog]

The Big East especially doesn't lend itself to playing three front-court players.

This is so true. It's one of the main limiting factors of playing in the BE. Much as I think the ACC and SEC are overrated, there is no shortage in those conferences of teams with more than one big post.