Understatement of the Year, by Karen Aston | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Understatement of the Year, by Karen Aston

oldude said:
So imagine you're a big time HS recruit like Charlie Collier. No practice or games on Sunday. A week a go you're watching TV to see UConn storm back to beat ND before a full house in Hartford. Today you watch your future school play really badly falling to TN. What are you thinking?
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Renege.
 
oldude said:
So imagine you're a big time HS recruit like Charlie Collier. No practice or games on Sunday. A week a go you're watching TV to see UConn storm back to beat ND before a full house in Hartford. Today you watch your future school play really badly falling to TN. What are you thinking?
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She's probably thinking that next year Texas plays Tenn in Austin and I'll be there to help Texas win that game not sitting on the end of the bench with a coach that tells me Freshmen aren't doing enough in practice to play in games and it's a lot closer to home than Storrs, CT.....
 
oldude said:
So imagine you're a big time HS recruit like Charlie Collier. No practice or games on Sunday. A week a go you're watching TV to see UConn storm back to beat ND before a full house in Hartford. Today you watch your future school play really badly falling to TN. What are you thinking?
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I cant shrink. I can start from Day 1.
 
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j66kicker said:
She's a step ahead of some coaches. The first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem. Tennessee's win will only serve to continue to mask their fundamental issue.
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Interesting game. Some in Vol Nation remarked at the Tennessee intensity. Certainly the Vols did not give up but we noticed what some people have described as "sloppiness." Alan Iverson was once quoted as saying "Practice" many times, and the announcers had to return to "December", reminding viewers that what they were watching had to be reflecting early-season breakdowns, not indicative of what will be happening in February or March. Thankfully, nobody mentioned discipline, or coaching. No, No.
 
DaddyChoc said:
I will say that Tennessee has some nice parts... Westbrook has a great "basketball attitude"! Watch out for these "Baby Vols" but they haven't played against a buzzsaw like UConn. Do Tenn play Notre Dame this season?
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Yup. January 18th. South Bend. Very much looking forward to that game, as are the Irish, who are still ticked about their late-game collapse in Knoxville last winter.
BTW, Evina Westbrook looked good yesterday for the Vols....

Switching my attention to UT, the other team in orange. I think a lot of it's early-season rankings came from the way they ended up playing last year. What's changed is a (the?) key component of that team -- Joyner Holmes -- is still on suspension. Joyner certainly could'be been used in the paint yesterday. Texas simply didn't have enough horses to keep up there.
 
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Dillon77 said:
Yup. January 18th. South Bend. Very much looking forward to that game, as our the Irish, who are still ticked about their late-game collapse in Knoxville last winter.
BTW, Westbrook looked good yesterday....

Switching my attention to UT, the other team in orange. I think a lot of it's early-season rankings came from the way they ended up playing last year. What's changed is a (the?) key component of that team -- Joyner Holmes -- is still on suspension. Joyner certainly could'be been used in the paint yesterday. Texas simply didn't have enough horses to keep up there.
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In addition to Holmes, TX misses graduated seniors Kelsey Lang, a solid post player, and Brianna Taylor, the Big 12 DPOY last season.
 
Plebe said:
The "dirty stuff" -- hmmm.
You mean like boxing out for a rebound on a critical missed free throw by the other team?
Or how about just executing a simple inbound play so that the inbounder can at least pass the ball to someone?
Or how about not committing a dumb foul when you're down by 1 with 50 seconds to play?
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Those two rebounds at the end -- it's like they were back in grade school when you go to the ball with no consideration whatsoever that the opponents are trying to do the same thing.
 
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Mercedes Russell is incredibly slow, and Z could run her to death. Also, Mercedes got away with one yesterday. She knew exactly where she was and that there was a player behind her, so she just stopped. Ariel Atkins being out after that shot affected Texas. She was the only consistent scorer.
 
As was once said its tuff to play at Tenn. For example 3 Texas players fouled out. Foul trouble makes it hard to play defense and dribble drive.
 
Florida Fan said:
Interesting game. Some in Vol Nation remarked at the Tennessee intensity. Certainly the Vols did not give up but we noticed what some people have described as "sloppiness." Alan Iverson was once quoted as saying "Practice" many times, and the announcers had to return to "December", reminding viewers that what they were watching had to be reflecting early-season breakdowns, not indicative of what will be happening in February or March. Thankfully, nobody mentioned discipline, or coaching. No, No.
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To me, it comes down to 'Would Pat Summitt have been happy with a win like this where they won mainly because their opponent provided enough entertainment for 30 minutes of blooper reels'
 
oldude said:
So imagine you're a big time HS recruit like Charlie Collier. No practice or games on Sunday. A week a go you're watching TV to see UConn storm back to beat ND before a full house in Hartford. Today you watch your future school play really badly falling to TN. What are you thinking?
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I suspect the loss did not give her an ounce of regret. In changing her mind (again) she emphasized the ability of her family to be in the stands and watch her play. She placed more weight on relationships than potential professional development. This is part of the deal.

For every Katie Lou there is a Charli.

"Current leading scorer Katie Lou Samuelson made it clear that her belief that she would be pushed to play at a level she never thought was attainable was one of the reasons she left her home in California to play at UConn.

“I knew coming here I would become a different player. I have been pushed to points that I didn’t think I could get past,” Samuelson said. “There are some days when I didn’t think I would be able to be consistent at all. You can see clearly in the development in people and that is why people want to keep coming here because they (the coaches) know what they are doing. They know how to get the best out of each and every player.”

UConn’s Auriemma, Dailey, always pushing to get the most out of their players

And, don't forget, all those recruit visual aides are in Storrs, not in Austin. Charli hopefully knew what she was trading off.
 
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1. If Charlie Collier is a competitor (and I bet she is) I bet she watched yesterday's game and was dying to get out there and help her future teammates. Alston is the first to admit her team looked terrible yesterday but most would say she's still a very good (though unproven) coach who expects a high level of play from her players. I'm sure SC sometimes looked awful before A'ja Wilson got there and she's done just fine.

2. I wonder how much yesterday can be attributed to Texas's fairly pedestrian schedule before yesterday's game. Coming into today, they had only payed two teams inside the RPI top 100, and no one ranked higher than 48. Even when you win, playing better teams reveals your weaknesses much more clearly than playing teams far inferior to you does.
 
Dillon77 said:
Yup. January 18th. South Bend. Very much looking forward to that game, as are the Irish, who are still ticked about their late-game collapse in Knoxville last winter.
BTW, Evina Westbrook looked good yesterday for the Vols....

Switching my attention to UT, the other team in orange. I think a lot of it's early-season rankings came from the way they ended up playing last year. What's changed is a (the?) key component of that team -- Joyner Holmes -- is still on suspension. Joyner certainly could'be been used in the paint yesterday. Texas simply didn't have enough horses to keep up there.
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Texas had other horses on the bench. I'm not sure why they were not used. I'm curious to see if Joyner will return in top shape.
 
bbsamjj said:
2. I wonder how much yesterday can be attributed to Texas's fairly pedestrian schedule before yesterday's game. Coming into today, they had only payed two teams inside the RPI top 100, and no one ranked higher than 48. Even when you win, playing better teams reveals your weaknesses much more clearly than playing teams far inferior to you does.
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Good point. I had wondered about TX cupcake schedule. On the other hand, TN feasted on their own big plate of cupcakes this season, so neither team had really been tested prior to yesterday’s game.

In the end, playing at home TN played harder and made fewer mistakes than TX. Don’t know if either one of these teams is ready for prime time right now.
 
Hays writeup of game at ESPNw

Fearless freshmen help Tennessee topple No. 2 Texas

The quote I found most interesting is

"I've taken a different approach to our turnovers," Warlick said. "As long as we're trying to make a play -- if the ball gets stuck in our hands or it goes off our foot dribbling, then I'm going to be upset about that. But a lot of our turnovers are attacking, trying to get the open player the ball. We're trying to get it inside and those type of things. We'll go back and watch it. ... Do we have to get better with our turnovers? Absolutely. I haven't seen the tape, but I think the majority of them were trying to get us better looks. And I'll take that. I'll take that right now."

Very strange sounding to BY ears but this is the reality of just about every other team in wcbb.
 
What was really surprising to me is that Texas not only did not run offense, they seemed to have no concept of running offense. No drive and dish, no screens, no nothing except bring the ball down and jack up a shot! You expect that from Tennessee (who actually did do a little passing, especially in the fourth quarter) because that is the way Tennessee has always played. But Aston has the reputation of being a coach. One has to wonder.
 
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Zorro said:
What was really surprising to me is that Texas not only did not run offense, they seemed to have no concept of running offense. No drive and dish, no screens, no nothing except bring the ball down and jack up a shot! You expect that from Tennessee (who actually did do a little passing, especially in the fourth quarter) because that is the way Tennessee has always played. But Alston has the reputation of being a coach. One has to wonder.
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Maybe too much time on the recruiting trail. I do think TX will get better and a slap in the face is always a good wake up call. McCarty is alot better than she showed.
 
skilz said:
Texas had other horses on the bench. I'm not sure why they were not used. I'm curious to see if Joyner will return in top shape.
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Fair enough, but none of those averaged 12.+ ppg and led the team in rebounding with 8+ per game. My point is that without Holmes or Lang (who graduated), this is not the team from the end of last year. Like you, I'll be very interested to see how Holmes returns to the lineup.
 
Zorro said:
What was really surprising to me is that Texas not only did not run offense, they seemed to have no concept of running offense. No drive and dish, no screens, no nothing except bring the ball down and jack up a shot! You expect that from Tennessee (who actually did do a little passing, especially in the fourth quarter) because that is the way Tennessee has always played. But Aston has the reputation of being a coach. One has to wonder.
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Aston's "reputation" is strictly from a recruiting stand point and not proven.
 
oldude said:
In addition to Holmes, TX misses graduated seniors Kelsey Lang, a solid post player, and Brianna Taylor, the Big 12 DPOY last season.
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And UConn still misses graduated seniors from 2016, Stewie, Mo and Morgan. What has that got to do with the current team??? I am just confused by the last sentence as it relates to this game.
 
I tried watching the TX/Tenn. game 3 different times yesterday and had to turn it off each time. The contrast to UCONN's game Friday night was unbelievable. Friday night was like watching a ballet, terrific execution by well groomed women . But the contrast goes further. Every UCONN player looked put together, uniform and hair, etc. Yesterday's game looked like a street fight. I found it hard to judge talent because it was chippy, mostly one on one play, and drive into people to get a foul called.
 
Centerstream said:
And UConn still misses graduated seniors from 2016, Stewie, Mo and Morgan. What has that got to do with the current team??? I am just confused by the last sentence as it relates to this game.
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I probably should have explained my point better. TX was rated 2nd in the country, but only has 2 starters from last year’s team presently available. Their front court is average right now and they are overrated. A lot of people questioned why they played so badly vs TN. To me, it’s pretty simple. The Longhorns are not a top 10 team, maybe not even top 20.

When UConn graduated the Big 3, they were ranked in the top 5 the following season. You could probably argue that the Huskies were overrated, except for the fact that they played wonderfully and replaced the 3 graduated AA’s with 3 new AA’s.
 
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