Upward Trajectory

[uconnfan68]

More than that. It showed the committee we can play well on the road. We have been pretty weak on the road. This was a complete performance in a tough environment that was sold out. Our road record was probably the reason they left of out of the top 16 to begin with. We have responded. They know it. They should reward us.

On a related note, this game was very good prep for the NCAA. We have shown well on neutral courts. But lots of NCAA courts are less than neutral. And this was in a large NBA type venue that is typical of the courts we will see in March.

Only in-conference. In neutral sites we win.

 

[ctchamps]

A lot of the best UConn teams of the JC era had a January/early February swoon followed by a turnaround and a run in March.

2002 lost 3 of 4 to start the month and played some mediocre teams poorly before turning it on for a BET Championship and E8 run.

2003 when 4-5 with some bad losses and mediocre wins from 1/7-2/15, and ended up making a run to the BET Finals and the S16.

2004 lost 4 of the 6 games it lost all season from 1/17-1/15, a 5-4 stretch for a team that should have lost like 2 games all season at most.

2005 went 4-4 in January before turning it on and getting a 2-seed. That season ended poorly, with Rashad missing a lot of time from that staph infection, otherwise that could have been a good run.

There are more, too, but the point is JC had the team peaking at the right time and working through mid-season struggles. This team looks to be following that model. Probably doesn't end in a title, but should at least not end before the second weekend.

I took issue with a statement someone made that we control our destiny. Our 2011 and 2014 teams proved that teams with the higher probability of winning did not succeed in that outcome. Heck an argument could be made for 1999 otherwise "Shock the World" would not have taken off. Stated differently we removed the control of those higher seeds destiny.

The only thing a team can do is influence its potential to have a positive or negative outcome. Outcomes are never a guaranteed and yet fans continuously behave as if it should be.

We are set up to be in as good a position to go far as any team in the country. Part of that position is the result that there is no team overwhelmingly better than the next 10 or even 30 teams. That was not in our control. What is in our control is we have figured out ways to minimize our vulnerabilities that were exposed during that January slump. It's far better we became aware of them in January than to have someone expose them during tournament time.