USC Postgame Thread | Page 6 | The Boneyard

USC Postgame Thread

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UConn990411 said:
They at least showed some fight this time, but the same bad habits continue to put this team in difficult positions.

I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this, but the coaching has been inexplicable this season. We’ve seen way too many Chen minutes at the expense of Arnold/Azzi, not nearly enough of Paige at the point, and Brady starting over El Alfy is indefensible at this point.

It’s time for a lineup change so this team can compete athletically with the top teams in the nation.
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Lineup change? We have no bigs and Azzi isn't ready to play. Aubrey is a month away and Ayanna and Caroline are done for the year. You can't get blood out of a stone.
 
Surly1 said:
Unfortunately, there was no carryover from the Iowa St on offense tonight. As hot as the team was against ISU, they started the game ice cold. Wasn't the best effort in the first half, but give USC & JuJu credit for being prepared and ready to play from the opening tip.

I wasn't a fan of having Paige guard JuJu. She is a strong, physical player that really makes you work on defense. I think it took a lot out of Paige on offense as she was off & short on her shots most of the evening.

However, happy to see the fight from UConn in the second half, and KK brought a lot of the energy & tenacity. It's easy to forget that in the last minutes of the game, UConn had Paige, a transfer, a soph and 2 freshmen on the floor. Obviously, it wasn't a win, but this loss hopefully prepares the team for later contests against SC and UT, and more importantly, tournament time.
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I agree completely with yr point about Paige’s defensive assignment. I think guarding Juju detracted from her offense.
 
Stagnant said:
Morgan is a great connector on offense. She does set the screens. She does make the extra passes.

Surprisingly, she is leading the team in 3 point field goal percentage. (Maybe we should run some plays to get her some open shots until that percentage drops?)

And she also crashes the glass when a shot is attempted. I don’t know how many times this year I have seen us make a 3 and Morgan is the one catching the ball out of the net.

Her offense is ahead of her defense.

If Azzi and Aubrey do ever come back. I hope she doesn’t totally fall out of the rotation. I think that would be a shame. She looks like a player with a bright future.
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She has better size on a team that is height challenged.
 
There is a big controversy on social media claiming that Sarah should have called timeout instead of heaving up that last prayer. There were 3 seconds left when she took the shot.
I didn't realize it at the time. Did anyone else notice that option?
 
jaydee602 said:
There is a big controversy on social media claiming that Sarah should have called timeout instead of heaving up that last prayer. There were 3 seconds left when she took the shot.
I didn't realize it at the time. Did anyone else notice that option?
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Should’ve called time out as soon as Paige had the rebound with 5 seconds left…not sure what happened there
 
Loved the game! We almost pulled it out!
This was a learning experience bc it will get us prepared for March Madness. Only one I was a little disappointed it was Ice. She was not really paying attention. At least that’s what I saw.
Wish we had the 1st quarter back. All-in-all it was a lot of fun and we almost won. Boy , it was the loudest game I’ve been to! Hope we meet them again in April! Did anyone notice 55 on the other team was acting badly? Maybe?, just me. Onward to Sunday.
 
Stagnant said:
I think I see people blaming Geno for not calling timeout. I don’t see much Sarah strong criticism anywhere; not in my feed.
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Yeah, that's what I meant. They are criticizing Geno for not preparing the team for any missed shots.
But I think it was a bit too chaotic after chasing a loose ball with the clock winding down.
I don't believe Sarah had time to check the clock before calling timeout.
 
Sluconn Husky said:
She wasn't great but the stats show she is better now than as a frosh.
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Just opinion but I think she was better offensively as a frosh. More creative. More dynamic. Could impact the game in a lot of ways and had answers to your answers. She would routinely have games where she approached double figures in assists (she did it a couple times but would have 7-9 a lot too). Her best game this year was 7 against BU on opening day.

She’s mostly just a mid range jump shooter now against good teams, and she doesn’t affect games much with her passing. I felt she was an extraordinary talent as a freshman and she’s become a lot more ordinary. The 15-18 foot jumpers have their place, but it feels like that’s her whole bag.
 
Stagnant said:
I think I see people blaming Geno for not calling timeout. I don’t see much Sarah strong criticism anywhere; not in my feed.
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Not really fair to Geno. Paige maybe should have called one instead of trying to kick it out through a sea of arms - we were lucky we didn’t lose possession. But once the ball was kicked out, the last thing you want to do is call timeout and have Sarah knock down what would have been a winning three and have it not count. In hindsight, obviously, Sarah threw up a prayer that had no shot, but in real time, you don’t call one if you think you might have a clean look and then end up costing yourself the best chance to win.
 
Sluconn Husky said:
Overlooked is yet another abysmal end-of-game possession in a tight game, a common theme for 10 or more years.
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What are you talking about...the game ended with us down 3, Sarah taking a 3 pointer, missing it but clearly getting fouled. She made the 1st FT, missing the next 2 but we ended up with the ball and missing a game winning shot after a chaotic rebound. Nothing abysmal about it is, Sarah just missed a highly improbable shot as time ran out.
 
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6 for 23 on 3's, at home, in a friendly environment, friendly hoops? No bigs, Azzi still not ready and we only lost by 2? Good thing the next 11 are easy and Geno needs to do a major make or break with Jana. Also Morgan for Ice, she has the mojo. I still like the KK/Kaitlyn duo for now.
 
This game was almost identical to the ND game except we actually had a chance of winning this one. I'm glad we stepped up our defense and showed some heart. I was thinking man are we this soft or what? We will have a hard time winning it all with the frontcourt production like we had tonight. Geno decided to go small since I think he saw enough. Two points, 5 boards in roughly 20 mins. Ice played a matador defense and wasn't within several feet of Iriafen's jumpers.
Better ball movement in the second half. I don't think Azzi was ready to return. She looked uncomfortable. We also doubled Juju late in the shot clock in the second half which was great to see. I still think we are helping too much which leads to open 3's. I didn't see any intensity until the 4th Qtr. Again I noticed that we didn't get into our offense until late in the shot clock. We still have a lot of work to do
 
Gurleyman said:
Not really fair to Geno. Paige maybe should have called one instead of trying to kick it out through a sea of arms - we were lucky we didn’t lose possession. But once the ball was kicked out, the last thing you want to do is call timeout and have Sarah knock down what would have been a winning three and have it not count. In hindsight, obviously, Sarah threw up a prayer that had no shot, but in real time, you don’t call one if you think you might have a clean look and then end up costing yourself the best chance to win.
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Fair on Geno or not. When the fans want a scapegoat, I would also prefer for it to be Geno over the players. He can take it.
 
Stagnant said:
Fair on Geno or not. When the fans want a scapegoat, I would also prefer for it to be Geno over the players. He can take it.
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I also don’t know if it would have been possible to have it granted, to be honest. You have to have possession to call a timeout and Strong didn’t have possession for more than a split second. The kick out was basically a loose ball. He probably would have needed to get Strongs attention in that moment so she didn’t shoot. But coaches will tell you that you get the best shots off of offensive rebounds sometimes when nobody is matched up.
 
I agree. I am not someone that thinks a timeout is realistic there. Some have a different opinion I guess.
 
Vowelguy said:
Folks need to stop with the Azzi stuff. I love her but the reality is she is often out and her performances are inconsistent. Absolutely can play A++, but it definitely doesn’t happen all the time.
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Dont know why you say that, if she plays out the year, she will easily average double digits in points. Her being inconsistent is because she has hasn’t been able to play for long stretches, but if she comes back now and plays out the year, no matter how inconsistent she is, her scoring will be in double digits on average. I think she’s better than your giving her credit for. We will need her if we want to get to where we want to be.
 
I’m just glad this game is in December and not March. But man oh man do I hope we learned some valuable lessons tonight (that we actually take to heart and put into practice) before we play SCar. I can’t take another loss to them. Losing all these big games lately just sucks!
 
Vowelguy said:
Bad 1st half but 2nd half adjustment to small lineup was key

Sarah more than handled herself at the 5. Are we back to a 4 guard lineup?

Curious decision to not play KK most of the 4th.
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Bad coaching decision by Geno not to play KK in the 4th. She ran the offense tremendously and her defensive help was also very very good, especially bothering Juju.
 
I don't want to draw too many conclusions from a two game sample but there was a ton of commonality in the deficiencies in both games and in who rose to the occasion vs. who disappeared.

I will have wait until South Carolina to see if we get the same repeated failures. Otherwise they can enjoy coasting through the next couple of months. Hopefully in good health with a couple of big additions.
 
Gurleyman said:
Just opinion but I think she was better offensively as a frosh. More creative. More dynamic. Could impact the game in a lot of ways and had answers to your answers. She would routinely have games where she approached double figures in assists (she did it a couple times but would have 7-9 a lot too). Her best game this year was 7 against BU on opening day.

She’s mostly just a mid range jump shooter now against good teams, and she doesn’t affect games much with her passing. I felt she was an extraordinary talent as a freshman and she’s become a lot more ordinary. The 15-18 foot jumpers have their place, but it feels like that’s her whole bag.
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Not to do revisionist history, as I think Paige was amazing her freshman year and deserved POY. But they had a great team that complimented her pretty well. Furthermore, I think most of the criticism about Paige recently are related to her performances in these big games vs top 10 opponents. In her freshman year, they really only faced one, which was South Carolina, where she had an incredible game. Honestly, the only other semi big game they had was verse Tennessee where she actually didn't play well but hit a huge shot. However, the past 2 years they are scheduling like atleast 3 games vs top 10 oppoennts a season, and then of course they meet some in the tourney often. But the schedule the team played her freshman year, due to covid was relatively weak. Once again, she was incredible and had a great season, but I think you'll see her look just as good, in-conference play or against non elite teams.

Also, in regards to calling timeout, I actually said that in the game chat, but it's definitely a hind sight thing.

It's so hard in the moment, and with everything going on, I don't blame the players for not calling it. Rewatching the play I actually only think Geno could've called it, but It's not like they had a timeout in between the free throws to discuss strategy, everything was happening quite fast. I honestly didn't even think that Sarah should miss the second free throw. But it seemed like Paige kinda told her to miss the second and that was the plan. If she makes the second and you foul quick, you still probably have 3+ seconds and you may be down either 2 or 3, with the timeout to set up.

Also, one last thing, I did think they got a lot of good shots in the 4th they just missed. I love that Paige took that pull up 3, it just rimmed out. Also Kaitlyn took a quick pull up shot in the lane that almost went in too late.
 
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