UTSA Postgame Thread | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UTSA Postgame Thread

Bone Dog said:
The officials were rustier than the Huskies. Whatever. This stuff happens. It was probably good for the team to figure out how to play without Azzi available all the time. Ash and Kayleigh really stepped up, as did Allie.

Another plus from a less than crisp performance: lots of material for Geno to use tomorrow to get something better from them.

And by the way, UTSA is a pretty good team. Not great, but they’d probably compete for third place in the BE along with SJU Marquette and Creighton. They gave us a game. Good on them.
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No, No. UTSA is a very weak team. They are in a weak conference and finished in the middle of that conference. UConn usually come out flat after a long layoff this season. If Azzi and Sarah had been hitting their threes in the first quarter, conversations would be different.
 
Team was rusty. Not a surprise. Azzi getting 3 fouls in the first quarter was a complete surprise. KK with 3 fouls early in the second quarter another surprise.

Now the pluses. No Azzi and no KK no problem. Kayliegh, Ash and company did just fine. Blanca comes in and makes her presence known. The pressure defense did not let up on UTSA.

Ash with an excellent game. And for those who didn't know, Ash needed 10 points to reach 1,000 in her career and she got it!!!.

Team will be fine.
 
In the first half defense was great , offense did work with full court press. Our 3 pt shooting was abysmal but oh well. The second half Geno took off the press and we lost the Mo. The fourth q was just poor offensively and defensively. We lost the q 22-15. I would think that Geno would just let them play man to man. I don’t think it could be worse then it was.
 
donalddoowop said:
No, No. UTSA is a very weak team. They are in a weak conference and finished in the middle of that conference. UConn usually come out flat after a long layoff this season. If Azzi and Sarah had been hitting their threes in the first quarter, conversations would be different.
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We did win the first half 48-14.it was the second half that killed us
 
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Rusty performance and they’ll get better as competition improves. Very impressed with Shade, Blanca, and Heckel.

Last year it was the big 3 and meager contributions from the rest. Yes, we only have 2 stars this year, but we’re also getting grassroots contributions from 5 or 6 players to help the stars put points on the board.
 
I think things kind of go sideways a bit when the shooting is off. At one point they had missed 9 FT’s and hit only 3-20 something 3’s. Yikes.

Considering Azzi and KK weren’t playing much because of fouls, I guess not bad. Still, UTSA scored almost 40 in the second half. No need of that…..
 
Even though it was expected, I'm glad that we won, were uninjured and, when necessary, dominated (although, only on defense for this game).
The things that were troubling, I think, were puzzling one-offs and anomolies: 3 point and free throw shooting and the lack of game awareness from 2 of our stars (with regard to the foul discipline). I don't expect those things to ever recur (although players and teams can certainly be at the mercy of refereeing vagaries, and teams can certainly have unforced 3 point shooting woes).
On the other hand, UCONN'S defense in the first half was magnificent and, individually, Sarah, Blanca, Ash and K9 did extraordinary things on both sides of the ball (which are likely to be replicated in the future). As an example, I have never seen Blanca be as aggressive and effective on the boards and make patient and well--advised decisions with the ball.
Kudos also to UTSA for never quitting and for taking advantage of 2nd half opportunities when Geno called off the dogs defensively.
On to Monday and either Iowa State or Syracuse.
 
Apart from a slightly slow start and an abysmal 4th quarter with the game out of reach, they played a pretty good 25 minutes with two of their starters on the bench. The end of the bench players were not good today, but the first wave of subs was excellent. The defense was quite good until the 4th.
 
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EricSD said:
Underwhelming performance. Expected much better with the time off, and preparation for the tournament. Foul problems for Fudd and KK in the first half, 3 point shooting, and not much more than 20 minutes of really high quality basketball by the team. And you can't blame the performance on the "layoff". Gave up 38 points in the 2nd half. Other 1 and even 2 and some 3 seeds absolutely blew out other teams.

The 2nd quarter was great tho, and on the good side, Blanca seems to be back. Nice stat filling game by Sarah too. Great game by Ash. Solid game by Kayleigh. And for some good stretches, the defense was REALLY elite. But this team needs to be able to put together close to 35 minutes of great basketball to win the NC.

Survive and advance, but boy was it ugly for a lot of the game.
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Good summery of a first ten minutes that was hard to watch. We seem indifferent to offense rebounding when the ball isn't going in. At least Texas gathered a number of offensive rebounds, especially in the second half. Hope our experienced center can finish shots as we get deeper into the tournament.

Some mix of our players pass up good shooting opportunities looking for assists. Then we see turnovers.
Several players of us had an outstanding game. Ash, Blanka, Sarah and Keyleigh filling in well when needed. Our depth was a major strength.
 
hoopsfan22 said:
Why do we even have to have a 2 week layoff? They should have just started everything a week ago. They call it March madness but it doesn't even start until March is almost over and the most important games are in April.
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The madness starts in the conference tournaments.
 
Playing zone with that much time left and the regulars was, in my opinion, not just a case of calling off the dogs. I think the staff thinks that one of their future opponents is vulnerable against the zone.

Whatever the reason, they weren't very good in it. I was surprised by how much they were standing around.

Geno told Rebecca before the game that the team has to be prepared to switch defenses on a spur of the moment.

I love the idea that Geno continues to experiment even during the first round of the tournament.
 
Look, we are the number one team in the country. And the team is trying to go on a run here. I would assume nitpicking is to be expected.

We gave up more points than I would have liked. I would have liked to have held them in the 30’s. And we scored less. I was hoping we would hang 100 in this game.
 
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victor64 said:
Playing zone with that much time left and the regulars was, in my opinion, not just a case of calling off the dogs. I think the staff thinks that one of their future opponents is vulnerable against the zone.

Whatever the reason, they weren't very good in it. I was surprised by how much they were standing around.

Geno told Rebecca before the game that the team has to be prepared to switch defenses on a spur of the moment.

I love the idea that Geno continues to experiment even during the first round of the tournament.
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I agree. What I saw was that only the starters + K9 played effective zone defense. I’m glad that the staff had the opportunity to sees that sooner rather than later!
 
Kind of expected a game like this, but the good part, we showed our depth!! We got 20 plus from the bench! Plus, our defense. You hear the phrase "defense travels well", we got that down! Great win! Let's go, UConn!!
 
I watched some of the South Carolina game today, as well as the Huskies game. It was interesting to see the difference in how each team approached similar situations, playing opponents who they would dominate. Once the ball got into the half-court, when an SC player got the ball, they went right at and over whoever was guarding them, often against 2 defenders. There wasn’t much passing or teamwork. Just a lot of one-on-one. It worked fine for them as they had the superior athletes. Don’t know how much that prepares you for when you’re playing a tougher opponent.

A much different story with UConn. They worked as a unit, moving the ball, everyone trying to be in sync with each other. Much more passing. Their style of play remains the same, regardless of the opponent.
 
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