I was at the game and I had better seats than normal for me, pretty close to the basket where Villanova was shooting in the first half. Saw a lot of stuff from that vantage point. My biggest takeaway is that UConn is not a finesse team, it has become a physical, brawling, contest everything nightmare. And Aaliyah and Nika are a major part of that, but everybody has bought into it now. (The officiating was very strange, they from time to time called fouls on minor or non-existent contact, but generally they let a whole lot of contact go on underneath.)
The nine person rotation allows Geno to pressure the other team mercilessly. He could not do that when our numbers were down. Villanova is a finesse team that is not at all deep and not very quick, and they struggled mightily with UConn`s take no prisoners defense.
Some have referenced surgical precision regarding defense. Nah, unless you perform surgery with a hammer.
UConn was very physical out there and simply would not let Villanova run any kind of offense whatsoever. Seigrist scored 16, largely on one on one play, and the other Villanova players scored 18 points on threes. That`s 34. So, other than Segrist, Villanova scored six points inside the three point line. Three baskets. Think about that for a minute, and what in says about taking a team out of its offense.
And Villanova missed 34 shots but only had 6 offensive rebounds.
We were sloppy at times on offense and there is definitely room for improvement there. But defensively, it was a clinic.
I think the seniors feel some urgency. They have been amazing lately.
Nasty.
