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Message: [QUOTE="NycUcWbbFan, post: 5326932, member: 13453"] The assumptions for the WAG (Wild A## [U]Guess[/U]) time prognostication model is heavily influenced by the following considerations: [LIST] [*](a) Next season’s team is a [URL='https://the-boneyard.com/threads/heckel-to-uconn-merged-threads.207545/post-5284061']defending champion mix-match 2.0 team[/URL] whose top 11 players favorably compare to this past season’s top 9/10 players ( with the traditional lineup being another winning time combination this season in addition to the small ball lineup) that romped through the NCAAT; [*](b) As such, the “championship metamorphosis” time is somewhere between DT’s improbable 2nd championship and this past season’s Zero-to-South Carolina ramp to any of the six undefeated championship teams (most notably Senior TASSK+DT team and the Senior BMM team); [*](c) Geno and CD’s “basketball player” farm system cumulates and they have shown remarkable consistency in consecutive Final Four and beyond success when they have strung up consecutive superb rosters when not hampered by injuries; [*](d) Geno gets serious with games that really matter, i.e. BET and NCAAT games; [*](e) Geno has shown [B]experimentation ranginess[/B] in “[B]worthless[/B]” games (I’ll leave it at this, to keep it short) but does get very serious in [B]late season[/B] OOC litmus tests. [/LIST] Per these considerations ([I]and your mileage may vary[/I]), I consider the following games in Group A: [LIST] [*]Elite 8 game and up (3 games); [*]BET final (because it is also an endurance test); [*]TN game (2/1/2026); [*]I pencilled in South Carolina (I did the model before the OOC [URL='https://www.theuconnblog.com/pages/2025-26-uconn-huskies-womens-basketball-schedule']schedule[/URL] came out); so there is one floater — unexpected tough — game. [/LIST] [I]Again, your mileage may vary[/I]. In addition to your question, this is probably an opportune time to provide color to the per-40 competitive time assumptions; [LIST] [*]There are six championship starter / former starter veterans who Geno presumably [B]trusts[/B] (Azzi, Sarah, KK, Ash, Ice, Jana) and all except Jana and Ice are essential to all [I]families[/I] of winning time combinations (out of the C(15,3) = 3,003 combinations— it should be noted that Geno and CD had to simplify things this past season); [*]In addition, Azzi and Sarah are the most lethal in all combinations, and by extension, the most dominant at their positions in those combinations; [*]Then there are “[B]hopeful trust[/B]” players whose playing time is also dictated by opportunity at their positions: Serah, Blanca, Caroline and Kayleigh; Serah is the 5 on the traditional lineup and perhaps 5A or 5B (like Blanca) in the small lineup; [*]The biggest time casualty this past season with the late full emergence of the small ball winning time combination was Ice; this year, Serah will diminish Jana’s time as the 5 in the traditional lineup; I don’t think, and I could be wrong, that Ice or Jana are suited to be Sarah’s backup in small ball; [*]Ash is a mix-match do-the-little things glue player; in small ball, she is Azzi’s complement — another 2/3 that Geno also tasked to be a rebounder to free up Azzi as the designated floor spacer that can go the shortest distance between 3-pt lines; [*]Kayleigh is a small conundrum; is she, a 2nd-year guard who excelled in U19 (whose coach misused Sarah), comparable to graduate transfer Kaitlyn who took some time to acclimate to Geno’s system? In other words, is she an equal time point guard with KK? Kaitlyn did impress Geno in a head-to-head game while at Princeton; [*]There was consideration given to optimizing performance by judicious time limits, e.g. Serah, Blanca and Caroline; [*]There were also mix-match considerations; For example, for Group A opponents: KK’s and Kayleigh’s minutes < 40, Azzi’s and Ash’s minutes > 40, Blanca’s and Caroline’s minutes < 40, Sarah’s and Ice’s minutes > 40, Serah’s and Jana’s minutes < 40; [*]And yes, I provided for the possibility that Azzi is the point guard in a Big Lineup; [*]As mentioned by others, Morgan is a conundrum; she and Ayanna and Allie are at the competitive time fault line, and all three can be major rotation players for many other teams. [/LIST] Again, the preseason WAG ([U]guess[/U]) above is meant to be illustrative — a conversation starter. The collection of considerations above and expressed by others in several threads were unhelpfully self-looping that led me to do a simple crude model to sort it out. It is an armchair simile of the [I][B]beautiful headache[/B][/I] Geno and CD have for this coming season. [/QUOTE]

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