We're at a LOW in the season, by Uconn standards

[TheObvious]

A win's a win tonight, but it's becoming increasingly clear injuries are taking their accumulated toll. The team needs reinforcements and they're not available, with the biggest game of the year coming up Sunday.
In my mind, there's no way we should expect our weary warriors to be competitive
against the #1 team in the nation. I'll say it up front: I think it'll be a blow out.
SC will win by at least 20.
I know some of you will consider this pessimistic, but it's not based on a hope.
It's based on declining quality of play, e.g., turnovers, loss of offense, a weakening defense.

BUT that's on Feb. 5. If 2 of the injured can come back in time to get in top
playing shape, we'll still be a force in the Final Four.

Go Huskies!

 

[my2cents]

Last year with fewer injuries, we lost a total of 6 games, and lost in the National Championship game. Not a disaster of a season by any stretch.
This season with a ton of injuries and with basically 5 players, we are still winning.
But since we are Uconn, our expectations are so ridiculous,that wins have to be artisticly pleasing. I will take a W in any way possible.
If we lose to SC its not the end of the world, learn and move on.
Last point, we are 21-2 playing the most difficult schedule in the country (according to RPI)..I think that is darn good.

 

[Carnac]

A win's a win tonight, but it's becoming increasingly clear injuries are taking their accumulated toll. The team needs reinforcements and they're not available, with the biggest game of the year coming up Sunday.
In my mind, there's no way we should expect our weary warriors to be competitive
against the #1 team in the nation. I'll say it up front: I think it'll be a blow out.
SC will win by at least 20.
I know some of you will consider this pessimistic, but it's not based on a hope.
It's based on declining quality of play, e.g., turnovers, loss of offense, a weakening defense.

BUT that's on Feb. 5. If 2 of the injured can come back in time to get in top
playing shape, we'll still be a force in the Final Four.

Go Huskies!

You are a realist. Your comments are not out of line. Anyone that has followed this team since the beginning of the season has witnessed the decline of this team, as it is happening right before our eyes. All you can do is expect our girls to do the best they can. I was not going to predict doom and gloom for the SC game, but like you, I'm going to keep it real.

We all saw the game tonight. The team ship was listing and leaking oil all night. THAT was an ugly win. I just want to get this game behind us and move on without suffering any more injuries. An injury to any of our players at this point in the season would be devastating. It will be interesting to see if any of our fans criticize the play of our girls in spite of their obvious disadvantages going in to this game. Geno has said on several occasions that this team is tired physically and mentally.

There will be no Calvary Unit coming over the hill at the last minute to the rescue. Paige and Ice will not be suiting up at the end of the season. We may not see Azzi either. They may decide to shut her down the rest of the season. We might see Caroline, but how effective will she be?

I won't be making my usual prognostication submission for this game because I don't like to predict a defeat for the Huskies. I don't see any way UConn can win this game. I hope I'm wrong. "UConn is not in a good place right now" ~ Geno Auriemma. We're getting it directly from the head coach. To me, it will be a win-win if they come out, compete, and finish the game with no new or reaggravated injuries. Keep hope alive.

 

[RedStickHusky]

I know some of you will consider this pessimistic, but it's not based on a hope.

At this point, it's probably a consensus. It's important to remember though, that a loss in early Feb doesn't kill the season. It might even make a win in March that much sweeter.

 

[PAHuskeyFan]

I think we need to remain calm. Yes, the Team is mentally tired...and probably physically tired. BUT... following in line with the previous discussion about Trap Games... it is quite possible the Team was looking past Providence to South Carolina. They may not have been as focused for Providence as they should have been, but still came away with a win... and if I recall correctly, they never trailed. I fully expect a completely focused team on Feb 5th... not guaranteeing a win, I mean, they are still very short handed, but this will be a game to test themselves for the tournament. And they may well have some important reinforcements by tournament time and a likely rematch.

GO HUSKIES

 

[cohenzone]

Geezus. It’s freaking basketball and this team has won a bunch of games against teams on hot streaks and all by double digits except one. I don’t know what world some are living in. They have injuries to key players and so many other programs would be piling up losses. They ain’t gonna readily win pretty right now so expecting that is totally unrealistic. It is far from a low. It’s damned impressive. Let Geno be concerned about style points.

As far as South Carolina goes, even a fully loaded UConn might lose. If this team gives them a tough game, great. If they win, almost unbelievable. They no doubt are tired. it is what it is and the last time I looked they haven’t lost a league game and dropped 2 games to decent teams when they pretty much had zero practice time for those two games missing key players who had just been injured. Go Huskies.

 

[socal613ws]

the team has 2 loses, both 2 top 10 teams on the road. Are you sure you are talking about the women or men's team? Cause this applies to the men who lost 4 straight big east conference games, Last I checked Uconn women are undefeated in conference play.

 

[Dawson]

 

[Bone Dog]

Meh. I’m unconcerned. I remember all the naysayers over the summer insisting we’d lose 4 OOC games before January. I just like watching the Huskies play. I like the style of play, I like the game Geno coaches, I like the character of the players who choose to take up his challenge.

We may not win an NC this year. Meh. Like Sean Connery in The Untouchables, I’ll just watch and see what happens.

 

[#12in21]

Realistically our guys are going up against the Targayen dragons on Sunday armed with slingshots. But they have a lot of fight in them and believe in themselves and each other and I expect them to come out punching on Sunday. They know it's going to be a battle and they might not have enough in the tank to keep up the fight. Nobody gave David much of a shot against Goliath when he went out there. Having Azzi or Caroline or both back would have been a huge lift, but as said above, that's not in the cards.

I'd love it for our guys to come out on top - they would truly have earned it with the mountain they've had to climb to get there. How ever it turns out though, I'll continue to be proud as hell of this group of warriors. Its quite possible Sunday may get ugly and our guys may end up getting beat up and beat down but I'm going to be rooting them on, as I assume we all will, right through the final whistle. They deserve that.

 

[uconnfan68]

A win's a win tonight, but it's becoming increasingly clear injuries are taking their accumulated toll. The team needs reinforcements and they're not available, with the biggest game of the year coming up Sunday.
In my mind, there's no way we should expect our weary warriors to be competitive
against the #1 team in the nation. I'll say it up front: I think it'll be a blow out.
SC will win by at least 20.
I know some of you will consider this pessimistic, but it's not based on a hope.
It's based on declining quality of play, e.g., turnovers, loss of offense, a weakening defense.

BUT that's on Feb. 5. If 2 of the injured can come back in time to get in top
playing shape, we'll still be a force in the Final Four.

Go Huskies!

If the calls go the same as the last 2 games, we don’t have a chance. If the refs don’t allow that level of physicality, maybe we have a slim chance.

My money would be on a very physical game, with not many calls. Good tv, you know.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

SC is not invincible, folks.

 

[southofnorth]

I’ll be ecstatic if UConn is competitive with South Carolina in at least 2/4 quarters. I’m talking like a 18-14 quarter. If UConn still loses by 20+, so be it. But a couple of competitive quarters means that UConn can at least play with the #1 team in the country up to a point.

 

[wingsfan055]

Excuses are for losers. They're playing at home with a great starting 5. If they're not competitive, I'll be disappointed. So will Geno. I'm sure he has some specific schemes he plans to use for this opponent.

 

[Topsail]

The team is running on fumes with little rest between upcoming games this month. This will only make our Big East foes more determined to get a win. I do not see the situation getting any better until we get productive players back. This team as spent as it is has to face a SC team that has had the luxury of a bench.

 

[fireford]

I think about the Maryland game when UConn was without Muhl, Juhasz, and Fudd and it was on the road. My UConn fan friends and I were like "oh man, we're gonna get killed". So I begrudgingly watched the game with one eye open and next thing you know, we had a real chance to win that game. We were only down one with a little over a minute left before MD hit the big 3 to ice it.
I'm not into moral victories but I appreciated the effort and we walked away with the belief that at full strength a win is doable if we meet again in NCAA tournament.
OK, so SC is obviously better than MD, but MD is a top 10 team and still no Fudd and Ducharme as well. But the optimist in me thinks a least we have Muhl and Juhasz this game and we'll be at home.
The realistic chance of pulling off the upset are very slim. But if we walk away from this game similar to the MD game that we competed the best we could with what we had and have a real chance should we meet again in the tournament at full strength, I think we should all be happy with that even if we're disappointed by the result.

 

[oldhusky]

We are not even close to what we could have been with Azzi, Caroline, Paige and Ice, and yet we are still in the hunt for a number 1 seed, which is pretty remarkable. Maybe we need Caroline and Azzi soon to do that, but maybe not. We probably can't be competitive with South Carolina, but could potentially run the table for the rest of the regular season schedule with the current group. If we do that a number 1 seed is possible.

Because South Carolina appears to be a notch ahead of everyone else, it can also feel like everyone else is playing for runner up, or in our case trying to keep our Final Four streak intact. That could turn out to be the case, but bad fortune can hit any team, including South Carolina.

In the Elite 8 last year we were relatively healthy, but of course with Paige at less than 100%,. Then Dorka gets injured and is not available for either Final Four game, and although we didn't know it before the championship game, Azzi was sick and Liv injured for the biggest game of the year. If South Carolina has something similar happen to Boston or another top player or two, suddenly the field is wide open again.

We can't be sure we don't have another health setback too, but with the status quo, we might hold serve against everybody except for South Carolina, get some players back later, snatch a 1 seed and then be relatively healthy for the tournament. Having a pretty good chance at another Final Four and a punchers chance at a title, is probably way better than most would have thought possible if they had known in advance the injuries we would face.

 

[veryolddog]

I am sure that we will see some interesting defense by UConn with Geno's preparation and counseling. If they keep up that intensity, the play will be exciting.

There is no doubt tha SC is a powerhouse. Yet, they are not perfect. If they have a poor night at shooting and get into foul trouble, UConn shooters may have an advantage if they are really on that night.

We shall see.

 

[Topsail]

The problem will be the offensive bds. They killed us last time with 23. We had a better shooting percent and TO s were the same but the second chance points killed us.

 

[RedStickHusky]

I won't put it past them to pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat, but it's a tall order. Either way, I like our chances heading into the BE tourney at 29-3 with 9 healthy players.

 

[gold2323]

Yes the offensive boards but I predicted last year if their guards had a good game SC would be hard to beat….if you look back their guards got off to a great start and stayed even keel the rest of the way and that was the difference.
I feel the same for Sunday’s game if the guards play great it will tough but not impossible to win, after all this is UCONN ” And never underestimate the heart of a Champion” quoting Rudy T
What matters is March!!!! Let us enjoy the game it is always great to play them ….

 

[bantamlaker]

I think we need to remain calm.

Remain calm, all is well

 

[LwrcasefaN]

I am sure that we will see some interesting defense by UConn with Geno's preparation and counseling. If they keep up that intensity, the play will be exciting.

There is no doubt tha SC is a powerhouse. Yet, they are not perfect. If they have a poor night at shooting and get into foul trouble, UConn shooters may have an advantage if they are really on that night.

We shall see.

SC is not a great shooting team. They are a great athletic rebounding team for putbacks. And yes, SC has a lot of bodies, but I don't think Dawn is going to play them as much as she has. If Stanford could have reduced the 22 turnovers they had...then SC would have lost. Stanford actually outrebounded SC (47/41). They also aren't a great FT shooting team. SC won that game shooting 38% and less than 30% from 3. The difference was they only had 11 TOs to Stanford's 22. I expect UCONN to play more zone than fans are accustomed to and to work deep into the shot clock on offense.

 

[CL82]

SC is not invincible, folks.

Well, they haven’t lost one this season yet.

 

[HuskyNan]