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Message: [QUOTE="CocoHusky, post: 2525819, member: 5823"] Work to do indeed [USER=73]@Tonyc[/USER]. An improved bench is an obvious area that UCONN has work to do but there are some other areas as well. 1) I'm not sure why UCONN has opened the last two games in a zone. Playing zone makes you vulnerable to offensive rebounds. UCONN gave up 4 Offensive rebounds to Huston and 5 Offensive rebounds to Texas in the [B]1st Q alone [/B]while playing zone . Playing a 2 X 3 zone like UCONN was doing makes you susceptible to the wing 3 and Texas had 8 3Pt FG attempts and made 4 in the [B]1st Q alone. [/B] Huston had 6 3Pt FG attempts and made 0 in the [B]1st Q alone. [/B] 2) Gabby as a facilitator is being ignored by the defense. Gabby of last year led the team in assist, the difference between Gabby of last year and this year is that Gabby is literally 2-3 feet further away from the basket. These two to three feet difference has had a dramatic effect on not only Gabby's game but also Napheesa's shooting percentage which is down drastically from 67.8% to 53.8% With the defense sagging off Gabby there is one more defender clogging the lane for Napheesa and the other UCONN cutters. Additionally, Gabby being further away form the basket puts her in worst offensive rebounding position and as a result Gabby's offensive rebounding numbers are also drastically down from 2.81 per game to 1.37. 3) This team could use a player with some more meat on the bones (hopefully that is PC enough for everyone). Shepard, of ND and White & Caron-Goudreau of Texas made some very nice plays against UCONN but they also made several plays because they were bigger and more sturdy than any player UCONN could have put on the floor. 4) Better defense must mean less fouling. So far this year UCONN is averaging 12.94 fouls per game. That is an increase of ~ + 1 over last year and ~ +2 over the 15-16 UCONN season. Foul trouble is obviously compounded by a short bench because it always puts you into unfavorable matchups. [/QUOTE]

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