msf22b
Maestro
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 6,301
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Several thoughts:
The next remaining games and tournament play will be a real opportunity for the coaching magic, so often discussed here, to be realized. This is a team firing on three-cylinders for a month or more.
Can the ship be righted? Time will tell.
It has been a season (perhaps more than one.) of teams with strong HS resumés having collective issues. Tennessee come to mind. Many of us scoffed at Pat's problems with her underperforming Senior group. I always worried that her issues with that team were such that the same break down in coaching communication and team performance could occur elsewhere. That the problem is rather in the psyche of today's players. We've seen bad losses by UTenn and Notre Dame, a collapse by Kentucky and now our loss.
We've also seen that teams with super-star, super competitive types like Briner and Sims (my god, 2 on one team) and EDD at Delaware willing themselves to win, time and time again. And we surely remember that type of team last season at UCONN with Ms. Maya.
But from a different perspective, our loss and Notre Dame's were perhaps not bad losses at all but the result of a new brand of physicality and defensive mentality (that Geno pioneered) and now has finally taken sway in other programs. And that finesse teams (offensively) are vulnerable.
UCONN since Tina's senior year has been a finesse team. Steph at her best is a finesse center, not a banger. The infusion next season of big strong forwards will help immensely. Notre Dame's dramatic improvement is perhaps not in their guard play but in the emergence of Achonwa and especially the renaissance year of Peters.
I don't think it is parity, the game it is a-changing. Geno always speaks of how guard play is the key. Perhaps he's wrong about that. That the era we're entering is one of monster athletic forwards dominating.
The next remaining games and tournament play will be a real opportunity for the coaching magic, so often discussed here, to be realized. This is a team firing on three-cylinders for a month or more.
Can the ship be righted? Time will tell.
It has been a season (perhaps more than one.) of teams with strong HS resumés having collective issues. Tennessee come to mind. Many of us scoffed at Pat's problems with her underperforming Senior group. I always worried that her issues with that team were such that the same break down in coaching communication and team performance could occur elsewhere. That the problem is rather in the psyche of today's players. We've seen bad losses by UTenn and Notre Dame, a collapse by Kentucky and now our loss.
We've also seen that teams with super-star, super competitive types like Briner and Sims (my god, 2 on one team) and EDD at Delaware willing themselves to win, time and time again. And we surely remember that type of team last season at UCONN with Ms. Maya.
But from a different perspective, our loss and Notre Dame's were perhaps not bad losses at all but the result of a new brand of physicality and defensive mentality (that Geno pioneered) and now has finally taken sway in other programs. And that finesse teams (offensively) are vulnerable.
UCONN since Tina's senior year has been a finesse team. Steph at her best is a finesse center, not a banger. The infusion next season of big strong forwards will help immensely. Notre Dame's dramatic improvement is perhaps not in their guard play but in the emergence of Achonwa and especially the renaissance year of Peters.
I don't think it is parity, the game it is a-changing. Geno always speaks of how guard play is the key. Perhaps he's wrong about that. That the era we're entering is one of monster athletic forwards dominating.