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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5310827, member: 12088"] Very well said. I think your distinction between starters and bench depth is especially true if it’s phrased in terms of the traditional positions. Kiki is simply a better PG than KK (or Kayleigh if she starts). I think it’s an open question whether Kneepkens is a better SG than Azzi. As a shooter, she’s been more consistent than Azzi at her peak. If she returns to that form, I’d give her the nod at least on offense. On defense, I think Azzi plays better within a more rigorous team defensive concept. The same caveats apply to Leger-Walker. If she returns to peak form, she could be better than Azzi or Ash. In her case, it may be a bigger [U]if[/U], I suspect, since I saw a bit of Kneepkens’ play on Team USA and she looked pretty good. And in the post, Lauren is simply better than Serah or Jana or Ice as a low-post player. I think that’s unquestionably true. However, Serah has a much more diverse set of offensive skills and runs the floor much better than Lauren. This means that within Geno’s schemes, Serah could turn out to be a more valuable asset. Of course, at PF even if she’s limited to that role, Sarah is simply better than Dugalic or Gardiner on offense and defense. Of course, Geno will not use Sarah in such a limited way and then there’s really no viable matchup for her on UCLA’s roster. And I think you’re right about the bench comparison. Jaquez is the closest thing to Ash that UCLA has, and she is a really good utility player. But she doesn’t have the same intensity as Ash and isn’t the perimeter shooter Ash is. And after Kiki, Kayleigh outclasses any PG sub on UCLA. At C and PF, Jana Ice and Gandy aren’t any better than Sienna Timea Angela Zania or Amanda, but depth of big bodies is no longer an issue for Geno. Really, I doubt Cori’s front court rotation will go deeper than Sienna and Timea by mid-February just as Geno’s probably won’t go deeper than Jana Ice and Blanca. Maybe Ayanna or Caroline or Morgan can fight their way in to that rotation, but I don’t think we’ll see an 8 deep frontcourt rotation after February. Of course, the real issue is the rather untraditional style of play Geno used last season. His team had a huge hole in the frontcourt and that should have been decisive. But he saw Sarah’s talent and leveraged it to flip all the matchups. Suddenly you had someone like Lauren trying to guard her on the perimeter. And in the transition game, it ended up being Kiki or Gabriela or Londynn trying to stop Sarah. Geno conceded Lauren’s double-double but got the much better bargain. And it didn’t hurt that Azzi scored 19 in the 1st half and put UConn up 20. The challenge for Geno is whether he can tweak his smaller lineup now that opposing coaches will have time to prepare for it. He doesn’t need to go small next season, and he may have some of the quickest bigs in Sarah Serah Ayanna Blanca and Morgan, if they’re all healthy. Instead of a quick-small lineup, he may be able to go with a quick-big lineup. [/QUOTE]

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