Pencil in CT....again.

#1
armchair

armchair

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#1
I've been watching some of the Ct.-ND game. It's pretty clear that the huskies will win the national title again. They are beating ND, one of the few teams capable of challenging Ct. by 20--at Notre Dame. The Irish are missing their second best player, Turner, but she would't be enough to help ND beat Ct, IMO.

CT. would beat us by 30. The coaching gap we know about, but the talent gap has gotten wide as well. They've got three or four athletic players who know what they are about--can score off the dribble--and pass. They play with confidence, and why not. Three or four of our players /might/ get a little playing time if there were on this Ct. squad--Harrison would play, and Carter, Massengale and Jones might play a little. We probably wouldn't recognize Jones and Massengale if they played for Geno--he'd have been in their kitchen from day 1 of freshman years, pushing--and they'd be better players. They all would. Deshields would play, of course--and of the freshman, maybe Nared in a couple of years. It is depressing to watch UT stumble through this long transition period, which started well before PS retired--talent, down; confidence, down; coaching, down----while Ct. just roars along.
 
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#3
#3
1. They Already lost this year
2. Give it a rest with the whole negavol thing
 
#4
#4
armchair said:
I've been watching some of the Ct.-ND game. It's pretty clear that the huskies will win the national title again. They are beating ND, one of the few teams capable of challenging Ct. by 20--at Notre Dame. The Irish are missing their second best player, Turner, but she would't be enough to help ND beat Ct, IMO.

CT. would beat us by 30. The coaching gap we know about, but the talent gap has gotten wide as well. They've got three or four athletic players who know what they are about--can score off the dribble--and pass. They play with confidence, and why not. Three or four of our players /might/ get a little playing time if there were on this Ct. squad--Harrison would play, and Carter, Massengale and Jones might play a little. We probably wouldn't recognize Jones and Massengale if they played for Geno--he'd have been in their kitchen from day 1 of freshman years, pushing--and they'd be better players. They all would. Deshields would play, of course--and of the freshman, maybe Nared in a couple of years. It is depressing to watch UT stumble through this long transition period, which started well before PS retired--talent, down; confidence, down; coaching, down----while Ct. just roars along.
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Not much you can take away from this game. No one except Loyd showed up for ND, and after 10 minutes their offense stagnated to Loyd chucking shots from all over the court and UConn cleaning up the boards. Definitely not one of Muffett's better coaching jobs.

ND is not as good as last year with the departed Achonwa and McBride. Without Turner, they are not a Top 5 team. My takeaway was less about being impressed by UConn (although Tuck is fantastic) as it was not being impressed by a Turner-less ND. Not a lot of athleticism on this team outside of Loyd and Allen today.
 
#5
#5
Yes, there's very little parity in Women's Basketball. Chances are UConn will win another championship.
 
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#6
#6
Amb3096 said:
Not much you can take away from this game. No one except Loyd showed up for ND, and after 10 minutes their offense stagnated to Loyd chucking shots from all over the court and UConn cleaning up the boards. Definitely not one of Muffett's better coaching jobs.

ND is not as good as last year with the departed Achonwa and McBride. Without Turner, they are not a Top 5 team. My takeaway was less about being impressed by UConn (although Tuck is fantastic) as it was not being impressed by a Turner-less ND. Not a lot of athleticism on this team outside of Loyd and Allen today.
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I think the takeaway should be that if it weren't Tuck it would be Stewart or Mosqueda-Lewis or Nurse or Jefferson. The point being that UConn plays as a team not as individuals. In the case of the ND game there was also some good coaching involved. Auriemma brought in Stokes who really boosted the defense (19 rb) and put Nurse on LLoyd when it became apparent that Jefferson couldn't stop her.
 
#8
#8
brassie said:
I think the takeaway should be that if it weren't Tuck it would be Stewart or Mosqueda-Lewis or Nurse or Jefferson. The point being that UConn plays as a team not as individuals. In the case of the ND game there was also some good coaching involved. Auriemma brought in Stokes who really boosted the defense (19 rb) and put Nurse on LLoyd when it became apparent that Jefferson couldn't stop her.
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I think Geno did a really nice job with coaching. Stewart and Jefferson had bad games on the offensive side, and KML was quiet. Tuck, Stokes and Nurse really shined in this game. But truthfully, other than the defense on Loyd, I didn't think UConn played a masterful defensive game. They made things hard for Loyd, but the rest of the team was useless. Reimer has no jumpshot and isn't a great rebounder, Mabrey was sending up bricks, and I don't even remember the rest of the players save Allen doing anything. They were really horrible offensively because they weren't getting a bunch of easy back door layups. I'm surprised that Muffett pretty much resigned to hoping for a Jewelled Miracle instead of trying to run some plays to get Mabrey freed up or something.
 
#11
#11
Amb3096 said:
Not much you can take away from this game. No one except Loyd showed up for ND, and after 10 minutes their offense stagnated to Loyd chucking shots from all over the court and UConn cleaning up the boards. Definitely not one of Muffett's better coaching jobs.

ND is not as good as last year with the departed Achonwa and McBride. Without Turner, they are not a Top 5 team. My takeaway was less about being impressed by UConn (although Tuck is fantastic) as it was not being impressed by a Turner-less ND. Not a lot of athleticism on this team outside of Loyd and Allen today.
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At least McGraw would call time outs and try to right the ship when she saw it getting away. I think she called three or four but eventually stopped when she saw nothing was working.
 
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#18
#18
I didn't think it was an impressive outing by either team. Geno even said they are not the offensive team they were last year. It looked more like our offense where they relied on talent more than x's and o's. It will be interesting to see how these teams develop.
 
#20
#20
GameTime said:
If UConn did not impress you, your opinion of us must be bad.

UConn looks solid.
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I didn't say that UConn didn't impress me. It was more that I was not impressed by ND. Truthfully, they looked a lot like the LVs circa 2013. You had Loyd (Simmons) trying to take her defender one on one on every play and firing up contested jumpers. She scored a lot of points, but her FG% was well below her standard and her team was just sitting around watching. At least Simmons had some good rebounders to clean up her misses; ND had nothing under the basket.

And no, I haven't been impressed by Tennessee so far this year, but am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since they are just getting the team fully healthy. I think that they have more talent than ND this year, and if they don't win, then Holly needs to really take a good look at how she's using her personnel.
 
#21
#21
Orange Maniac said:
I didn't think it was an impressive outing by either team. Geno even said they are not the offensive team they were last year. It looked more like our offense where they relied on talent more than x's and o's. It will be interesting to see how these teams develop.
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I think he said they weren't the defensive team they were last year. Any team with Stewart and KML will be better offensively than, well, 100% of the teams out there.

Having said that, their offense doesn't run as smoothly as it did last year. Dolson was really good at finding cutting players, taking open jumpers and setting some nasty screens to free up KML. Stokes does none of these things, and that's why I think they are merely "great" instead of "ridiculous" this year.
 
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#22
#22
Amb3096 said:
I think he said they weren't the defensive team they were last year. Any team with Stewart and KML will be better offensively than, well, 100% of the teams out there.

Having said that, their offense doesn't run as smoothly as it did last year. Dolson was really good at finding cutting players, taking open jumpers and setting some nasty screens to free up KML. Stokes does none of these things, and that's why I think they are merely "great" instead of "ridiculous" this year.
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No. He said this years offense was touch and go and that last years offense was great. UCONN is a good team this year and may end up great, but they are not there yet.
 
#23
#23
Well I'm not ready to crown them yet but. . .
Stokes got 19 rebounds while playing little more than a half???? whats up with that?
I don't know where Tuck came from - I think one of the announcers said she was hurt last year.
And finally the freshman Nurse - wow! she is the real deal and this was what, her 4th or 5th college game?
 
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#24
#24
GameTime said:
If UConn did not impress you, your opinion of us must be bad.

UConn looks solid.
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UCONN does look solid but they don't look like a UCONN yet. My opinion of the Lady Vols hasn't been formed yet. I consider us a young team because our young players are better than our upper classmen. If Holly recognizes this and plays them more, we could be O.K.. I don't see us getting far if Burdick is getting lots of minutes and if Massengale is on point. I've always said Massengale is a better two guard than point. I've never seen a point guard drive, get stripped and fall down more than her. I personally like Middleton in the game. She makes things happen. Nared looks good and is getting better. Our first real test at Texas was blown by the coaching staff in my opinion. It will be interesting to see if they learned anything when we play Rutgers.
 
#25
#25
meekfan said:
Well I'm not ready to crown them yet but. . .
Stokes got 19 rebounds while playing little more than a half???? whats up with that?
I don't know where Tuck came from - I think one of the announcers said she was hurt last year.
And finally the freshman Nurse - wow! she is the real deal and this was what, her 4th or 5th college game?
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Stokes may have gotten the message when she was removed from the starting lineup after their loss. I just wonder how long it will take Geno to get them to move the ball the way they usually do. If he can get them to do that, well, everyone else is playing for second. They can be beat, but it would take a good team effort to do it.
 
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