Talent levels

#26
#26
Outside of Chong and Butler, all the recruits in their lineup were elite recruits. Collier and Dangerfield were both top 3 recruits in their class, KLS was HSPOY, and Gabby Williams was top 6/8 in her class before her injury. Nurse was named a top 10 recruit by one of the services. I just can't remember which one it was now.
 
#27
#27
Uconn is simply more fundamentally sound than and other team they understand spacing. Two and three passes ahead . Correct footwork
 
#28
#28
Volfan2012 said:
I don't know about AA's but of the players that start for UConn Collier was number six in the 2015 class, Samuelson was number one, Williams was number fourteen in 2014, Nurse was an AA from Canada, Dangerfield number three in 2016, and Chong was 75 in 2013.

While Tennessee and several other teams seem to have talent that is comparable to UConn they are certainly not without talent. They are certainly better coached and their players are at another level compared to our team and other top teams.
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Don't kn bout AA's player's, but all I kn is dat Uconn most times get top 5 players in the country plus they have a great coach to wt dat and be able to develop them quick. I look at about 7 teams wt great players better than Uconn this yr but can't beat them is a shame. If nobody beat them this year it will take another 3yrs for any team to beat them.
 
#29
#29
armchair said:
Geno and his staff are 3 times better than our staff; that's just a fact.
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Yep!!! ur rite and I said it when pat stepped down that it will be very hard for any other coach to step up and challenge Geno day in day out..
 
#30
#30
Nuyoika said:
Is that what they are trying to say? Or what you heard them say? Sometimes people mean exactly what they say and nothing more. It's odd that from that short clip people have now decided that the reporter was saying UConn has no talent.

What was said was that they are currently 5th in terms of AAs. If you look at the ranked teams they have played all of them have equal to or more. So the talent is comparable. Some of those rosters have players that were not nearly as good as they were coming out of HS and got significantly better.

Now that UConn has gone 12-0 all those people who were so eager to see them fall in OOC play have to start finding new excuses. Or they can recycle all the old ones. As the talent spreads out and that number of schools with 4+ High School AA's goes from 8 to 10 to 15 and so on WCBB will keep finding more excuses.

Stop whining and raise your level of play. I have seen mid-majors play better basketball than some of the teams currently in the Top 25. I have seen WCBB teams go from November to March and not improve in certain areas of the game then get surprised when they get bounced in the tourney... how is that possible? Some of these coaches have been at the sames school for years cashing six figure pay checks running the same crap that hasn't gotten them anywhere.

Here's an idea... GET BETTER!
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Correct!!
 
#31
#31
teacherdean said:
The issue is that Genno has set the bar high, as Pat did 10 to 15 years ago, however, other coaches either can't reach the bar or they refuse to. If I wanted to beat Genno, I would analysis his program, and why it is successful. I would then use his blue print. Genno's ladies are talented, aggressive and refuse to lose. He knows how to bring the best out of each player. I think a lot of coaches in the ladies game know the X's and O's, however, the game is much more than that. The difference is how you coach up the players. Do the coaches have the ability to challenge their players to produce their best? When teams go South do they have the ability to come up with in game changes? Coaches have to make every player accountability and hold them to that standard.
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Great great point Teacherdean!! When I watch Uconn team play all I see is "fast & physical" than any other teams.. Like u said u have to work it hard to beat them because they don't want to loose. And when I look at lady vols now,they don't have wat it takes to even run the floor wt Uconn speed cause they pass out compare to TN when pat was pat..
 
#32
#32
Coach Jumper said:
Notre Dame - 8
Texas - 7
Baylor - 6
Duke - 6
Maryland - 6
Tennessee - 5
UCONN - 4
S Carolina - 4


SC surprised me more than anything else.
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Rankings of today...#1 UConn 13-0, #2 Baylor13-1, #13 Duke12-1, #3 Maryland13-1, Tennessee 9-4, #15 Texas 8-4, #5 South Carolina 11-1, #7 Notre Dame 12-2.
 
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#33
#33
teacherdean said:
The issue is that Genno has set the bar high, as Pat did 10 to 15 years ago, however, other coaches either can't reach the bar or they refuse to. If I wanted to beat Genno, I would analysis his program, and why it is successful. I would then use his blue print. Genno's ladies are talented, aggressive and refuse to lose. He knows how to bring the best out of each player. I think a lot of coaches in the ladies game know the X's and O's, however, the game is much more than that. The difference is how you coach up the players. Do the coaches have the ability to challenge their players to produce their best? When teams go South do they have the ability to come up with in game changes? Coaches have to make every player accountability and hold them to that standard.
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I think this is the key. UConn obviously recruits talented players, but they are also very selective in their recruiting, with (according to the accounts I have read) a lot of attention also being given to things like effort, body language, support of teammates, reactions when having a bad game, and so on. And then Geno + company get to work on the the "much more than that" in practices that are brutal and often set up to put players in impossible situations in which they lose more often than not.

I also think that Auriemma is extraordinarily skilled at reading people and that in turn makes him a master motivator, who is willing to do whatever he thinks it takes in order to make his players better, including encouraging them to "hate" him at times if that will make them more successful on the court. Usually, the greater a player's potential, the more he's on her case. (Stewart is the poster child for this, with Samuelson the heir apparent this season; I would imagine that, if DD had chosen UConn, their clashes would have been epic.) When it works, and it seems to most of the time, the results can be stunning: it's difficult for me to believe that Samuelson and Collier, as sophomores, are the same players who were hardly central last year as freshmen. When it doesn't, players transfer (about 1/year on average).
 
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#34
#34
jonson said:
I think this is the key. UConn obviously recruits talented players, but they are also very selective in their recruiting, with (according to the accounts I have read) a lot of attention also being given to things like effort, body language, support of teammates, reactions when having a bad game, and so on. And then Geno + company get to work on the the "much more than that" in practices that are brutal and often set up to put players in impossible situations in which they lose more often than not.

I also think that Auriemma is extraordinarily skilled at reading people and that in turn makes him a master motivator, who is willing to do whatever he thinks it takes in order to make his players better, including encouraging them to "hate" him at times if that will make them more successful on the court. Usually, the greater a player's potential, the more he's on her case. (Stewart is the poster child for this, with Samuelson the heir apparent this season; I would imagine that, if DD had chosen UConn, their clashes would have been epic.) When it works, and it seems to most of the time, the results can be stunning: it's difficult for me to believe that Samuelson and Collier, as sophomores, are the same players who were hardly central last year as freshmen. When it doesn't, players transfer (about 1/year on average).
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Maya Moore and Diani Taurasi are the only exceptions to Geno's stern motivation according to potential. He treated them with kid gloves. They did not need to be motivated. There self-motivation buttons stayed pushed at all times.
 
#35
#35
Just from a starters standpoint how does anyone beat Wilson, Coates, Gray, Davis and Harris or Cuevas. Your talking about four top 10 players maybe two number ones and Cuevas was highly rated as well. You wonder how they lost to Duke and expect the will lose to UConn.
 
#36
#36
Volfan2012 said:
Just from a starters standpoint how does anyone beat Wilson, Coates, Gray, Davis and Harris or Cuevas. Your talking about four top 10 players maybe two number ones and Cuevas was highly rated as well. You wonder how they lost to Duke and expect the will lose to UConn.
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They lost to Duke because their offense was pretty bad in the first half and they didn't play with much fire in the second. They also took waaaaaaaaaaay too many 3 pointers for a team that shoots under 35% from long range.

Defensively I honestly think that game may have been an aberration for them. Maybe they were tired or something IDK but it wasn't very good that night. I did a full write up on it on the cockytalk board after watching the game several times. I will copy and paste that below and I apologize in advance for the long post.


My post from 12/06-
"I got a chance to watch the game yesterday and then re-watched it a couple more times to really dig into it. Nothing really seemed to jell for them vs Duke both offensively and defensively.

Defensively: They seemed to really struggle getting around screens. The positioning of their feet seemed to be a bit off and then they would get hung up and reach and either foul or their player would just go to the middle of the lane or the basket. This is something I know they have struggled with for a couple of years now. Last I heard Dawn talk about it she said it was a work in progress, however; that was with a different set of guards.

In the 1st quarter when Dawn subbed I think the line up she had in wasn't really confident on where they were suppose to be on out of bounds plays and on help side defense. Duke got far too many lay ups. I'm not positive but it seemed like they may have gotten more points in the paint than South Carolina on the night. In the second half the defense was better in stretches but after a turn over it would go back to the same issues as before. I was very surprised at how often the South Carolina defenders were beaten off the bounce in the man to man. There was often no weak side help at all. Some who have seen them over the past few weeks say this may be attributed to them being tired.


Offensively: It seemed like a lot of things really bothered them. There were a number of possessions where there was no post touch at all. They would pass around the perimeter sometimes never even having the ball leave 1 side of the floor and no one would drive or flash through the lane (mainly in the 1st half). Then a 3 would go up, miss, South Carolina would get an O board but then turn it over. I think this happened 3 times in the last 4 minutes of the 1st quarter where Duke made their run that changed the game. When Wilson was not in the game it seemed as if no one knew what to do or were unsure where the ball should go. I do wonder though why they wouldn't even be getting into the offense until 15 seconds or so left on the clock a number of times even though Duke wasn't pressing.

In the second half they did a better job of getting to the gaps and trying to run some plays. In the possessions where they were making a conscious effort to do so they had some success. It was the possessions where they weren't patient and were telegraphing lobs and passes into Wilson and Coates is where they would keep turning it over.

I did notice they are starting to try and use the short corner now. Something I hadn't seen them do all last year. Although the set up was really wonky with Coates and Wilson on the same side of the floor. Can anyone tell me who has seen more than 1 game if this is purposeful or a mistake? If it's a planned offensive set I would love to see how it works. I saw them set up like this 3 times and I just couldn't figure it out. It seems like it puts the defense at an advantage instead of the offense.


Final thoughts on Defense: Continue to work on the man to man. It's early in the season and defense is far harder to get going than offense IMO. I truly think they may have been tired by the way they were moving. I don't think Dawn would ever use that as an excuse because you have to travel for the NCAA tourney as well. This game was likely a defensive aberration. I doubt they have this kind of defensive night for a long time maybe even the rest of the season.


Final thoughts on Offense: They needed better ball security. Too many turnovers. Deliver the passes to the post from the right angle and with some gumption if you are going to the same place every time down. They needed to work against the zone. The ball reversal was spotty. There has to be a clear cut plan for when Wilson is out. Maybe try having K. Davis play the 4 when Wilson is out and you still have Coates in. There are enough guards that she can put in another 3. Lastly, far too many 3 pointers taken. They took 16 a game coming into Durham but took 15 in the second half alone and 10 in the final 10 minutes of the game. When you are entering the 4th with a 12 point deficit and you're only a 30% 3PFG shooting team I'm not sure you are giving yourself much of a chance to win doing that. If that was Dawn's strategy then the only person taking 3s should have been K. Davis because she accounted for 15 of the 30 total made 3s South Carolina had on the season prior to playing Duke."
 
#37
#37
One thing I have noticed with UC and somewhat with ND: Their players evince an attitude of "By Gawd, you will get to the basket over my DEAD body, or through it! Make my day!" and "IF you think you are stopping me from scoring, you've got another think coming, because that's just what we are going to do!"

They also don't run down the court and get in "their spot" and wait for something to happen.
 
#38
#38
Albeit well-coached, Connecticut has achieved a status that the Lady Vols once enjoyed: mystique. The name on the jersey presents a tremendous mental hurdle to the equally talented (or seemingly superiorly talented) teams that prevents them from finishing plays and finishing victories. These teams like Baylor, Notre Dame, and Maryland came close but tripped over that last hurdle.
 
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#39
#39
Volfan2012 said:
Just from a starters standpoint how does anyone beat Wilson, Coates, Gray, Davis and Harris or Cuevas. Your talking about four top 10 players maybe two number ones and Cuevas was highly rated as well. You wonder how they lost to Duke and expect the will lose to UConn.
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Cuevas really isn't that good.

SC has probably the best starting 2-5 in the country but it drops off significantly after that.

Ohio State is probably the most talented team, top to bottom. Notre Dame, Texas, UConn, Baylor and Louisville would be the next group probably in a debatable order.
 
#41
#41
volman128 said:
Cuevas really isn't that good.

SC has probably the best starting 2-5 in the country but it drops off significantly after that.

Ohio State is probably the most talented team, top to bottom. Notre Dame, Texas, UConn, Baylor and Louisville would be the next group probably in a debatable order.
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Our starting 5 is really good.. I like Harris starting over Cuevas. Harris is more of a distributor while Cuevas is an offensive spark off the bench...

1. Harris
2. Davis
3. Gray
4. Wilson
5. Coates

There aren't many starting fives that are better.. but we have next to no bench. Listed here in order that they usually come off the bench..

1. Cuevas
2. Harrigan (a freshmen, just to illustrate how dire SC's bench situation is)
3. Cliney (our defensive stopper, but not a consistent offensive threat).

You really don't need more than 8 players to win a national championship, UConn has proven that but SC being at the bottom of this list should surprise nobody... there are far more overall talented teams out there than South Carolina.



Now to get back on topic... What separates UConn from the rest of WCBB is that they do a much better job at getting the truly elite talent... UConn fans like to scream that there is recruiting parity across the board now and while that may seem true, the details tell a different story.... there are really only 2 or 3, sometimes 4 or 5 REALLY elite players in each class and UConn does a better job than just about anybody getting their share class to class... UConn has an ability of landing top 5 players in one class, and following that up with landing top 5 players in subsequent classes so forth (KLS in 2015, Dangerfield in 2016, Walker in 2017, Collier in 2018..and the jury is still out on whether Nelson-Ododa/Williams will join the party in Storrs). And then they supplement that elite talent with very good/good players (Coombs, Gordon and Espinoza-Hunter in 2017) Other programs may get their share of McDonald's All-Americans year to year.. but in girl's basketball there's a substantial difference talent wise from the #1/2/3 player and the number #26/27/28 player and very few programs are getting more top 5 players than UConn. You couple that with Geno Auriemma and you have the stranglehold that exists over WCBB today and for the foreseeable future.
 
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#42
#42
SCGamecock said:
Now to get back on topic... What separates UConn from the rest of WCBB is that they do a much better job at getting the truly elite talent... UConn fans like to scream that there is recruiting parity across the board now and while that may seem true, the details tell a different story.... there are really only 2 or 3, sometimes 4 or 5 REALLY elite players in each class and UConn does a better job than just about anybody getting their share class to class... UConn has an ability of landing top 5 players in one class, and following that up with landing top 5 players in subsequent classes so forth (KLS in 2015, Dangerfield in 2016, Walker in 2017, Collier in 2018..and the jury is still out on whether Nelson-Ododa/Williams will join the party in Storrs). And then they supplement that elite talent with very good/good players (Coombs, Gordon and Espinoza-Hunter in 2017) Other programs may get their share of McDonald's All-Americans year to year.. but in girl's basketball there's a substantial difference talent wise from the #1/2/3 player and the number #26/27/28 player and very few programs are getting more top 5 players than UConn. You couple that with Geno Auriemma and you have the stranglehold that exists over WCBB today and for the foreseeable future.
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I think that this is a really important point that many UConn fans overlook when making the case for parity in WBB. But I also think that it's not the whole story. Another part is the difficulty in assessing talent at the high school level; the numbers make it look like a fairly exact science when it obviously isn't, except in a relatively small number of cases each year. There is, in addition, the challenge of finding the "right" talented players, with "right" meaning those who fit the culture of a given program. And then there is of course player development, since being "all world" in high school is not the same thing as being that (or even a very good player) in college.

The starting lineup for UConn this year includes players that ESPN ranked #1 (Samuelson), #6 (Collier), #14 (Williams), #33 (Nurse), and #75 (Chong). SC's starters were ranked #1 (Wilson), #2 (Davis), #7 (Gray), #28 (Coates), and #35 (Cuevas). Were Cooper healthy, the Lady Vols starters would presumably have been ranked #1 (Russell), #3 DeShields, #6 (Nared), #12 (Cooper), and #42 (Reynolds). Jackson was ranked #49. The numbers tell us something--these are three teams with a lot of talent--but imo they don't tell us a great deal more than that.
 
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#43
#43
Correct. Those rankings are all subjective. That number beside the player's name has been input by a human being who might not even be in the Top 20 of his/her avocation.
 
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