Last night’s victory over Cincinnati was a mixed bag of success & futility. Take Anna Makurat. She went 0-5 shooting, 0-4 from three, but had a solid 30 minutes. How? Well, she grabbed 5 rebounds, dealt 4 assists, blocked 3 shots & had 0 turnovers or fouls. If you only looked at points, bad night. Otherwise, pretty good.
Christyn was the same. Good = 12 pts, 3 rebounds& 2 assists. Bad = 4-16 shooting and 1-6 from three range. UConn’s scoring was the same weird combination of good & bad. First period, 26 scored in 10 minutes. Then only 9 in the next 10 minutes. In the 2nd half, 19 in the 3rd and 26 again in the 4th.
Crystal was good all night and scored 24 pts on 7-13 shooting. She was deadly from beyond the arc at 5-7 from three. Add in 5 assists vs 1 turnover. She was the difference between the futility & the success.
Is Cincinnati the new UCF? Tough defense boarding on chippy? It sure seemed that way to me. I hate teams that play this way.
It looked to me that UConn really let it get to them in that horrible second quarter. Granted, it's on the Huskies when they play like that, but the refs need to call all the fouls. It's the "the refs can't call everything" defense.
I was proud how UConn busted out in the third quarter to extend the lead and never let Cincinnati make any runs to close the gap.
I was especially proud that UConn extended the lead after Megan Walker was raked across the eye to send her to the bench for a while. I have to admit, I was worried about a scratched cornea, but with her coming back later in the game to play effectively, I felt a lot of relief.
The star of this game was clearly Crystal Dangerfield. She ran the offense and against some physical defense, had 5 assists and only 1 turnover. She also led the Huskies in scoring, hitting 7-13 from the field, 5-7 on threes and 5-6 from the free throw line for her 24 points.
Walker was terrific in this game as well with 21 points on 8-12 shooting along with going 2-4 on threes. She added 11 rebounds. The turnover bug has not been cured for Megan as she had 5 of them, most of them unforced.
I really liked how Olivia Nelson-Ododa played in this game. She was 6-6 from the field for her 12 points. She was strong in the paint. She is still making stupid fouls and that is limiting her time on the court. She has to be smarter than that. She added 9 rebounds. Can you imagine what she could do in another 10 minutes on the court?
Everyone got to play in this game and I'm so happy for Evelyn Adebayo. She got some good minutes and was pretty productive. She hit a bank shot three pointer and then off an offensive rebound she had a nice putback layup for 5 points. Adebayo also grabbed 3 rebounds. She just looked a little more comfortable out there.
On the downside, Makurat and Williams were really off with their shooting. Anna was scoreless in this game, 0-5 from the field and 0-4 on threes. But as always, she added more to the team than just scoring with 4 assists, 5 rebounds and 3 blocks. Williams at one point was 1-10 from the field, but she did bounce back later in the game going 3-6 from the field to end the game with 12 points.
UConn did a great job on defense other than that lousy 2nd quarter. They held the Bearcats to 32% shooting and 27% on threes. UConn outrebounded Cincinnati 47-28, a big difference maker in this game.
Overall a great game for the Huskies. It was a 30 point win and other thank the poke in the eye for Megan, everyone else came out of the game unscathed.
Let's see how much I can pile on here. Notre Dame lost at home to No. 5 Louisville 86-54 in a game that wasn't that close...lol.
The Irish shot 29% from the field and were 4-17 on threes. This is just a terrible three point shooting team.
Notre Dame is now 7-14 on the season and 2-7 in the ACC. They are 3-12 in their last 15 games. It just keeps getting worse and worse. Or from my perspective, better and better.
As bad as Notre Dame was, it doesn't come close to the shitfest that Ole Miss had against South Carolina.
The Rebels had ZERO points in the first quarter. Yes, they were scoreless. Zip. Nada. They did bounce back with a big second quarter. They scored 2 points. No, that is not a misprint. That alone deserved an UGGY award. But they earned it even with an explosive fourth quarter scoring 18 points.
Overall, they scored 32 point. They were 26% from the field, 0-10 on threes. They added 19 turnovers. Just an awful effort from an awful team
I see that Charlie has Louisville as a one seed and UConn as a two.
On the one hand, one might argue that disagreeing is splitting hairs. Massey has UConn ahead of Louisville but not by much. UConn is # 4 and Louisville #5. Having them switched is not a major difference. That said, if you pick Louisville ahead of UConn, presumably you have a reason. What might it be?
They each have one loss, so it isn’t their record.
Louisville is undeniably in a stronger conference, but that doesn’t mean anything by itself. Being a member of a stronger conference means it might be the case that you have a stronger SOS. Your in-conference SOS is definitely stronger, and if your out of conference SOS is strong enough, you might well have a stronger overall SOS and thus argue that your identical record against tougher opposition deserves credit.
The problem is that UConn has a stronger SOS to date. Even though UConn is playing some weaker teams now in conference, their pre-conference schedule was strong enough to give them a better overall SOS. It’s not a big difference, Massey rates UConn’s SOS at #13, while Louisville’s is #16. So yes, they are close, but UConn’s is better, so we need to look for something else to justify a higher ranking for Louisville.
Perhaps Charlie is thinking the Louisville’s remaining games are against ACC teams, so their full season SOS will be higher. That’s not a justification for ranking them higher now, but Charlie could counter that he isn’t just ranking them now, he is projecting where they will be at the end of the season, and their remaining games (assuming they win), will give them the edge.
Except it isn’t true.
Massey doesn’t just calculate current SOS, he projects season ending SOS. While UConn’s slips a little, the emphasis in on “little”, it drops from 13th to 14th. Louisville’s actually drops a bit more, from 16th to 18th. How can this be? While Louisville has only ACC team left and UConn has mostly AAC teams left, UConn also has South Carolina and Oregon on their schedule, so it is the case that UConn’s current and projected SOS is higher.
When I first thought about writing this, I thought I had an explanation, albeit arguable. I was misremembering who beat Louisville. I mistakenly thought it was South Carolina, and I was going to reluctantly concede that a loss to the #1 team was “worth more” than a loss to the #2 team (although that’s AP, in the coaches poll, Baylor is #1.) However, I checked and realized my mistake. Louisville lost to Oregon State.
Now I recall that ESPN was pushing the theme that Oregon State was really the best team in the country, but have they forgotten what happened recently? Oregon State is still a very good team, but they aren’t remotely at the level of Baylor or Oregon, so Louisville’s loss to Oregon State doesn’t deserve more wight than UConn’s loss to Baylor.
I see that Louisville is getting a number 1 vote in both the AP and Coaches poll, so at least two people think they deserve to be ranked ahead of UConn now. I just don’t see why.
I wonder if Charlie is predicting that UConn will lose to South Carolina or Oregon or both? That might be a justification for placing them behind Louisville, but I didn’t think such speculation was part of his process. Can someone articulate why Louisville is placed ahead of UConn (other than the obvious reason – to engender fan reaction)?
Just as a reminder, I recently argued that if UConn ends up in Ft. Wayne as a 1 or 2 seed, it really doesn’t matter much, and I stand by that, but someone thinks that Louisville should be placed ahead of UConn, and I’m curious how they reach that conclusion.
