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By David in Naples
In her last two games, against Georgetown and Arkansas, Nika played 35 and 25 minutes. Her shooting improved dramatically from the 0 for America start. She took 12 total shots and made 5. That is 42%. From outside the arc, she was 4-9 or 44%..!! Add in 3 assists, 3 rebounds and 3 steals. Against Arkansas, she had 0 turnovers. She is not Paige, but Geno doesn't need her to be. I think what Geno needs is a steady point guard substitute, who can run the offense, score from three and penetrate the defense and score or kick-out to a shooter. She is tough and improving, and Geno knows it.
For the season, Nika is only 5-18 from three point range. That is 28%, but so what, Christyn is 18-64 or 28% as well. Her 6 steals are more than Christyn, Mir, and Aaliyah have and her per game average is now up to 18 minutes per game played. Watch for that to reach 20 minutes and hold steady. She can sub for Paige, Evina or Christyn and give good minutes while they rest. With Anna out, that gives Geno all he needs at the 1 and 2 spots.
Go Huskies..!!
Bragging rights
Imagine that you decide to go to the final four in San Antonio. Many fans of many schools show up at this event, and you may encounter someone wearing their school colors. We are already in the world of speculation, as we don't even know yet for sure that the final four will be held in San Antonio, and we don't know if fans will be permitted to attend. But let's pretend that you are there and so are a lot of fans of other schools. What are the chances that if you meet someone from another school you will have better bragging rights? As a UConn fan, the odds are highly in your favor. If the subject is national championships, or final fours or consecutive final fours or a host of other metrics, there is not another school that can touch UConn. Of course, those aren't the only metrics, and any good fan worth their salt will come up with some metric that favors them in many circumstances. (In case anyone who doesn't know me is reading this, I'm only using bragging rights as a thought experiment. I wouldn't literally advocate bragging about UConn's history, partly because I know I didn't contribute much, and partly because if they know anything about women's basketball, they already know. But there's nothing wrong with holding your head high and knowing what most people are going to think when they see the UConn on your clothing.)
Let's start by looking at all-time won loss records. There are any number of teams that have a lifetime record over 500 against UConn. Well, maybe not any number, there are 16 teams that could point out their over 500 record against UConn.
The strongest bragging rights go to a team that you are unlikely to guess unless you've really studied the history — Southern Connecticut. They aren't even a Division I team anymore, so we are unlikely to even the score, but they have seven wins against only one loss against UConn lifetime, so six games over .500. No surprise, every one of those wins occurred BG (before Geno).
I'm not going to list all of the other 15, but I'll mention two of them. My own alma mater, University of New Hampshire, has a lifetime record of nine and four against UConn, so five more wins than losses. Springfield also has the same bragging rights with six wins and one loss. All games BG, but at least UNH is a Division I team so if we want to even the score, we could start scheduling some games.
Only one of the teams involves all post Geno games. US international has a 1-0 against Geno's UConn team. To be honest, I know almost nothing about this team.
There is a smaller group, seven teams, with .500 lifetime records. some of these involve games BG. Only four, Mississippi State, Ball State, Baylor, and now Arkansas can all claim to have lifetime .500 records against Geno's UConn. Each of them has exactly one win except for Baylor with a 4-4 lifetime record.
I'm not going to pretend that I double checked all my numbers so I would be happy if someone were interested and checked to see if I'm correct, but I believe this means there isn't a single school in the nation that can boast a better than .500 record against UConn while Geno has been coach.
That doesn't mean no one has any bragging rights in the post-Geno world. While UConn and Arkansas are one and one lifetime, Neighbors didn't suffer that loss, so he has a 1-0 lifetime record against Geno.
I don't know how to check this easily, but I don't think there's another coach who can make the same claim. They may be some odd situation where someone was the coach of a team for a very short time and won a game against Geno, but I can't think of such a situation. Can you?
With regards to U.S. International, an esoteric school that merged with others. See link. The win was in 1986, so very early Geno time, and not relevant in WCBB. SO no program owns a winning record versus Geno-led UConn teams, especially if you put a minimum games played, except LaSalle at 3-0. Once more, 1986-1989 games. I always thought the UConn scheduler should have had some early season games against LaSalle just to even up the W-L record with games not covered in cobwebs.
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