Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 11/24/2021

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GO UCONN!!!!!

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A beautiful day in Florida today. Borrowed my son's car and played a round of golf Wednesday morning. Not bad. Shot an 83.

Dinner with more family and friends Wednesday night and then flying home Thursday morning. I'll be home in time to have Thanksgiving with my daughter and her family. Can't wait to see Logan and Barrett!!

Thanks again to Phil and David for hepling me so much in providing such great into to the readers of this blog.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Stay safe!!!

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Maybe the fans should try to be as happy as these girls are instead of trashing them.

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Congrats to Ayanna Patterson, who hits the 1500 career point mark with that last bucket. pic.twitter.com/iDQNgGGHmN
— Homestead Athletics (@Spartytweets) November 24, 2021

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No Top 25 games on 11/24, Thanksgiving eve. But some great match ups Thursday. Stay tuned!!

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By Phil

Rating movement oddity

For the second time in history, the AP rankings were delayed a day to reflect a UConn game important to the overall rankings. While we obviously would’ve preferred a different result, I won’t be surprised if some people didn’t even bother checking the rankings and those that did probably just concentrated on how UConn did.

I glanced at the other teams in the rankings and noticed something a little puzzling.

How would you feel if you were in Oregon State fan? You start the season ranked number 14 in the AP poll and number 18 in the coaches poll. (This is arguably not bad, given that you fell out of the top 25 in December last year in both polls and never returned. Voters are putting a lot of stock in potential.) But then you went three games and find you dropped a couple spots.

You win your first game 82-52 against Loyola Marymount on November 12. Admittedly, Loyola Marymount is not a powerhouse but Massey expected you to beat them by 25 and you beat them by 30. Not a significant difference but certainly the result is at least as good as one might expect. The AP poll comes out on the 15th, can you drop from 14th to 15th place. That itself is a bit of a head scratcher, but probably explain by the Texas win over Stanford catapulted Texas up to 12th and moved several teams down. (Coaches poll did not have a release that week).

Fast forward one week.

Oregon State now beats California Baptist 80 – 72, and CSU Bakersfield 82–51. They are now 3–0 in the AP rewards them by moving them down? They are now number 16 in the AP poll.

The coaches poll also dinged them moving them from number 18 to number 19.

As a Beaver fan you’ve got to be thinking, “what on earth is going on? We’ve won three games, two of which by 30 or more points, and we moved down in the rankings. How does that make sense?”

Interestingly, the Coaches poll is easier to explain than the AP poll. This is the first update since the preseason, and they moved Texas up on the strength of the win over Stanford, so it isn’t so much a move of Oregon State down but a move of Texas up. Note that Texas A&M was just ahead of Oregon state and is now 4–0 and they also moved down one spot. Again, that’s more a case of voters saying we need to slide Texas up a bit. (Aggies fans could equally be saying, “we won our first four games, and we actually moved down the coaches poll? What’s up with that?”)

The AP move is a little harder to understand but I think I now understand it. The AP poll had already reflected the Texas win in their week 2 result, so I was surprised to see a slide down another spot after two wins and wondered if voters were arguing their eight point win over Cal Baptist wasn’t good enough. They probably should’ve won by more but voters rarely ding a team for a win that wasn’t quite large enough.

I think the answer is Tennessee. They were ranked just below Oregon State and did manage to beat Texas (a game that Texas blew), but it still recorded as a Tennessee victory. Tennessee got rewarded by the move up to 11 and that pushed Oregon State down. (Texas and Oregon also moved down but they had losses.)

The good news is that Oregon State faces Michigan and Notre Dame later this week so will have plenty of opportunity to give the voters an opportunity to move them up with some wins.

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By David in Naples

UConn has always used the 3 point shot to keep defenses honest. Good shooters from beyond the arc keep the defense from packing the lane. This season, after just 4 games, stats are a bit backward for the Huskies outside the arc. Aaliyah is shooting 100% from deep by virtue of her 1-1 total. Paige, last year's best deep shooter, is only making 27.8% of her tries from deep. (5-18) Evina has stepped up and is making 53.3% (8-18) of her threes. Azzi (8-18) is nest at 44.4%. Christyn also has 5 makes, but on 13 shots for 38.5%.

Paige is her usual self with assists at 26, with only 7 turnovers. Liv is a surprise 2nd with 19 assists. Evina is 3rd with 15 assists, then Christyn with 9. The team's 81 assists are 30 better than the opponent's 51.

Happy Thanksgiving..!!

Go Huskies..!!

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