Thursday, March 31, 2022

Doggy's Doghouse 3/31/2022

 

         


GO UCONN!!!!!


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Doggy's UConn/Stanford Pregame Report

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In some really great news, Dorka Juhasz had successful surgery on her left wrist to repair the fracture sustained in the Elite Eight game against North Carolina State. Recovery time is supposed to be four months. That gets her back to UConn basketball activities in August, well before next season's fall practice starts.

Wait....I forgot to mention. She has also announced she will be coming back for her last year of eligibility, hoding true to her commitment to play for UConn  two years. 

This is such big news for the Huskies, giving them the experience in the post they need. And more good news below!!!

Late breaking news! Joe Zone is reporting that UConn is flying out Dorka to be at the game. She will be a great cheerleader on the bench!!!  

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Three hour press conference. UConn starts at the 2:40 mark. 

Geno, Christyn and Olivia. Watch it, it's awesome!


Most difficult season to coach ever 
in his 39 years as Head Coach

Behind the scenes at media day

UConn Practice Day Before Playing Stanford

Azzi Fudd Pregame Zoom


Paige Bueckers Pregame Zoom


Aaliyah Edwards Pregame Zoom

Paige Bueckers talks expectations

"Pistol Chin" series for Paige Bueckers

Final Four Preview- UConn vs Stanford 

Tara, Haley Jones weigh in on storied
Stanford-UConn rivalry 

In Depth with Lexi Hull


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Geno on the Portal - "I don't care if they leave. Players leave all the time, coaches leave all the time. That's Life. I've never had a really good player leave my programs that left and made it big at a top 10 or top 20 school. That's just not gonna happen. If you can't play for me you can't play for anyone at this level. And you know those 850 players in the portal? 300  won't find a school to go to. And then they realize maybe it's them and not the school. Remember last year? 1000 kids in the portal, 250 didn't find a school. And where they left don't want them back. What ever happened to "figure it the hell out"."     
 
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Follow along and view the Group standings


Doggy's Doghouse and the password is doggydaddy.

Just click on the link. 

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1 Seed South Carolina vs 1 Seed Louisville 
Friday April 1st 7:00 ESPN 



1 Seed Stanford vs  2 Seed UConn 
Friday April 1st 9:30 ESPN 


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Straight from the Dog

 
Gotta love Geno!!

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Sigh.....again with the Stanford post advantage. In the interview I posted the reporter asked Olivia how they would handle Stanfords BIG advantage in the post with Dorka out. I won't go into the answer but I will go into the question.

Stanford does NOT have an advantage in the post. In fact, I believe UConn still has it, even without Dorka.

Post players are post player, not tall guards. Stanford has TWO post players. Brink at 6'4" and Belibi at 6'1".  I really don't count 6'5" Prichtel for two reason. One is that she won't see that many minutes. And two, she plays more on the perimeter than in the post. Against Texas, she took one shot and it was a three pointer. 

UConn has two post players, 6'5" Nelson-Ododa and 6'3" Edwards.

So, where is the Stanford advantage? It ain't there!!  

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I seem to remember another season when UConn was playing in the semi-final awaiting to play, if they won, the winner of Louisville against a heavily favored  No. 1 team with a dominating center. That Louisville team had a spunky guard that led them to the upset.

So, you never know!

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By PHIL

Overtime Facts

There was a thread talking about overtimes in NCAA tournament history for obvious reasons. I shared some facts in that thread, but I thought I’d pull together some facts about overtime games over the years.

• The very first overtime was in the first NCAA tournament in 1982. It came in the regional final with Tennessee defeating Southern California.

• There have been 81 overtime games in the tournament. This is the 40th year so that works out to almost exactly 2 overtime games per tournament on average (obviously excluding the upcoming weekend)

• While teams average 2 per tournament, there were exactly 3 in the four years between 2017 and 2021

• The first multiple overtime game occurred in the second tournament in 1983. It wasn’t a double overtime was a triple overtime, and again included Tennessee defeating Mississippi in the regional semifinal

• 1991 featured another multiple overtime game and again it wasn’t double overtime, it was a triple overtime, with Oklahoma State defeating Michigan State in the second round

• The most overtimes in a tournament game is 4, 1995 when Alabama beat Duke 121 – 120 in the second round

• There finally was a double-overtime game in 2000, with Vanderbilt beating Kansas in the first round.

• There have been overtime games in all but three tournaments – 1989, 2005 and 2016

• The number of overtime games (81) exceeds the number of one point games (78)

• the NCAA keeps track of the largest number of points in overtime. Not surprisingly, first and second place with 40 and 39 points go to the participants in the four OT game. Surprisingly, third-place goes, not to one of the two triple overtime games but UConn with 30 points in the double-overtime game. NC States 26 points ties them for fifth with the participants in the two triple overtime games

• The 56 combined points in overtime by UConn and NC State is the second most in history, behind only the quadruple overtime game, but ahead of the two triple overtime games

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By David in Naples

On Friday, #1 Stanford (32-3) meets #2 UConn (29-5) in the 2nd Final Four semi-final game. Lots of special numbers to review.

#10 - The number of active players the Huskies will have available to play.
#11 - Total National Championships won by UConn. (Stanford, SC and L'Ville have 4 combined)
#12 - The Goal.
#13 - Christyn's number, she leads the team in scoring with 456 points.
#14 - Consecutive Final Four trips by UConn. Dorka's jersey number. The team's inspiration for winning. 
#15 - Total number of Final Four appearances by Stanford. (UConn's total is 22)
#16 - The last year UConn won the NC was 2016.
#17 - Christyn's position on all-time scoring list at UConn (1,838 points). Total made threes by Paige this season.

Go Huskies..!!

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Here is an option for any contributions for my time in putting together this blog.

I'm not requiring the contribution in order to read the blog. It's totally voluntary. And I'm not recommending how much to donate or how often. 

Thanks to all my loyal readers!!!

If you don't have Venmo, you can sign up here 
or add the app to your iPhone or iPad.

And here is another option that is being pushed by Paige!!



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UCONN LINKS

Several links are pay sites. Sorry!


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Message Boards

UConn Territory - The best UConn women's message board ever!!! 
Vol Nation - Tennessee women's basketball board
ND Nation - Notre Dame women's basketball board
Rebkell - WCBB for everyone that thinks they are smarter than everyone else

UCONN Information



I'm always open for suggestions. Just please reply to this blog or email me at: doggydaddy.UConn@gmail.com
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Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Doggy's Doghouse 3/30/2022


         


GO UCONN!!!!!


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Local Minneapolis coverage of the UConn team arriving in two branded buses. 

Nice that the NCAA supplied the buses from the airport to the hotel.



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The numbers are getting crazy. Accordiing to the famous Rauol from WBBBLOG, there are 804 total players in the portal. 156 of those are Power-5 players.

Can UConn find a guard? I'm still hoping for Princeton's Abbey Meyers.

Dre'una Edwards, Treasure Hunt and Jazzmine Massengale all leaving Kentucky. Big losses.

Taya Hanson of Arizona State as a grad tranfer.

Maddie Scherr, Sydney Parrish and Kylee Watson, all sophomores are leaving Oregon.

Sam Brunelle , Anaya Peoples and Abby Prohaska all in the portal from ND  

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Mazel Tov to Lila on being the new Courant UConn women's writter. 

I miss Alexa but welcome Lila to UConn world. Can't wait to read some of your work!! 

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Follow along and view the Group standings


Doggy's Doghouse and the password is doggydaddy.

Just click on the link. 

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1 Seed South Carolina vs 1 Seed Louisville 
Friday April 1st 7:00 ESPN 



1 Seed Stanford vs  2 Seed UConn 
Friday April 1st 9:30 ESPN 


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Straight from the Dog

 
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I really love kismet. The Target Center in Minneapolis Minnesota was the site for UConn's first national championship, that incredible win against Tennessee. More kismet, UConn played Stanford in the Semi-finals and won 87-60. More kismet, it was April 1st. 

It's time to repeat that process, although I don't expect a 17 point win for the Huskies. 

If you have the time, watch the game. It's a lot of fun!!!
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South Carolina forward Aliyah Boston earned two honors Wednesday as she was named Naismith Player of the Year and Naismith Defensive Player of the Year.

A well deserved honor the the South Carolina junior. Maybe  the biggest recruiting miss in Geno's career. Just as one player like Elena Delle Donne probably meant a couple more national championships for the Maya Moore teams, the same with Boston. She is that good. UConn would have had at least 1-2 more championships.   
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Congrats to Dawn Staley for winning this award. Personally, I wouldn't have picked her. Wes Moore was a better candidate. And certainly Geno, who had to overcome so many injuries, did a better job of coaching than Staley. 

No sour grapes here. She is a great coach.  
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While we are on the South Carolina subject, I'd love to see Louisville upset them Friday night in the first game of the Final Four. But I doubt that will happen. It could be a really and I mean really low scoring game. Louisville has been playing great defense this season and South Carolina is a little offensively challenged. And South Carolina might be the best defensive team in the country. I'd look for a low 50's game. Something like 55-51. 

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By PHIL

Path to Final Four


I thought it might be interesting to look at the path each final four team took, to see if there’s anything interesting about the path.

In the following lists, I will identify the final four team first, then identify the seed number and the opponent’s name for each of the four teams they beat to get to the final four. I used red to identify an opponent who is not the “chalk” opponent. By definition, the first appointment is always chalk. For example, Louisville started by playing 16 seed Albany, but in the second round, rather than playing the 8 seed Nebraska, they played the nine seed Gonzaga, who upset Nebraska.

Fans deliver mixed messaging on what they want to happen. They almost always secretly want the toughest future opponent to get upset by a lesser seed, making the future game, at least on paper, a little easier. Sometimes they’ll say this out loud, although sometimes they claim want to take on the toughest seed (Do they mean it?). If you are South Carolina looking ahead to the possibility of playing Iowa in the regional final, you might be secretly thrilled when Creighton knocks them off. Some might argue if you were worried about Iowa, you ought to be really worried about a team good enough to beat Iowa, while others will believe that was a one-off game and now you’ve got a weaker opponent. I tend to agree with the notion that you will be taking on weaker opponent, but is that the best way to get ready for the final four?

Let’s talk about recent history. Here is 2022, so far:

2022

UConn - 15 Mercer 7 UCF 3 Indiana 1 NCState

Stanford - 16 Montana State 8 Kansas 4 Maryland 2 Texas

Louisville - 16 Albany 9 Gonzaga 4 Tennessee 3 Michigan

South Carolina - 16 Howard 8 Miami 5 UNC 10 Creighton

As you can see, both South Carolina and Louisville played two teams other than the “chalk” teams. The later in the tournament you play these weaker teams the better off it seems you should be. Both UConn and Stanford played all chalk. As mentioned, Louisville and South Carolina had two exceptions but clearly the South Carolina path was easier.

Now let’s look at 2021. In any subsequent table, I use bold to identify the eventual national champion.

2021

Stanford - 16 Utah Valley 8 Ok State 5 Missouri State 2 Louisville

South Carolina - 16 Mercer 8 OR State 5 Georgia Tech 6 Texas

Arizona - 14 Stony Brook 11 BYU 2 TAMU 4 Indiana

UConn - 16 High Point 8 Syracuse 5 Iowa 2 Baylor

In 2021, no one had a chalk path to the final four. South Carolina and Arizona both had two non-chalk opponents, while Stanford and UConn each had one. In both of those cases it was in the regional semifinal and in both cases they got the five seed instead of the four seed, so I’d rank those paths as a tie.

Now let’s look at 2019:

2019

UConn - 15 Towson 10 Buffalo 6 UCLA 1 Louisville

ND - 16 Bethune-Cookman 9 Michigan State 4 TAMU 2 Stanford

Baylor - 16 Abilene Christian 8 Cal 4 South Carolina 2 Iowa

Oregon - 15 Portland St 10 Indiana 6 South Dakota State 1 Mississippi St

Only one pure chalk path, eventual national champion Baylor. Notre Dame had one non-chalk opponent, while Oregon and UConn had two.

Now let’s look at 2018:

2018

UConn - 16 St. Francis 9 Quinnipiac 5 Duke 2 South Carolina

Miss State - 16 Nicholls St 9 OK State 4 NC State 3 UCLA

Louisville - 16 Boise St 8 Marquette 4 Stanford 6 OR State

Notre Dame - 16 CS Northridge 9 Villanova 4 TAMU 2 Oregon

No one with all chalk. UConn and Mississippi State had two exceptions, while Louisville and Notre Dame had one. We break the tie by noting that the Louisville exception was in the regional final, so Louisville getting to play a 6 seed in the regional final while Notre Dame played a 2 seed means Louisville had the easier path and Notre Dame the tougher path.

So, what we conclude?

The first thing we should observe is that three complete years is hardly enough data to draw definitive conclusions. If I have the energy and find the time, I’ll try looking at some of the earlier years, but surely it is interesting to note that while one might want an easy path to the final four, the eventual national champions in all three of the completed years had the toughest path (or tied in the case of 2021) to the final four. Every one of the teams that had an easier path to the final four ended up not winning the national championship.

Now let’s revisit the current year, and see that UConn and Stanford are arguably tied for the toughest path, each having a chalk path to the final four. One might argue that UConn had to beat the one seed while Stanford only had to beat a two seed, to break the tie but it’s very close. What’s not a close call is that South Carolina had the easiest path.

Will that mean anything? Probably not, but it’s mildly interesting and may be worth looking at some other years to see if the same pattern emerges.

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By David in Naples

Several more interesting stats from the NC State game this past Monday. The first involves free throw shooting. 

1. Free throw shooting - UConn started the game shooting 1-7 from the charity stripe. Then, in the two overtime periods, the Huskies were 11-13 or 85%. Very clutch..!
NC State went the opposite direction. They started the first 3 1/2 periods shooting 12-12 from free throw line. For the last 5 minutes of the 4th period and the two overtimes, they went 4-7 or 57%. 

2. Paige, Azzi and Christyn scored a combined 67 points, grabbed 16 rebounds, handed out 3 assists, made 5 threes and shot 26-53 or 49% from the field.

3. Azzi Fudd played all but 47 seconds of the 50 minute battle against NC State. In the last 3 games, she is averaging 40.7 minutes per game and scoring 16 points per game.

4. Speaking of the last three games, Olivia has 26 rebounds, 21 points and 8 assists. Her season totals for those stats are 234 rebounds, 291 points and 113 assists.

Go Huskies..!!

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Here is an option for any contributions for my time in putting together this blog.

I'm not requiring the contribution in order to read the blog. It's totally voluntary. And I'm not recommending how much to donate or how often. 

Thanks to all my loyal readers!!!

If you don't have Venmo, you can sign up here 
or add the app to your iPhone or iPad.

And here is another option that is being pushed by Paige!!



******************************************************** 
UCONN LINKS

Several links are pay sites. Sorry!

Memories of 1995  Courant

******************************************************** 

Message Boards

UConn Territory - The best UConn women's message board ever!!! 
Vol Nation - Tennessee women's basketball board
ND Nation - Notre Dame women's basketball board
Rebkell - WCBB for everyone that thinks they are smarter than everyone else

UCONN Information



I'm always open for suggestions. Just please reply to this blog or email me at: doggydaddy.UConn@gmail.com
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