Doggydaddy's Den: 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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✨Life Update ✨ pic.twitter.com/YY19Bbz9yR
— Lila Bromberg (@lilabbromberg) March 30, 2022

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!!!

UConn vs Stanford April 1st, 1995

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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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