Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 3/7/2022

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

GO UCONN!!!!!

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

No. 8 UConn Huskies VS Villanova Wildcats

70 40

It was a friggin' clinic. Back door baskets, High-Low baskets, incredible interior passing. They didn't score a lot, but how they scored was just amazing. And that wasn't even what this Huskie team did best.

While the offense looked like old school UConn basketball, the defense was just dominating. The on the ball pressure was suffocating, the full court press was effective and constant. The switching was done to perfection. I don't think Villanova had one uncontested shot. It was simply one of the best defensive efforts against a pretty good Wildcat team.

This team is so balanced that a single player is just not going to dominate. The scoring in this game was 13, 12, 11, 9, 9, 9.

This game and BE tournament deservse a blog on it's own. I'll work on that tomorrow.

I'm exhausted. I know I didn't play 40 minutes per game, but I worked really hard to get you all the info I could with no break in between.

I'm so proud of this team. GO HUSKIES!!!!

From my blog yesterday - "However, this is a different UConn team that faced Villanova and lost. With their 9 player rotation UConn will grind Villanova down. The Wildcats were able to limit their 6 player rotation to around 30 minutes each in the first game, but not so much against Seton Hall. Their rotation played 39, 38, 38, 35, 30 and 12 minutes. You would think there would be a fatigue factor. UConn had one player at 30 minutes in their two games. Everyone else was under that. It will make a difference".

Ignore that I said it wouldn't be a blowout and UConn would win by 12+.

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

K K Arnold's season ended on 3/5.

22 points (7-26 FG, 7-10 FT), 4 assists, 4 rebounds, 5 steals

More Ashlynn Shade

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

GAMES

No. 15 BYU 59 Portland 52

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

Straight from the Dog

I don't care what SECreme says. I don't care what the Committee ends up saying.

This UConn team, as constituted is a ONE seed. At worst I'm hoping that they emd up the No. 1 Two seed and play in the Bridgeport Region with Baylor as the No. 1.

Bring it on!!

As David in Naples said to me tonight ' "This 9 player rotation is like Piranha on a roast!!

______________________________

A little more from an Orange Idiot.

The Kentucky/South Carolina game was one for the ages. The comeback and the game winning 3 pointer was just amazing to watch.

So, what was this Tennessee fan's take on that player who hit the game winner?

"The player who hit the winning 3 for KY yesterday is a so-so player. She just hit the right shot at the right time."

It would be funny if it wasn't so wrong.

Dre'una Edwards has been the second best player on Kentucky and in some games, the best player on the team.

For the season she is averaging 17 PPG, leads the team in rebounds at 8.2 and is shooting 52.7% from the field and 35.2 on threes. So-so? Not so.

When some of those stats were pointed out to this moron, the response was....

"She’s still a so-so player."

Ya can't fix stupid.

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

By PHIL

Geography

I know there’s a wide range of opinions about some of the announcers; I saw some the threads about muting the sound and just watching the game. I’m not as negative about the announcers, I’m very interested in growing the game, and I see having more games on TV as a plus. As the game grows, people with announcing skills will be interested in announcing women’s basketball games and the talent will get better. While I bow to no one when it comes to a fans over-the-top reaction to Tennessee stumbles, I don’t carry that over to the individual players who turn into announcers. I think Kara Lawson is one of the best, and I’ve enjoyed Andrea Carter. As an aside, I also enjoyed Monica McNutt’s enthusiasm. I get that some people don’t like Debbie Antonelli. She respects UConn, and I don’t ever see her denigrating them, but my sense is she thinks UConn gets more than their fair share of media attention, and she goes out of her way to promote other teams. That sometimes comes across as anti-UConn, but I don’t see it that way. I’m a fan of Debbie although I admit to a bit of bias*.

Back to geography.

I don’t remember which game Debbie Antonelli was covering, honestly the past few days are a bit of a blur. But I do recall her bemoaning the fact that geography plays so important a role in the selection decisions. Like her or not, she’s an influential voice in women’s basketball politics, and her views will be given a lot of weight. I’m on board with her views up to a point. I can agree with her that giving geography weight is a departure from a Platonic ideal of a tournament where all the games would be played at neutral locations. But I’m more of an Aristotle guy, and while I support the goal of eliminating geography from bracket considerations, that time is not yet here. I love to dream about a more perfect world, but I try to keep my feet planted in reality, and the reality is we are not yet ready to eliminate geography from consideration.

Debbie knows we tried neutral locations and it was a bust. But let’s keep experimenting. I wrote to Debbie years ago about proposing the concept of having super regionals. Instead of four regionals around the country, have two super regionals, one roughly in the East and one in the West. The powers that be have decided to adopt that experiment, and for the next four years there will be a super-regional in the east and one of the west.

www.ncaa.com/womens-final-four/future-info

That won’t totally eliminate geography but it will be a step in the direction of reducing the impact.

I don’t know whether it will work but I will watch carefully to see if it’s effective.

What am I leading up to?

Yes, there’s a regional in Bridgeport this year, and putting UConn in it will strike some as favoritism, but over the subsequent four years, there will be only one super regional anywhere near UConn. That will be in Albany in 2024 which obviously is close to UConn, but in the other three years the closest super regionals will be:

• 2023 South Carolina
• 2025 Alabama
• 2026 Texas

I join Debbie in hoping that the game continues to grow, and maybe by 2027 we can further reduce the impact of geography in the bracket decisions, but a decision to stick the fourth best NET rated team in Greensboro, which will already be automatically sold out, will be seen as a slap at UConn rather than an attempt to grow the game.

*I started going to final fours in 2001. One of the delightful aspects of being there is that they have some enjoyable programs. For years there was one which featured the Beth and Debbie show (Beth Mowins and Debbie Antonelli). I screwed up my courage to say hello to Debbie at one of the early ones. I made a point of saying hello to her since then over the years whenever I see her. That ever so tiny relationship paid off when I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop into to a tournament in Las Vegas. (I was in LA for a UConn game, that’s in the neighborhood right?). Debbie saw me, even though she was at the other end of the arena, and she came over to give me a copy of the media stat sheet for the teams in the tournament. I thought that was a nice thing to do and I’ve never forgotten it.

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

By David in Naples

A “Big” win for UConn over Villanova 70-40..! And by “big” I mean the UConn bigs..!

Olivia was huge with 11 points on 4-4 shooting and 3-3 free throws. Add in 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 1 blocked shot. Only 2 fouls.

Dorka with a very “big” effort as well with 4 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

Best of all the “bigs” was Aaliyah with 12 points, 6 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists. Total production for UConn’s bigs...

points = 27
rebounds = 16
assists = 8
steals = 3
shooting = 10-16 or 63%

In sharp contrast, Nova’s 3 bigs were 11-37 or 29.7%, 8 boards and 10 turnovers. Garson was 1-11 and Herlihy was 3-9. Madly Siegrist scored 16, but took 17 shots and 2 free throws. UConn’s Bigs dominated..!

Ten days off to rest and practice..!

Go Huskies..!

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