Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Doggy's Doghouse 12/28/2022

 






 



GO UCONN!!!!!

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  UConn Huskies                                            Creighton Bluejays

72                                                                          47

Wow. Just wow. I don't think I've seen a team that has gone through so much perform so well just dealing with whatever comes their way.

Here they are, away at their various locations, little practice time when they do get together. Still short handed with Azzi Fudd still out (more on that situation) and then find out that one of their starters, Aubrey Griffin will miss the game due to Covid and one of the bench players, Amari DeBerry stuck in that horrible snow storm in Buffalo. You couldn't make this shit up. 

Down to 7 players with the two off the bench freshmen with not much playing time, the Huskies came out ready to take it to No. 21 Creighton. 

This Creighton team was beaten up in the first quarter on the road at No. 2 Stanford but actually outplayed them in the last three quarter. No, the Bluejays are not some cupcake.

However, UConn made them look like that, using their size advantage and some great defensive play to win by 25 points.

Edwards and Juhasz were just amazing in this game. Edwards had a 20-20 game with 23 points and 21 rebounds. The first UConn player with 20 rebounds since Maya Moore in 2010. Insane!! And Dorka had 22 points and 18 rebounds. Talk about domination. 


Carolina Ducharme had a good game as well with 11 point and 9 rebounds. Getting better every game, closer to where she was early in her freshman season. 

It was a more quiet game for Lou but she still had double digit points with 10. Weird to see her only taking 1 three point shot. It was clear that was one of the areas emphasized by Creighton but it was probably at the expense of UConn dominating the paint.   

And of course, the little General Nika was outstanding in running the show. 8 assists 6 points and 5 rebounds. And her defense was off the charts.

The team defense was outstanding. They forced Creighton into 23% shooting
from the field and 3-27 on threes. Crazy. 

Geno was so happy in the post game court interview. This team has been through so much already this season and the pride he has in his team is evident every time he talks about them.


Hopefully everyone heads home healthy. There were several hard falls and fouls. Nika slammed her head on the floor. Don't worry, the floor is ok. And Dorka took a couple of hard shots and had a Creighton player fall on her back. Ouch. And Carolina had an ice pack on her head and neck at the end of the game. I'm worried about her.




The Huskies will go against Marquette on Saturday at home. DeBerry will be there and maybe Griffin will be cleared to play. Maybe Fudd might see some time? Hmmm......        



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I said on 12/25 in my last blog that I thought  Fudd would be back sooner than later.

I am convinced that is true after Geno's comments.


I keep reading comments from fans saying "don't rush her" and "if cleared she will need a couple of weeks of practice before playing".

I say bull. First of all, they won't let her play unless ready. Mentally, I'm sure Azzi will be fine. She is just chomping at the bit to play.

And word is she has been working out, and is only missing simulated game action. If healthy enough to play, Geno will let her get into game shape by playing in the games. Count on it. I could be wrong, but like Paige surprised us last year with her first appearance, look for the same with Fudd. 

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Adhel Tac is a 2024 target for UConn. She would be a great pickup! 

 


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GAMES

UPSETS IN RED

No. 3 Ohio State 81 Northwestern 48
No. 14 Michigan 76 Nebraska 59

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Straight from the Dog

I usually don't give an UGGY award to a UConn opponent. And a case could be made for how Creighton played in UConn's big win. 

However, their 47 points (over my 40 point threshold) and 16-18 free throw shooting eliminated them from consideration. 

I do have to note their horrid shooting from the field and from the 3 point line.

In the first half they shot 15.8% from the field and were 1-19 on threes. They finished shooting 23% from the field and 3-29 on threes. definitely UGGY worthy.  
   
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Did Creighton win? They don't show the score and the Bluejays didn't miss a shot.

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Tennessee just hammered an overmatched, under talented, short, slow and basically over sugared cupcake Wofford 92-53. And all their fans are declaring they will win the National Championship.

They next take on SEC conference mate Florida, who beat them up last season. I expect this to be a different game. I hate to say it, but Tennessee looks better than past teams. 

Go Gators!!
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Great interview with Carolina Ducharme's HS coach. Some insight into Caroline and her many injuries. Wow.  

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By PHIL

Turnovers

The main thing about turnovers is they are too damn high.

Should we worry about them?

One reason for not worrying about them is that, let’s face it, we are fans not players or coaches. Nothing we say or do is going to have one scintilla of impact on the turnovers so why should we worry about them?

But that’s silly.

We are fans. Worrying is what we do. We can choose what to worry about, but don’t even think about telling us we can’t worry about something because it won’t help.

The only rationale we will accept for not worrying about something is if we can be persuaded it’s an issue that will go away.

I think it will.

But not right away.

Don’t get too excited this is not going to be terribly insightful, I suspect I’m going to recycle thoughts made by many fans, but I thought I’d put a few numbers to the historical results.

We all know about the injuries, which have wreaked havoc on the starting lineups. If my count is correct, we are now on our fifth starting lineup in 11 games, and there will be a sixth new lineup against Creighton.

It’s my contention that significant changes to the starting lineup, especially for a team that emphasizes a motion offense with a lot of passes as opposed to one-on-one plays is more susceptible to turnovers. A well-oiled team can pass the ball multiple times but every single pass requires the initiator of the pass to make a crisp pass not even to a player but to where a player will be, and the person receiving has to be in the right spot at the right time. Anyone of those passes should be straightforward but when you try to do multiple passes between players who have not done this hundreds of times in practice, you’re asking for trouble.

The team started with 17 turnovers against Northeastern. Too many, but arguably forgivable given the new season and a starter who’d never played with UConn before. A tiny improvement in the next game with 16 turnovers. The next game was NC State, with a change in the starting lineup and a drop in turnovers to 14. That might some counter to my thesis but the addition to the starting lineup was Griffin who had played 26 minutes in the previous game which arguably counts as starter type minutes. It was a change in the starting lineup but not a dramatic change. The turnovers in the next three games were 15, 14, and 12. No changes to the starting lineup and generally an improvement in turnovers.

Then came the Notre Dame game. While the starting lineup was unchanged, that was the game that Fudd was injured and left the game. The injury alone rattled the team, and turnovers increased to 15.

Then the wheels came off.

The Princeton game saw turnovers skyrocketed to 27, accompanied by a change in starting lineup. There are now two players in the starting lineup that weren’t in the original starting lineups. I don’t want to lay this all on Ducharme, who got the starting nod, but she was recovering from injury and wasn’t yet her hundred percent self.

Then Nika missed a game, so yet another starting lineup. While turnovers went down from 27 they were still at 21 which is far higher than anyone thinks is acceptable. Nika and Dorka returned for the Florida State game which is obviously welcome, but it means yet another starting lineup and turnovers remain high at 19. Finally, the starting lineup against Seton Hall is the same as against Florida State but it still a relatively unfamiliar group of five playing with each other, and turnovers are still high at 22.

Griffin reportedly unavailable for Creighton, so we will have yet another starting lineup for that game.

I’m not worried.

I expect Griffin back, I expect Fudd back, I think Caroline is returning to form, and as long as we don’t have something crazy like an injury to Edwards or Sénéchal, the only two starters to start every game, I think we will see a gradual drop in the number of turnovers they will get back to low double digits.

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