Monday, November 27, 2023

Doggy's Doghouse 11/28/2023

 




 



                                                                                                                       
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Even my daughter (mother to Logan and Barrett) 
is looking for my Blog!!!


GO UCONN!!!!!

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SECOND BE Freshman of the Week honor for KK. And her tweet about "work to do" is so telling about this young lady. 

UConn needs her to play like an upper classman. She has the skills, just need to bring it every minute of every game. Look out Texas!!!!

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** Designates Upset

Monday, 11/27 
Scores and Links

No Games in the Top 25


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UConn loves those Alaskan Bigs!!!

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Straight from the Dog
 
It's a long week between games but boy, can you think of another team that really needs it?

Geno - “Now all of a sudden look around and it's, ‘So all that time went out the window. All of September went out the window.’ We have to start over. So, we just want to start over now and now that we know what our team is, Carol (Ducharme) is day-to-day, obviously Azzi is out, we just try to patch it together as best we can.”"
    
Nika - "“We've learned how to cope with it. I feel like since I've been here, since some people have been here, we have not had a complete lineup not once. So, you know, it's not anything that we're not used to. It's not something that we don't know how to work with. It's just a matter of, you know, young guys stepping up. … As long as we trust in and believe in each other and in ourselves, that's all we need.”

Geno - “That kind of floor leadership from Nika, that kind of, you know, all-around impact that Aubrey had, and Paige being Paige. Like, if we can get that every single night and, you know, things will start to fall into place, but that's where it's got to start,”

There is work to do. And while they probably won't get it all together before Texas, strides can be made with 7 days to work on it. 

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By PHIL

Kim Mulkey

Kim is an easy target for criticism, and I haven’t been immune to temptation.

She was roundly criticized for her cupcake schedule last season. I cut her a little slack, arguing that the enormous uncertainties of her first year with incredible turnover justified something other than a killer out of conference schedule, but I could justify teams ranked 100 to 150 — the teams ranked three hundred and worse made a mockery of the sport. I get that she has the mother of all responses, but winning the national championship means she should’ve seriously upgraded her schedule. Maybe commitments are made further out in the future than I realize, but I’ll bet the schedule could’ve been upgraded significantly.

Sartorially, I look in the mirror and know I’m in no position to criticize. Her style is not my style, but I also recognize that her choices bring attention to the sport and maybe that’s a positive.

I do take issue with her recent response to the inevitable question about Reese:

"You ask it every game, you're gonna get the same answer," she said.

This is troublesome on several layers.

Most importantly, LSU has been one of the leading teams in terms of embracing NIL. Let’s be honest, you don’t simply get an NIL deal for being a good basketball player. That’s a necessary component but media presence, and entertainment value are almost certainly larger considerations. Angel Reese was very possibly the most famous female basket player in the country, maybe in the world. A journalist ought to lose their job if they didn’t ask what’s going on. Mulkey must understand this. While I appreciate that the situation is complicated, she can’t possibly think that journalists are going to ignore the issue. It would be irresponsible. She may have some difficulty coming up with a decent answer, but she’s getting paid millions of dollars and has a staff who should help her say something other than nothing.

In a literal sense, the response is nonsensical. If it’s literally true that every single game the response will be unchanged, that means that Reese will never play another game. I doubt that but if she does play again, it means that the answer will be different sometime, and if she doesn’t, at some time the right answer will be that she won’t ever play again and that deserves explanation.

I do give credit to Mulkey for not simply caving to the demands of a star player, but she helped thrust this player into the media spotlight and she can’t simply say no comment.

Active win streaks

My last post on the subject didn’t age well. It was accurate when I wrote it, but by the time it was posted it was already out of date. I reported that Washington state had the second-longest win streak at seven games, but when I looked at upcoming games including their next game against Green Bay where they were favored by ten points, I thought they win streak would last longer. Green Bay had surprised ranked Creighton and now knocked off ranked Washington State, ending the nation’s second-longest win streak at the time.

Cal Baptist is still in first place at eight games but they’ve got company. Mississippi State has won their first eight games this year to join Cal Baptist with an eight game active winning streak. Mississippi State is favored in the next eight games although only by four points over the next game against Miami.

Stanford, NC State, Texas, Washington, Vanderbilt, Texas Tech, TCU, and George Mason all at 7-0.

Milestone watch

• Aaliyah Edwards had 1275 career points after the UCLA game. She scored 9 in the Kansas game bringing her total to 1284. She is now 41st and needs to reach 1298 to tie Morgan Tuck.

• Nika Mühl had 450 assists after the UCLA game. She recorded 6 in the Kansas game bringing her total to 456. She passed Katie Lou Samuelson and tied Shea Ralph to move into a tie for 18th place. Svetlana Abrosimova has 473.

• Paige Bueckers has 953 career points, so needs 47 to reach the 1000 point milestone.

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STATS


Plus one for every assist block point rebound and steal. I don’t add extra for offensive rebounds as it already seems to favor the bigs. Minus one for every missed shot (2, 3 or foul), turnover or foul committed.

UCLA 72 UConn 47. Rice 33.

Paige 19, Aubrey 16, KK 8, Nika 7, Ashlynn 3, Qadence -1, Amari -3, Ice -3, Aaliyah -6.
Yikes!

UConn 58 Kansas 37.

Aubrey 21, Paige 17, Nika 11, Aaliyah 10, KK 2, Ashlynn 1, Amari -1,
Qadence -2, Ice -4.

Season totals active players: Paige 107, Aubrey 85, Aaliyah 73, Nika 57, KK 48, Qadence 22, Ashlynn 21, Caroline 7, Ice 00, Ines -1, Amari -5.

Season per minute: Paige .63, Aubrey .58, Aaliyah .42, KK .35, Qadence .33, Nika .31, Ashlynn .27, Caroline .12, Ice 0, Ines -.10, Amari -.22.

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UCONN LINKS

Several links are pay sites. Sorry!



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