Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 11/3/2023

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

GO UCONN!!!!!

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Yeah, it's two guys in the heading, but it was the best picture I could find!!!

Geno had some things to say about it.

Geno Pregame Interview

He had some interesting takes on the players. My summation if you don't want to listen to the entire 27 minutes.

Caroline is playing like her freshman season only better. Yeah, she is wearing a yellow jersey in practice for her protection, and an icebag on the neck like last season. But she is hitting her 3's (I heard 9-11 in this game) and driving to the basket. Just the same aggressive Caroline. "She's fearless".

Paige is going to play but he's not sure how many minutes. "If it was up to her she'd play 40 minutes".

Ice has all the skills for the college game but she has a lot to learn. "I keep expecting them to play like junior but not yet". Geno is impressing on her how much the team needs her.

Amari will be available to play but Ayanna won't be ready. Hopefully for the season opener.

Geno hopes that Amari will take on a bigger role this season. Some days she does that. He will play her to see what she's got. The frontcourt is thin he said and they need her to give some good minutes.

KK plays at one speed and Geno wants her to wath Paige to see how so slow the game down a little.

He was really complementary about Ashlynn. He gets the same effort every day. Loves it.

Q is just not consistant yet.

More on Paige. "She does everything she used to do only more forcefully and more confidently. She looks really really really good". "It's not a slight on anyone else but she does things that no one else can do".

Azzi has been the most consistent player all pre-season and for her it's only about her health. And she is fine and ready to go. "In a five minutes game you know she is just going to blow it open. You know it's coming".

About the scrimmage - Aaliyah, Azzi and Caroline scored a lot. Defense was surprisingly poor. Not very good at all. Crazy considering how much they worked on defense. They were too aggressive and fouled too much. 25 fouls. Ashlynn played the best of all the freshmen. Paige didn't play.

For those questioning Geno starting Muhl with Paige and Fudd, he said UConn always played with 3 guards since he's been there. Sometimes it's two point guards, sometimes it no point guards. Nika and Paige together are really good.

He said that with Carolina, Azzi and Paige they have three high level three point shooters. He said that twice. And along with them they have other really good ones.

That's about it. I do suggest you watch the video.

Aubrey Griffin Pregame Interview

Caroline Ducharme Pregame Interview

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The first exhibition game is Saturday at 1:00. It will be available, for free, on UCONN+.

There are several ways to watch:

Download the UConn app
Watch on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, or Roku
Go to UConnPlus.tv on your laptop, tablet, or phone. It’s possible to connect your laptop to your TV or, if your TV is new enough, link via Bluetooth with your tablet or phone. Techies, correct me if I’m wrong
Go to UConnHuskies.com, the official site, and click on UCONN+ (see below)

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Monday Starts the regular season!!!

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Still waiting to hear from Strong and Roberson. It's a little like torture! I'm guessing not much after 11/8 the first signing day.

I heard a rumor that as a last ditch effort, LSU has started to heavily recruit #2 Joyce Edwards (she’s from SC and has been South Carolina’s target for a long time). The rumor I heard said LSU started targeting her because they knew they were going to lose Sarah Strong to UConn
— #firegeno (@firegeno) November 1, 2023

In the meantime we have two wonderful recruits already committed in 5'10" Allie Ziebell and 6'2 Morgan Cheli. Two very different guards.

Morgan signed on to a nice NIL deal with Study.Com. Check out the video here.

Here are a couple of videos of our 2024 players. They are really good!

Allie looks like another Mabry sister. Similar look and game. She has range WAY out.

Morgan remind me of Caroline. Very similar games.

Just two great kids with plenty of talent.

And we can't forget 2025 recruit Kelis Fisher. A 5'8" bolt of lightning, She can back up KK for two years.

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Straight from the Dog

My favorite punching bag, The Lady Vols of Tennessee better known as the Orange Idiots, are playing the USA Senior team on Sunday in an exhibition game. Believe it or not Tennessee is actually 1-2 against the team in past games.

On Nov. 22, 1995. USA would win the affair, 82-58.

On Nov. 7, 1999, Tennessee pulled off an upset, edging the USA squad, 65-64, in Knoxville.

On Nov. 4, 2007, and the Lady Vols kept the deficit close before falling, 83-72.

So of course the fans are confident they will do well. I saw a list of the players available for USA and I would say that if Tennessee stays within 25 points, it's a victory for them.

"Tennessee has atleast four WNBA prospects in projected lottery pick Rickea Jackson, Jillian Hollingshead, Jewel Spear, and Tamari Key. In addition, Tennessee has two players that competed in the AmeriCup games and won a silver medal led by Rickea J. Right now, if any WCB team can compete with Team USA it’s the LVs."

Check out this lineup.

Ariel Atkins G 5-10 167 27 Washington Mystics Texas Duncanville, TX30
Aliyah Boston F/C 6-5 220 21 Indiana Fever South Carolina St. Thomas, USVI11
Kahleah Copper F/G 6-1 165 29 Chicago Sky Rutgers Philadelphia, PA35
Allisha Gray G 6-0 167 28 Atlanta Dream South Carolina Sandersville, GA15
Brittney Griner C 6-9 205 33 Phoenix Mercury Baylor Houston, TX51
Rhyne Howard G 6-2 175 23 Atlanta Dream Kentucky Cleveland, TN6
Sabrina Ionescu G 5-11 165 25 New York Liberty Oregon Walnut Creek, CA14
Betnijah Laney G/F 6-0 166 30 New York Liberty Rutgers Clayton, DE37
Azurá Stevens C 6-6 180 27 Los Angeles Sparks Connecticut Raleigh, N.C.12
Diana Taurasi G 6-0 163 41 Phoenix Mercury Connecticut Chino, CA40
Jackie Young G 6-0 165 26 Las Vegas Aces Notre Dame Princeton

Boston is probably licking her chops to go against Tennessee one more time.

The best part of the team is that 41 year old Diana Taurasi will be going back to Knoxville. God, they hate her there. Will she punch something orange? The message board idiots are going nuts about her playing instead of in a retirement home.

"Why is Tausrasi still on the U.S. team? She's, what, close to 40 years old and has already won 5 Olympic gold medals. Not much left to prove. She beat us for a national title one year when the rest of the UConn starters were young and not very experienced and we had an experienced, veteran team. But were never very good or efficient offensively in those PS years, and UConn was. That's why I believe we lost 4 times to UConn in national title games, sadly. Correct me if I'm wrong."

"In my humble opionion, it's pure, unmitigated selfishness and ego that keeps players like DT and Bird coming back for more. BC their 5th and 6th dips are at the direct expense of other players who would also like a shot. Not sure why USA basketball keeps enabling this shameless behavior but it makes me sick. I'd be SO disappointed in one of my kids in a similar situation if they'd had multiple opportunities. Would totally expect them (or any normal human being) to defer in favor of giving the precious roster spot to another deserving player."

Ticket sales are really slow for this game. What the heck is going on in Rocky Top? If this game was against UConn in Storrs you can bet it would be a sellout.

GO USA!!!!

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By PHIL

Preseason Awards

More thoughts on the list from the previous blog.

One early observation is that they list Paige Beckers as a shooting guard.

She won the Nancy Lieberman point guard award as a freshman, and I don't know anyone who thinks she has change positions. My first thought was that they wanted Nika Muhl on the list and she's clearly a point guard, and maybe they didn't want more than one person from the school at the same position so they moved Paige up to shooting guard. That theory got more support when I noticed that Azzi Fudd, a shooting guard, was listed as a small forward.

However, the theory falls apart when I noticed several other instances of two players at the same school identified for the same position award:

Power Forward
Darianna Littlepage-Buggs and Dre’Una Edwards, Baylor
Emma Ronsiek and Morgan Maly, Creighton
Aaliyah Moore and DeYona Gaston, Texas

Small Forward
Kennedy Todd-Williams and Madison Scott Ole Miss
Azzi Fudd and Caroline Ducharme UConn

Here are the counts by school.

Notably, only Texas and UConn have five names on the list. Baylor is close behind with four. National champion LSU joins seven other teams with three apiece.
18 teams have a pair of players nominated while 26 teams have a single player on the list.

5 Texas
5 UConn
4 Baylor
3 Indiana
3 Kansas State
3 LSU
3 Mississippi State
3 North Carolina
3 Notre Dame
3 Ohio State
3 South Carolina
2 Colorado
2 Creighton
2 Gonzaga
2 Kansas
2 Louisville
2 Maryland
2 Nebraska
2 Oklahoma
2 Ole Miss
2 Penn State
2 Stanford
2 Tennessee
2 Texas A&M
2 UCLA
2 USC
2 Utah
2 Virginia Tech
2 Washington State
1 Arizona
1 BYU
1 Cal
1 Colorado State
1 Columbia
1 Duke
1 Florida State
1 Illinois
1 Iowa
1 Iowa State
1 Marquette
1 Michigan
1 Minnesota
1 NC State
1 Oklahoma State
1 Oregon
1 Oregon State
1 Richmond
1 South Florida
1 Syracuse
1 TCU
1 Texas Tech
1 Toledo
1 UNLV
1 Virginia
1 West Virginia