Monday, January 15, 2024

Doggy's Doghouse 1/16/2024

 



 



                                                                                                                       
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GO UCONN!!!!!

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That's just crazy. Four for Ashlynn and four for KK. I'm demanding that we have CO-freshmen of the year!!! 

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Ashlyn Watkins Dunks for South Carolina!!

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Here is my UConn/Seton Hall Pregame Report

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** Designates Upset

Games Sunday January 14th, 2024


No. 1 South Carolina 98 Kentucky 36

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Straight from the Dog




I'm sure you seen the controversy over the course of the season with some fans saying criticle things about Nika Muhl. One fan was calling for her to come off the bench. The same fan was calling for her to get her minutes cut. Believe it or not, this fan said Nika was at best the 8th best player on the team.

Well, someone has seen the light. Kinda. Here is his latest comment.

"Nika has had better performance shooting and I'm happy for her. Other teams still leave her open though so it's not like they didn't see what a lot of us saw." 

Other teams leave her open? Sigh....

She is open because UConn passes to the open player. When it Nika she has been shooting. So confident. But it's certainly not because teams "leave her open". On purpose? Is Shade being left open? Q? even Paige. 

UConn moves the ball around until someone has an open shot. It's why the team is leading the country in FG%. And why all 5 starters are over 50%.

It was such a backhanded compliment. Booo......  

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UConn made it back into the Top Ten. Right where they belong. So, how did I do in my prediction of the Top Teams in the latest poll? 

I did ok. Not perfect. My number first, the AP poll number second. 

1/1 South Carolina 
2/2 Iowa
3/3 Colorado
4/4 NC STate
5/6 USC 
6/5 UCLA
7/7 Kansas State
8/9 UConn
9/11 Texas
10/8 Stanford
11/10 LSU
12/13 Louisville
13/14 Virginia Tech
14/17 Gonzaga
15/18 Ohio State

Well, I totally screwed up. I forgot to put Baylor in there somethere. Oh well.

At least UConn is in the top ten!!

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Maybe it's not fair as Kentucky was playing the best team in the country, but hey, they were just UGGY and deserve the award.

The Wildcats scored only 36 points and shot the ball horribly. Kentucky was 15-61 for 24.6%, 4-18 for 22.2%, and 2-6 from the foul line for 33%. Blech!!! 

They also had 24 turnovers and only 7 assists. 

Congrats to Kentucky, you really earned this UGGY!

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This may be a good place for a comment I saw from the Ole Miss about how great the SEC is.
Uh......98-36 South Carolina over Kentucky. Tennessee anyone??
 
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By PHIL

Whither Tennessee?

The first question that needs answering is why on earth would you talk about Tennessee? UConn just got ranked in the top 10, not as high as they deserve but a step in the right direction. There are a lot of good questions about the makeup of the other top contenders so why spend any time and energy thinking about Tennessee?

Well, I’m obsessed. Frankly, I look forward to the day that Tennessee is no longer part of the day-to-day discussion of top teams. That day will be the second year that Tennessee fails to get invited to the tournament. Why the second year, I don’t hear you asking, but I’m going to answer anyway. Because the first year that Tennessee doesn’t make the tournament, that will suck up a lot of media attention. It won’t be until the second year that the discussion is sufficiently exhausted to allow the media to move on to discussing the current top teams in the sport.

If it was just me, it would make a lot of sense to tell me to drop the subject, but the obsession extends to people with a microphone. If you don’t believe me, check out the recent update to bracketology.

There is a decent amount of movement in the most recent bracket. I count 30 changes, counting movements up and down plus new entrants. This doesn't count teams in the bracket last time who dropped out. Plenty to talk about. No changes in the number one seeds, but many other storylines with discussing. So when Charlie revealed his latest bracket, what did he discuss?

Every.single.word.was.about.Tennessee. No, they didn’t make an appearance in the bracket, their claim to fame is that good enough to be one of the first four out, and that’s all that Charlie could talk about. Good grief! There’s a lot of interesting basketball to talk about and he’s talking about Tennessee. I know, I ought not to feed the beast but I’m going to.

Reading Vol Nation can be entertaining, but I’m going to be charitable and not talk about the silliness, going to talk about a contributor who did a very nice analysis of the best wins of the season. That contributor went on to suggest:

“Can they get into the NCAAT without a single win versus a currently ranked opponent? Possible but not probable.”

While I agree with much of what the contributor said, I’m going to push back on the notion that you have to beat a ranked team to earn an at-large bid.

Just look at last year.

Alabama didn’t have a single win against a ranked team but earned an at-large bid. Georgia didn’t have a single win against a ranked team but earned an at-large bid. Mississippi State did have a win against a ranked team — they beat Tennessee in double overtime, but the SEC’s sent at least two teams to the tournament without a win against a ranked team. Maybe not something to be proud of but the notion that you need to beat a ranked team to earn an at-large bid is a flawed assumption.

Those three teams also happen to be nine and seven in conference, and another contributor suggested that winning nine teams in conference will be good enough to make the tournament.

Tennessee has three wins in conference and 12 games remaining. That means they need to win six of the remaining 12 games to reach nine conference wins.

Let’s look at the remaining 12 games in the Massey probability of winning:

• under 40% 2
• 40-49% 3
• 50% 1
• 51-60% 1
• 60% + 5

for example, Massey has the probability of winning at under 40% in two games, between 40 and 49% in three games, exactly 50% in one game, with one game between 51 and 60%, and the remaining five games with a better than 60% chance of winning.

That means if they win the six games, they have a better than 50% chance of winning, they will get their six wins. They could do better, as noted is one game with exactly 50% chance of winning and of the three games between 40 and 49 two of them are exactly 49%. Maybe you can’t count on winning all of those essentially pick him games but all you have to do is when one and you’ve got seven wins with a cushion to blunder in one of the favored games.

That’s one way of calculating the wins, an even easier way is to look at the Massey table where they estimate that Tennessee will have more than six remaining wins. If that happens, they will almost certainly be invited as an at-large team.

Oddly though, if you look at NET, the picture looks different. Tennessee is currently ranked 64 in NET. Of the 12 remaining opponents, only two are weaker than NET 64 leaving 10 teams with a better ranking than Tennessee. If they play like in NET 64 team, or even a little bit better, they want earn an at-large bid.

Which will it be?

Milestone watch

• Aaliyah Edwards reached 1465 career points with her 12 points in the Providence game. She needs 15 to tie Crystal Dangerfield at 1480.

• Nika Mühl had 527 assists after the Providence game. She recorded 7 assists in the St. John's game for a career total of 534 so far. She passed Laura Lishness into 13th place.

• Geno Auriemma now has 1194 wins and needs Six more to reach the 1200 plateau.
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SPIDER 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.

UConn 113, St. John’s 14.

Tamika said jubilation, this team says domination!

Net positives/minutes played: Paige 31/25, Aaliyah 21/26, Nika 17/29, Ashlynn 15/35, Qadence 9/15, Ice 9/24, Ines 7/12, KK 5/27, Amari -4/7.

Paige all-world; Ines +7 without taking a shot! Ice improves, hurt by 6 turnovers; Q showing some Aubrey moves. 

At halftime Megan commented on Nika’s defense on the red storm star, so in the second half I watched Nika on defense instead of the ball. Her player couldn’t even touch the ball, Nika was on her like Elmer’s glue.

Final four in Cleveland. To paraphrase the late great Robbie Robertson again: Look out Cleveland, Huskies coming through, and we’re running right up on youuuuu.



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UCONN LINKS

Several links are pay sites. Sorry!


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Message Boards

UConn Territory - The best UConn women's message board ever!!! 
Vol Nation - Tennessee women's basketball board
ND Nation - Notre Dame women's basketball board
Rebkell - WCBB for everyone that thinks they are smarter than everyone else

UCONN Information

UConn 2023-2024 Statistics (updated after 1st game)


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