Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Doggy's Doghouse 1/17/2024

 




 



                                                                                                                       
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GO UCONN!!!!!

We had a lovely dinner Tuesday night with our two friends Steve and Abby. Great Italian food and small talk. We even talked UConn women's basketball!! I hope they enjoy the blog and this shout out!!

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We need to see more of this!!

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Here is my UConn/Seton Hall Pregame Report

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Geno Seton Hall Pregame Interview

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** Designates Upset

Games Sunday January 14th, 2024

No. 2 Iowa 96 Wisconsin 50
No. 11 Texas 91 Kansas 56

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Emilee Skinner  No.  10 recruit Class of 2025 6' PG

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Straight from the Dog




In yesterday's blog I said in regards to Shade winning the FPOW - 

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

Of course someone had to read my blog and disagree with my somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment. 

"I am the exact opposite lol. No one asked me for my opinion. But here it is. I would be pissed if there were co-freshmen of the year. I will want full transparency on the voting/selection process. This is high level competitive sport. They need to make a decision even if it is hard." 

Well,  it's happened a few times. And every time the two players were gracious and complementary towards each other. If they both deserve it, they both deserve it. Just like these awards, people vote and the votes get tallied. If Ashlynn and KK are tied they will be co-mvp. The way it's going, it could happen. 

NFL Co-MVP Brett Farve and Barry Sanders 
 
NL Co-MVP Willie Stargell and Keith Hernandez

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I usually don't start following this stuff until February, but I was happy with the latest Bracketology that Charlie SECreme came up with. 

I did notice a few weeks ago that he punished UConn for losses against top 5 teams and made them a 5 seed,  They have now won 10 game in a row, so what did Charlie do? They are now a 2 seed. Not bad.

Right now he has the Huskies playing their first two games in Storrs and then play the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight in Portland. Somehow I don't think the NCAA will lose the opportuniy of sell out games in Albany. That is where I expect the Committee to place UConn. 

If chalk holds up, Charlie has them playing 15 seed FIU, 7 seed Syracuse, 3 seed Louisville, 1 seed UCLA, 1 seed Utah, 1 seed South Carolina. Tough road to hoe for the Huskies. Did Charlie put them in line to play 6'8" Betts, 6'7" Cardosa and "Pistol Pete" Clark on purpose?? Of course he did.

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Phil did a good job explaining Tennessee's road to the NCAA tournament. It don't be easy. 

Here is some info on why (maybe) that Tennessee hasn't had more highly ranked high school recruits. 

The following is the Lady Vols' record under Coach Harper on national tv:

2019-2020: 2 wins 5 losses (2 of the losses by double digit points)
'20 - '21: 3 - 4 ( 3 )
'21 - '22: 4 - 6 ( 5 )
'22 - '23: 4 - 9 ( 5 )
'23 - '24: 0 - 5 ( 3 )

13 wins 29 losses - 18 of the losses by double digits.

Thanks to the Tennessee fan that posted this on their message board volnation.com. Brave soul since any criticisms are usually met with a high level of rancor.

The fact is, they have had a real problem getting ranked players to come to Knoxville.

2022 No. 11 Justine Pissott (transferred after one season)
2023 No recruits
2024 No. 35 Kiana Boyd
2025 No. 16 Nyla Brooks

No, you are not imagining things. They have 3 recruits in 4 years and one of them transferred out. They are living and dying with the portal. I just think that's a losing plan.     

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By PHIL

Earning an At-large invitation

Yesterday, I wrote a post with the name of the school in the title and a fair bit of discussion of that school and their chances of making the tournament. You are totally forgiven if you read the title and decided not to read the post.

However, one of the important points was what it takes to make the tournament. I’m going to expand on that and will try to talk about other teams. Let’s face it, this is not a problem for UConn, but may be of interest to those we care about women’s basketball in general rather than just UConn.

A fan of another school suggested that a team must beat a top 25 team to earn an at-large invitation. It was easy to demonstrate that wasn’t the case. Ultimately, the selection is dependent on a number of criteria, and beating a top 25 team does not appear to be a deciding criterion. In Cream’s updated bracket discussion, he suggested there are 14 criteria used to evaluate teams. I don’t have the complete list, but I thought it would be interesting to explore whether a simple rule could get most of them.

One simple rule is a rating metric such as Massey, NET or RPI.

I found that Massey works generally well, but I generally thought that one wants to be in the mid to high 30s to be comfortable of getting an at-large bid. I just looked at last year’s teams and it looks like a better breakpoint is 48. Of the 10 teams ranked between 39 and 48, all but two earned an at-large bid. For teams ranked 49 or higher, only two earned an at-large invitation.

Looking at the outliers provides interesting information. Illinois was ranked 53 well above propose cut off of 48, and St. John's even worse with a ranking of 58. What do those two teams have in common that earned them an invitation? Illinois knocked off Iowa (the number four team in the country) and St. John’s knocked off UConn (the number three team in the country.)

So we could come up with a modified but still simple rule:

manage a Massey rate of 48 or better

OR

knock off a top five team.

(I did hope to go into more detail, but I have two housebound grandkids underfoot and need to help out. Perhaps more later.)

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.

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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)


I'm always open for suggestions. Just please reply to this blog or email me at:

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