Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 2/24/2024

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GO UCONN!!!!!

The Boys and their Dogs -

Under the UConn blanket!!

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Doggy's UConn/DePaul II Pregame Report

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Geno Pregame Interview

KK Arnold and Ashland Shade Pregame Intervew

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Kaitlyn Chen

Lots of talk about Chen coming to UConn as a graduate student transfer out of the portal. I'm not sure there is room. Right now there will be only one open spot on the roster. Will Strong committ? Does Edwards or Muhl decide to come back. Will anyone transfer? Lots of balls in the air. Geno might know already. But we do know he has talked to Princeton coach Carla Berurbe about her. Chen was Ivy league player of the year last season and could repeat that honor.

It feels like a great fit. So, here is a highlight video for your enjoyment. I really like her game.

24 points against UCLA

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** Designates Upset

Games Friday February 23th, 2024

No. 3 Stanford 61 Arizona 68 **

No. 7 USC 87 No. 11 Colorado 81

No. 9 Oregon State 66 Washington State 52

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Straight from the Dog

Back at it! pic.twitter.com/FUNl21eU4v
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) February 23, 2024

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One more update from Charlie SECreme.

As expected Iowa dropped from a 1 seed to a 2 seed. And who jumped up to that spot? Texas is now a 1 seed. What a great job they have done since losing their best player Rori Harmon for the season. The lost three games but to at the time No. 10 Baylor, No. 12 Kansas State and Oklahoma. They are on a 7 game winning streak including winning the rematched with both Baylor and Kansas State.

Colorado dropped again, this time to a 3 seed. They lost their last two games to No. 17 Oregon State and No. 22 Utah. They take on No. 7 USC and No. 12 UCLA in their next two games so, I'm thinking they might drop another spot.

NC State dropped from a 1 seed as well, now a 2 seed.

So, how do the Huskies look? Well, I kinda like where SECreme has them. They are in the Portlan 4 bracket. They have to beat 14 seed Chattanooga, 6 seed North Carolina (who they beat already), 2 seed USC, and 1 seed Texas. UConn lost to the Longhorns but Harmon was still playing and had 27 points and 13 assists in that game. UConn had 21 turnovers in that game, their worst effort of the season to date. I like their chances to get to the Final Four if this is their bracket.

Late last night Unranked Arizona travelled to Stanford and beat the Cardinal 68-61. Granted that Brink did not play in this game as she was sick but Arizona was without their leading scorer. It's the first win by Arizona at Stanford in more than 20 years. The Wildcats had lost seven straight to the Cardinal. They had just seven players dressed, were without leading scorer Kailyn Gilbert and coming off a triple-overtime win over Washington on Sunday. The win was Arizona's highest-ranked road win in program history, and fifth win over a top-5 opponent. This game was after the latest Bracketology so we will see if Stanford loses their 1 seed spot. They should. Who would move in?

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By PHIL

Why UConn should be ranked higher Updated

Let’s walk through why the AP voters have some teams ahead of UConn and why they are wrong.

Indiana

When the voters made the decision, Indiana had an impressive resume.

• Only three losses, all to teams in the top 5, that’s impressive

However, once you get past looking at the most impressive quality loss list in the country outside of South Carolina, the pickings get slim.

Let’s list their wins over ranked teams:

• Princeton number 25

Hey, a win over Princeton’s not nothing, they are solid team, but a nine point win at a Thanksgiving tournament is your only win over a top 25 team. Your strength of schedule is okay (number 16) but not at UConn levels. UConn plays a tougher schedule, and has three wins over ranked teams each of which is stronger than Princeton.

That’s before discussing the 20 point loss to an Illinois team not likely to make it to the tournament. Yes yes, that loss wasn’t in the books with the AP voters voted. They got it wrong but understandably wrong and that will be fixed next week.

Update - Indiana subsequently beat Iowa in convincing fashion. The voters may use this as cover, but going 500 since the last vote isn’t what you expect from a top 15 team. The win over Iowa which came after a players only meeting was nice, but it doesn’t totally erase the 20 point loss to an unimpressive Illinois team. The case for UConn being ahead of Indiana was very solid before the Iowa game; its still convincing, but we will have to see.

LSU

The voters thought process is easy to understand. LSU is the defending national champions, and on paper seem to add a lot of firepower. They started out the season number one understandably, but laid an egg in their first game. The voters punish them each time they have another loss, but ratings tend to be sticky, so it took some time to drift down to where they belong. They are currently at number 13, and I’m not going to argue that the voters have them too high. That’s probably about right – the issue is that they place UConn below LSU, not that LSU is too high.

LSU only has four losses and UConn has five, but UConn plays a much tougher schedule. LSU strength of schedule in an absolute sense isn’t horrendous (Massey rank 36) but that’s worse than almost all ranked teams (Syracuse, Creighton and Princeton are worse – did I miss anyone)?

Moreover, each of UConn’s five losses is to a ranked team, while LSU’s loss to Auburn and Mississippi State. LSU is only played three ranked teams and lost two of them. Which means they have exactly one win over a ranked team on their resume. UConn has done far better and deserves to be higher.

Update - LSU has played two games since their last ranking and won them both. The win over Texas and was solid but they just barely be unranked Auburn by five points. They were favored to win by 15 so that’s a significant underperformance.

UCLA

This seems like an easy one for the voters. Both UCLA and UConn have five losses, UCLA plays the tougher schedule and beat UConn head-to-head. Case closed.

I get it but not surprisingly I see it differently. They head-to-head when was a Thanksgiving tournament and both teams are different now. While UConn has lost an unprecedented number of players, we seem to be a Timex, taking a licking but still ticking (who’s old enough to remember that ad?)

UCLA is very good but they lost to unranked Washington State, something UConn has not done.

How have they been doing recently? They lost to Oregon State, even when OSU lost their best player early in the game. Oregon State is in the same ballpark as Creighton, but UConn won that game by 20. I understand the voter’s decision, but I think UConn is currently playing better than UCLA.

Update -- this is now a tougher one to justify. UCLA just beat ranked Utah by 30 points. Still think UConn deserves to be ranked ahead but there is bit of bias and I won’t be surprised if UCLA actually moves up.

Colorado

Colorado wasn’t really darling of the voters climbing as high as third, but that’s back when they were 15 – 1. They now have lost five games, same as UConn. They play a very solid schedule but it’s not quite as good as UConn’s. On one metric they are the same as UConn, each of their five losses are to ranked teams same as UConn. But four of UConn’s losses are to the top half of the top 25 while four of Colorado’s losses are to the bottom half of the top 25, so still decent but not as good.

Colorado has lost the last two games, including the most recent game against Utah, the team the just got blown out by UCLA. Utah probably won’t lose their top 25 ranking but they lost some of the luster. A few weeks ago it was easy to justify placing Colorado ahead of UConn. Not today.

Milestone Watch

• Aaliyah Edwards reached 1704 career points with her 20 points in the Creighton game. She is in sole possession of 18th place. She passed Ann Strother and now needs 93 points to catch Stefanie Dolson.

• Aaliyah Edwards now has 938 rebounds with 8 against Creighton. She passed Peggy W sole possession of 10th place. She needs seven more to catch Peggy Walsh.

• Nika Mühl had 604 assists after her 7 assists in the Georgetown game. She passed Crystal Dangerfield, is in 5th place and needs 28 more to tie Renee Montgomery.

• Geno now has 1203 wins, placing him second overall, ahead of Mike Krzyzewski.

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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 80, Creighton 34.

Net positives/minutes played: Paige 27/39, Ashlynn 21/40, Aaliyah 13/27, Nika 12/39, KK 1/37, Qadence 0/4, Ice -1/13, Ines -1/1.

Paige stepped up, Ashlynn 3 solid games in a row, KK struggled past two, Ice a step backwards.

Great crowd! Beat DePaul!

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UCONN LINKS

Several links are pay sites. Sorry!

UConn returns to BE basketball against DePaul

Why Geno gave the team two days off before the DePaul game

How Paige Bueckers has improved

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