In Reply to: Husky’s pace, depth and Paige B are my concerns. * posted by BobinMd on April 04, 2025 at 11:29:20
no one has the depth we have but their three are major players - Bueckers, Fudd and Strong. Have to stop Bueckers from going off and still contain the other two while we're at it. Big task.
I also worry about us at guard - Kiki Rice is tremendous. But Jones at a claimed 5'4" and Aarnisalo at 5'7" are both awfully short when matching up against a strong back court. And other than Jones, we don't exactly have speed burners all around.
The other key is what Cori Close said in her presser at the Final Four - Geno's teams are read and react teams. They aren't running pre-planned plays and sets they always use. They attack and use their "high BB IQ" to operate off that which makes them less predictable than an SC or perhaps an LSU.
Analytics is what separates UConn from everyone else and explains the odds on both this game and to win the tournament. Let's see how that holds up because NONE of their stats has been compiled playing against Betts, Barker, Jaquez, Rice et al.
I think there's a shock effect for a team that plays against us with our height centered around Lauren Betts for the first time. We saw that against South Carolina and many other teams - we were fine in the first game against SC until they went nuts on us late in the game (and their adjustments lasted them well until we went nuts on them in the second half of the Big Ten Championship game. How they react to playing us in the first quarter is going to make this one very interesting from the opening tip. Hope we don't come out too hyped and too tight