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Basketball Strong’s debut, intense defense help UConn Women’s Hoops defeat Boston

They played an incredible, amazing first half. The team looks pretty good to me and they still have Azzi Fudd, Ayanna Patterson and Aubrey Griffin coming back and maybe Caroline Ducharme. The freshman Jana El Alfy and Sarah Strong had incredible debuts. While Sarah had also looked good in the exhibition, Jana picked up 4 quick fouls and looked flustered. Those two are going to immensely improve UConn's rebounding.

Uconn officially starts the quest for a 3-peat

Zanetto devoted an entire podcast to this subject of a possible Ball-Ross backcourt to pair with McNeely, Karaban and Johnson/Reed. When I saw Ross in the URI game he was playing a little too fast (was probably amped up) and this caused some sloppy plays by him. He is definitely a high energy guy in the mold of Andre Jackson Jr., and like AJ and Castle (who are now both starting in the NBA), he has defensive stopper potential. I am sure we will see that lineup at some point and it will be interesting to see how it plays, although not sure you can play that lineup for prolonged stretches against certain teams.

Sacred Heart Game

Overall very good performance tonight by UConn which covered the 34.5 point spread.

Liam McNeeley showed pretty quickly why many think he is a lottery pick (18 points, 10 rebounds, 3-6 on 3s), but Alex Karaban was the best player on the floor tonight and looked like a 1st team All American. 20 points, 7 assists, 7 blocks, and some of the best defense I have seen him play.

This game went pretty much as I expected, although I didn't expect Aidan Mahaney to get bagelled. He looked more like the guy I saw at the Open Practice than the guy I saw against Rhode Island. What I did expect was an aggressive pushing of the tempo and 90 plus points. Some guys did better with that than others. Mahaney was 0-3 and missed his only 2 3s, had very little impact on the game and looked out of synch with his teammates. Hopefully, it's first night jitters.

Reed Jr. had 15 points and 11 rebounds off the bench, which is pretty good, and he looks like the first UConn center in a while who can actually shoot FTs. Solomon Ball with 16 points and 4-7 on 3s continued the stellar play we saw in the URI exhibition.

UConn shot 52% FGs, 13-31 on 3s, (42%), outrebounded SHU 47-25, and held SHU to 34% FGs. UConn also assisted on 25 baskets, to 8 for SHU. UConn also blocked 13 shots. There is nothing to dislike in any of this. When you consider it's a first game, it's very good stuff.

Basketball UConn Women's Basketball takes care of Fort Hays State in exhibition game

I think Mark Zanetto has lost me as a listener. He has now claimed in 3 different podcasts that Ice Brady scored 12 points in the exhibition. Mark- WATCH THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was 0-5 on FGs and had 0 points! Bagelled! You have a lot of nerve criticizing fans who criticized a performance you did not see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Basketball UConn Women's Basketball takes care of Fort Hays State in exhibition game

I was at the game today and there were some noticeable issues today, (1) substandard ball movement, (2) inability to make entry passes to the post without turning the ball over; and (3) poor play at center- Ice Brady didn't make a shot and Jana picked up 4 quick fouls playing against MUCH smaller and weaker post players from Fort Hays State. Not sure if Geno was being facetious in his presser but he said with a straight face and serious tone that Fort Hays' complete lack of size and strength threw Ice and Jana off, because they are used to more size and physicality in practice.

Jana did have one nice basket on an impressive putback of an offensive board. I was expecting a lot more, but she was nervous and way too physical.

On the positive side, Paige scored at will and had the 27 easiest points you will see, or at least she made it look easy, and Katelynn Chen is an aggressive, experienced, crafty guard, but much more scoring minded than her predecessor at point guard Nika Muhl. I think Chen needs to be more of a distributor on this team, especially when Azzi comes back, because the ball movement especially in the halfcourt left much to be desired. And because she doesn't need to be the 2nd, 3rd or even 4th scoring option on this team. She comes from Princeton where she was a main woman player and she needs to break that mindset and focus on being a distributor. Which I think she can do although she threw a couple of terrible passes today and had a bunch of TOs.

UConn generated enough TOs with the D to get a lot of transition buckets and pump the score out a to a 40 point win, but the halfcourt offense they ran today isn't going to cut it against some of the quality teams they play.

I was very impressed with Sarah Strong and she isn't coming out of the starting lineup any time soon. She has good rebounding skills, very good hands, shoots well and seems like a team player.

Also impressive was Qadence Samuels who made a big difference in her minutes, not just with her shooting but also rebounding and playing D. She has an excellent chance to be a 3 and D specialist in her minutes.
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