A halftime adjustment benching ONO and Irwin in favor of Griffin and Makurat seems to have done wonders last night. Although nobody is going to like the 31% FG shooting by UConn, the important numbers were 27 TOs by Tennessee and a 47-45 UConn rebounding victory over one of the biggest teams in women's college basketball. These stats reflect increased defensive intensity by UConn in the second half and crashing of the boards, and Griffin and Makurat were a big help.
I had questioned whether UConn could beat really good teams with size after the Baylor game. Baylor has much better guards than Tennessee does, but last night showed a bit of a game plan and a lineup that can be used to match up against bigger teams.
Most important thing that emerged was pride, guts and determination (PGD) in the face of a halftime deficit against a good team. This team seems to have enough of a PGD quotient to win more of these kinds of games. They just need to shoot better. There were a lot of makeable shots that did not get made last night.
I had questioned whether UConn could beat really good teams with size after the Baylor game. Baylor has much better guards than Tennessee does, but last night showed a bit of a game plan and a lineup that can be used to match up against bigger teams.
Most important thing that emerged was pride, guts and determination (PGD) in the face of a halftime deficit against a good team. This team seems to have enough of a PGD quotient to win more of these kinds of games. They just need to shoot better. There were a lot of makeable shots that did not get made last night.
