Who will replace the graduated points and rebounds for us this season?

[wallman]

I assume we can go with His Dudeness, or Duder or El Duderino if we are not into that whole brevity thing.

As long as you don't pee on my rug you can call me whatever man!

 

[winlots]

As long as you don't pee on my rug you can call me whatever man!

You got it, Whatever Man.

 

[wallman]

This is why The Dude loves the boneyard man!

 

[winlots]

This is why The Dude loves the boneyard man!

DUDE/WHATEVER MAN: Why thank you so much. Signed: The Boneyard Man

 

[rford53]

The points and rebounds will be share proportionally with minutes played by individual players and the aggregate will be equal to or greater than the total points scored in 2013-2014, IHO.

 

[Kibitzer]

Ummm I believe her name is Rebecca Rose Lobo-Rushin. Please can we not be disrespectful? Geez.

You're gonna hurt yourself if you fall off that high horse of yours.

 

[uconnfan68]

If Kiah plays 26 minutes a game she will lead the nation in rebounding.

45 TO GO​

And in blocked shots.

 

[Sluconn Husky]

If Kiah plays 26 minutes a game she will lead the nation in rebounding.

And in blocked shots.

If you took Stokes' rebounding per minute pace last year and projected it to 26 minutes she'd have only finished around 15th in the country in rebounding. I think 30 minutes is a possibility and that averages out to 11.7 per game. Last year's leader was Oregon's Jillian Alleyne at more than 16 per game. Maybe not having Dolson around will mean more boards for Stokes though.

She has a much better chance at leading in blocks.

 

[uconnfan68]

If you took Stokes' rebounding per minute pace last year and projected it to 26 minutes she'd have only finished around 15th in the country in rebounding. I think 30 minutes is a possibility and that averages out to 11.7 per game. Last year's leader was Oregon's Jillian Alleyne at more than 16 per game. Maybe not having Dolson around will mean more boards for Stokes though.

She has a much better chance at leading in blocks.

Alleyne's numbers were the result of a very fast-paced system that resulted in many missed shots. Kiah Stokes has the potential to be the best rebounder, and shot-blocker, in wcbb... and maybe as good as Stewie. ;^)

 

[Sluconn Husky]

Alleyne's numbers were the result of a very fast-paced system that resulted in many missed shots. Kiah Stokes has the potential to be the best rebounder, and shot-blocker, in wcbb... and maybe as good as Stewie. ;^)

Yes, the system had something to do with it, but Alleyne is terrific. Regardless, there were numerous others with rebounding ratios quite a bit higher than Kia's. If she were on a team with significantly less talent and played 35 minutes a game, she'd have a much better shot at leading the nation. As it is, Stewart, KML, and others are going to get some of those boards.

 

[UconnWBB]

just for some comparison...
Hamson, BYU 147 blks/1084 mins = .136/min or 5.44/40 min
Hamblin, OSU 141 blks/934 mins = .151/min or 6.04/40 min
Porter, Stetson 129/866 = .149 or 5.96/40
Stewie 110/1221 = .091 or 3.60/40
Dolson 93/1292 = .072 or 2.88/40
Stokes 89/723 = .122 or 4.88/40

not bad considering all the others are/were starters

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

I start each season with one hope - that this years team stays injury/illness free! I figure if this were to occur the talent of the players and the best coaching staff in USA will combine to have the best season possible!
This season our defense will be better than it's ever been! Kiah will be awesome, Morgan will be healthy, The way KML finished last year, adding rebounding skills (and going to the basket to her already tremendous outside shooting), MoJeff will SHUT-DOWN the opposing point guard, and Saniya will get more confidence and improve, and the four freshmen are great athletes, so they will add to the full court defense! We will hold teams to at least a 40 point differential!
Offensively, We will average around 85 points per game!
The state of UCONN nation is in good hands!

 

[wallman]

Stokes had 13 rebounds in 21 minutes v OR, Alleyne had 9 rebounds in 30 minutes. Stokes was battling Dolson 14 and Stewie 8, the best in the nation, not Alleyne.

 

[slimmer56]

Hello Win,
I would guestimate that Courtny and Kia will average somewhere around 12 to 15 points per game. That is early in the season. I expect Courtney, as the year goes on will probably average more pts than Kia. The reason for that is, if Kia is playing the point, she will be looking to pass first, and shoot 2nd.
Courtney is a natural "scorer", kind of like Kaleena, and she will not hesitate to jack it up.

Geno is supposedly up on both so let's hope thet both play well and get lots of minutes.

 

[winlots]

[QUOTE="slimmer56, post: 1034883, member: 27" ]Hello Win,
I would guestimate that Courtny and Kia will average somewhere around 12 to 15 points per game. That is early in the season. I expect Courtney, as the year goes on will probably average more pts than Kia. The reason for that is, if Kia is playing the point, she will be looking to pass first, and shoot 2nd.
Courtney is a natural "scorer", kind of like Kaleena, and she will not hesitate to jack it up.

Geno is supposedly up on both so let's hope thet both play well and get lots of minutes.[/QUOTE]

SLIM: yo....sure hope you are correct on that. Man, you say EARLY in the season at that. Wow. Assuming you are on target, CF and I would only need 5 or 8 from Edwards and Williams to get to our target of 20.

 

[Sluconn Husky]

With a weaker conference schedule and likely no need to kill the clock with walk-ons, I'd assume the scoring average will be about the same.

 

[AndyCT]

The simple answer is, "Whoever is on the court."

The simple answer – and the correct one.

All this nonsense about replacing “lost points” is irrelevant unless we’re talking about some WCBB fantasy league, because there are no “lost points” – to thinks so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the sport and how this team plays it.

One of the things we’ve learned in the last couple of years is that UConn’s offense is governed by a few basic tenets – never take a contested shot, and never take a shot that you can’t make. As long as they keep doing that next season it doesn’t it doesn’t matter who scores, just as long as somebody scores by taking an uncontested shot that she can make.

We probably all remember when Maya went off on Syracuse for 40 points – I would wager that few of us here doubt that she could have done that any night if she so chose. Same for Diana back in the day or Breanna now. Yet we know that if the three of them could have played together, UConn wouldn’t be scoring 120 points every game. Even if they’re each having “one of those nights” shooting, every basket that Maya makes is a shot that Diana or Breanna doesn’t even get to take. There are only going to be so many possessions per game, and thus so many scoring opportunities. If Maya is scoring 40, there are fewer other possessions for everybody else to try and score 40 as well, and at some point no matter how good the other players are (even a Diana or Breanna) we run out of possessions.

So even last year, every basket that Stef made was an opportunity that Breanna didn’t get, and every basket that Bria made was a shot that Moriah didn’t get – and none of that mattered. What did matter is what they all did when they got the ball – they took shots that they could make and didn’t take contested shots, and when they all did that they scored at about a 50% clip, compared to the opponents' 30% pace. There's a lot of margin there.

So next year, if Kiah is playing in Stef’s position as we all expect, all she has to do is to play within herself – to only take shots that she can make, and not take contested shots. She did that last year and was the team’s leading scorer (by percentage = .600) and if she follows those principles again she’ll be fine – and when she does pass the ball, as long as her teammates also continue to do that they’ll be fine, and so will the team. That's all that any of them have to do.

 

[DavidinNaples]

The simple answer – and the correct one.

All this nonsense about replacing “lost points” is irrelevant unless we’re talking about some WCBB fantasy league, because there are no “lost points” – to thinks so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the sport and how this team plays it.

One of the things we’ve learned in the last couple of years is that UConn’s offense is governed by a few basic tenets – never take a contested shot, and never take a shot that you can’t make. As long as they keep doing that next season it doesn’t it doesn’t matter who scores, just as long as somebody scores by taking an uncontested shot that she can make.

We probably all remember when Maya went off on Syracuse for 40 points – I would wager that few of us here doubt that she could have done that any night if she so chose. Same for Diana back in the day or Breanna now. Yet we know that if the three of them could have played together, UConn wouldn’t be scoring 120 points every game. Even if they’re each having “one of those nights” shooting, every basket that Maya makes is a shot that Diana or Breanna doesn’t even get to take. There are only going to be so many possessions per game, and thus so many scoring opportunities. If Maya is scoring 40, there are fewer other possessions for everybody else to try and score 40 as well, and at some point no matter how good the other players are (even a Diana or Breanna) we run out of possessions.

So even last year, every basket that Stef made was an opportunity that Breanna didn’t get, and every basket that Bria made was a shot that Moriah didn’t get – and none of that mattered. What did matter is what they all did when they got the ball – they took shots that they could make and didn’t take contested shots, and when they all did that they scored at about a 50% clip, compared to the opponents' 30% pace. There's a lot of margin there.

So next year, if Kiah is playing in Stef’s position as we all expect, all she has to do is to play within herself – to only take shots that she can make, and not take contested shots. She did that last year and was the team’s leading scorer (by percentage = .600) and if she follows those principles again she’ll be fine – and when she does pass the ball, as long as her teammates also continue to do that they’ll be fine, and so will the team. That's all that any of them have to do.

So everyone who responded to this interesting thread has a "fundamental misunderstanding of the sport" and how UConn plays the game? Thank goodness you are here to explain it all to us. Perhaps you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Boneyard and the function it performs in the offseason? Your opinion of us misses the mark by MoJeff's free throw percentage, 76.8%. Your opinion of your own opinion probably exceeds reality by an equal %. Maybe a little less. Enjoy the season.

 

[rugbymate]

It really shouldn't be a problem replacing the rebounding and scoring of BH and SD. If we look at just the games against top 10 teams last year ,where the average margin of victory was 18.1 pts , it shows that given modest assumptions about our key players the bench will need to contribute very little to match 2013-2014 stats.
The assumptions are that we increase performance linearly with minutes from our key returning players plus a 10 % scoring improvement per game due to a years experience. These assumptions are consistent with typical upperclass improvement trends. In addition, Stokes's offensive improvement is assumed to be greater than 10% given for obvious reasons. Tuck's projections assume she is healthy but continues performance trends of games where she has played significantly.

2013-2014 projected 2014-2015 against top 10
min/g reb/g pts/g min/g reb/g pts/g
BH 35.5 4.3 14.2 BH - - -
SD 36.8 9.9 11.o SD - - -
TBS 34.4 8.5 19.5 TBS 36.0 9.0 22.5
KML 31.8 5.1 14.0 KML 35.0 5.6 16.8
MJ 32.4 3.5 10.2 MJ 35.0 3.8 12.0
KS 16.0 6.8 3.5 KS 32.0 13.6 10.0
Rest 15.4 1.0 2.4 MT 25 .0 6.5 10.0
Total 200 39.1 75.8 Sub-T 163 38.5 71.3
Needed
from bench 37 .6 4.5

Assuming good health and continued improvement from our core, 2014=2015 is likely to out perform. Also, BH's shooting % in Top 10 games was only 36.3 % and she averaged more shots than any other teammate. I suspect a redistribution of those shots will generate a higher % and hence scoring average .