ND Postgame Thread

[darrell]

Notre Dame looked great today, but this wasn’t UConn’s best effort by a mile.

I look forward to playing them again, whether in March with a healthy Azzi & Dorka or next year with Paige, Ice and the 2023 class.

 

[SARG 2011]

Hate the loss but it's early, they will regroup. Azzi getting hurt has me sick to my stomach. I pray she is OK.

 

[eebmg]

With no Azzi, no Dorka and limit Caroline playing, I give credits to the rest of the team to play this game until the end.

What happened with Caroline?

 

[Monte]

POOR Defense

 

[Aluminny69]

Nika with only 5 assists, Edwards with only 5 rebounds. Sometimes, size matters.

 

[my2cents]

Last year we lost Paige in the Notre Dame game, this year Azzi. Hopefully her injury is day to day.
There is no reason to play these guys. They abandoned the Big East, there is nothing but bad blood, and the games always turn into "Mosh Pit " basketball.
In this game, it becomes obvious when you have three non shooters on the court at the same time, it becomes impossible for anyone (Lou) to get any looks.
No need to bring up Audrey's play.
Lastly, Amari has shown that she can shoot ( better then Griffin) and really should get more time.

 

[iri10]

Well, it was a tough assignment on paper. Facing a top 10 ND at South Bend, coming off a loss, without half of our starting post depth.

Got worse when ND started the game shooting extremely well and we lost Azzi to some sort of injury. Too much to come back from. Ah well.

 

[UConnFanMSM]

Fingers crossed for Azzi.

...Was glad to see that UConn got close in the 3rd Q. ...Hoping for a much better game with ND next year.

 

[jaydee602]

This week, I posted a comment warning the forum to beware of Notre Dame because of their talent & motivation. I couldn't believe that I received a dozen "dislikes", more than the total I have received the past three seasons!
I wanted to say, "I told you so", but I honestly feel that Azzi's injury prevented UCONN from proving me wrong. Can you imagine Notre Dame playing this game without Olivia Miles??

 

[HuskyNan]

Well, that sucked. It was a team loss although some people certainly played better than others. Might have had a shot if they hadn't dug themselves such a huge hole in the 1st half -- and then they blew a potential comeback in the 3Q.

Credit to ND, they shot exceptionally well and played how they wanted to play. I won't sit here and say "well we had this or that player out, so" because I find that a pointless exercise. You can only play with the players you have and I think the game became winnable when it got close in 3Q, but a lack of execution and some terrible shooting from people I expect at least a LITTLE more from.

Awful loss, hopefully they take this as a humbling learning experience and come back stronger.

Nice post. I’m giving it a second like

 

[Brewski]

Lou scored over a third of our point total today, and she was face guarded a lot. She cannot do it alone.

 

[Redux]

watching Amari swish make two threes was cool

Agreed, even though they took the second one away (foot on the line they said).

A tough argument for me to make that there were positives, but Edwards played hard end-to-end, Nika wasn't playing her game (I'm not perceptive enough to know exactly why) but never gave up and never lost control. Lou was absolutely a positive; she's not going to carry the team on her back against a really good opponent but was contributing continually to try; she also was a fighter to the end. Good effort by Patterson and if she had gotten a couple of rim rolls this might have been a really good game for her.

Given that decent shots early just weren't dropping, which just changes everything, then the injury, this one didn't hurt a lot (assuming full and quick recovery for Azzi).

 

[TeamFirst!]

ND played out of their mind but we should have expected some issues not having comparable bigs. Everything was "best team ever" as long as we were rolling but it was easy to see some weaknesses with this team. It's just that no one wanted to see them. We struggled to score against a top defense, especially with Azzi out. Even with Azzi it was a challenge as they were taking her out anyway, forcing other players to shoot. We need to knock down those shots but we had a bad day and we lost. It happens. Put this game behind us, hope Azzi is ok and play on. Caroline isn't back to last year's level and we probably should start to consider that she may not be back at this point. We have a problem and it may not be going away.

Every team has a problem though right? Let's just get in the final four and roll the dice. On a good day, this team can beat anyone. On a bad day we cannot.

 

[JBK]

Not sure why Griffen continued to take all those outside shots, long after it proved not to be working. Surely you have something else you can run in lieu of that, anything. Even with your best long-range shooter sidelined. And then he sends Aubry to the bench, as though she had done something wrong, after which the comeback efforts immediately fizzles out.

Inexplicable. Especially coming just one game after he said they have been encouraging each player to find the one or two things that they do very well and focus on that.

I am just wondering if Caroline can reach her potential with all her injuries.

 

[Mike72fl]

Hat off to ND for controlling the tempo of the game. Not an excuse, but losing AZ hurt.

 

[Surly1]

In the course of a season, this counts only as a loss. Of course, there is distaste because it was ND. In the bigger picture, there are a few concerns. Let's hope Aziz is OK - held out as a precaution. Without her in the lineup, Conn's offense struggled in the half court. ND killed UConn on the glass, essentially shutting down the transition game.

Dora was missed in this game - Aubrey is pushed around by bigger players underneath. She had a rough game offensively and Caroline seemed completely out of sorts today.

I hate to give ND credit, but Coach Ivey had a solid gameplay for UConn. After losing to MD last week, it was obvious they were prepared and ready to atone for that loss.

UConn has already had its share of injuries and looking at the UConn bench in the second half, there was too much talent sitting there.

Maybe the bright spot is Amari gave Geno something to think about going forward. She has looked more engaged her last two games and she has a nice stroke and is obviously confident taking the shot.

 

[Aluminny69]

Did the Azzi injury look exactly like her injury last year?

 

[UConnCat]

Well, that sucked. It was a team loss although some people certainly played better than others. Might have had a shot if they hadn't dug themselves such a huge hole in the 1st half -- and then they blew a potential comeback in the 3Q.

Credit to ND, they shot exceptionally well and played how they wanted to play. I won't sit here and say "well we had this or that player out, so" because I find that a pointless exercise. You can only play with the players you have and I think the game became winnable when it got close in 3Q, but a lack of execution and some terrible shooting from people I expect at least a LITTLE more from.

Awful loss, hopefully they take this as a humbling learning experience and come back stronger.

Can't disagree with most of your post except it was not an awful loss. All things considered, not awful.

 

[bantamlaker]

Aubrey couldn’t hit anything today but Geno left her out there so I think she needed to take most of those open shots. My bigger question is what happened to Caroline today. i would have expected her to play an important role especially with Azzi out.

 

[Carnac]

Some thoughts on the ND game:

• A big game on the biggest stage, ND in front of a packed house in South Bend along with a national tv audience. Geno acknowledged yesterday that he would learn a lot about his team by how they responded to this environment.
• The last time UConn won at Purcell was 2018 when freshman Christyn Williams went off for 28pts. Since that victory, not a single current Husky has played a game in South Bend.
• Clearly, the Huskies were not up to the challenge today. Miles was outstanding with her ability to attack the basket and run the offense, and the rest of the ND lineup chipped in.
• In the 2nd half, with Azzi out, UConn went with their best defensive 5, subbing Ayanna for Azzi, and that started to turn the tide somewhat.
• With that said, UConn struggled to score without Azzi on the court.
• I would love to believe that Amari could drop shots from the arc when it really matters. Time will tell.
• The good news is that it’s the first week of December. Plenty of time for UConn to fix things and get everyone healthy.
• Time to lick our wounds and get ready for Princeton.

A fair and accurate analysis. I have nothing else to add. Everyone saw the game. No finger-pointing, whining or berating any of our players. They were not up to the challenge today. It simply was not their day. Notre Dame out played them.

Admittedly, I did not see this coming. Congratulations and a tip of the hat to ND. No more comments on this game from me. Have a pleasant rest of the day everyone.

 

[Blueballer]

This too shall pass. The only important thing about this game was AZZI. Please be OK. People always want us to play tougher opponenets. This was one of them. Early loss on the road not bad because it's OOC.

 

[UConnCat]

Did the Azzi injury look exactly like her injury last year?

What Azzi injury last year?

 

[jdb50]

Azzi on the bench with the knee hyperextension. Why was there no ice on the affected knee? ND won the battle inside in addition to being hot from outside. Hard to overcome.

 

[wingsfan055]

Pretty easy to diagnose. ND controlled the paint on both ends. UConn outrebounded 39-26. Everything looked easy for ND, hard for us. Losing Fudd hurt, but to be honest, probably would not have made this a win. Uconn/Fudd was playing poorly when she got hurt. AG/CD a combined 1-15, 5 personal fouls, 4 turnovers, 1 assist. Ugh.. They couldnt compete with ND's size, physical play, and aggressiveness. The others played as well as they could. Ugly loss that exposed our Achilles heel - lack of size & post play. Dorka will help hopefully when she gets back.