New Amari article

[HuskyNan]

Journal Inquirer

Serving towns east of the Connecticut River

www.journalinquirer.com

 

[JoePgh]

Journal Inquirer

Serving towns east of the Connecticut River

www.journalinquirer.com

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[HuskyNan]

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[EricLA]

“Thinking back on it, it was definitely aggravating that I took it as lightly as I did,” DeBerry said. “I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could. There was more that I could have done. Yes it was aggravating, but I’ll use that feeling to make sure that it doesn’t happen again this year.

“There was a big trust factor. I showed Coach that I wasn’t trustworthy enough to be on the court when needed even when we were down a couple of people. Once we got into the NCAA tournament, he said, ‘With what you did this year, you could have been helping us a lot more right now.’ Even today we had a conversation about how I shouldn’t leave it up to him for me to play in games. I should be the one to make him think, ‘I can’t have her on the bench.’ ”

She did show Auriemma something late in the season. It was enough that with starting center Olivia Nelson-Ododa with two fouls and Dorka Juhász sidelined after left wrist surgery the Hall of Fame coach called on DeBerry with 3:22 left in the first half of the national championship game with South Carolina at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

“I thought I handled it pretty well,” DeBerry said. “The day before we had a public practice and he pulled me to the side and said, ‘I want to let you know you have to be ready. I’m serious now. Be ready and don’t pee your pants when you’re out there.’ So I told him, ‘I’ll go the bathroom before the game and I’ll be good.’ He goes, ‘I’m serious,’ and I told him again that I’d be fine. I went in there and tried to do what he wanted me to do.”

That last line by her was funny. Another great article by Adamec. Some other great quotes from Amari in the article. It should help ease concerns from fans that she had too much of a lackadaisical attitude that might transfer to her sophomore year. Not sure what kind of sophomore jump we can expect, but knowing that she is working her butt off, and her comments understanding what Geno and the coaches want/need/expect from her, indicates she is ready to rock and roll!

Obviously really rooting for her. No one was more animated on the bench. She's clearly a great teammate and supportive player. I am really hoping all her hard work pays off and she hits the ground running as a "trusted" part of the post rotation. Go Amari!!

 

[Bigboote]

She seems to contradict herself a few times. “I was too laid back. . . it’s aggravating I took it as lightly as I did. . . I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could.”

She still sounds unsure of herself. Can she fill a role? “That remains to be seen.” I would have hoped her response would be “Damn right, I’ll fill a role.”

 

[Bone Dog]

I'm glad she contradicted herself. Out of the inner turmoil she feels about last year something great will emerge. If she merely said "Damn right," it would mean she wasn't confronting her demons at all. THAT would have been a bad sign.

 

[HuskyNan]

She seems to contradict herself a few times. “I was too laid back. . . it’s aggravating I took it as lightly as I did. . . I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could.”

She still sounds unsure of herself. Can she fill a role? “That remains to be seen.” I would have hoped her response would be “Damn right, I’ll fill a role.”

She’s still a young player and not too polished with the press yet. I wouldn’t dissect her statements too carefully. To me, the takeaway is that Amari is determined to get inthe regular rotation and willing to prove Geno he should put her there. The rest is filler.

 

[victor64]

One thing is undeniable. She is a skilled offensive player.

 

[HopJim]

One thing is undeniable. She is a skilled offensive player.

I have been predicting great things from Amari so I hope you are right. We have little to base our evaluation on except a few open jumpers when the games were out of hand.

 

[Zarathustra]

I wish only the best for Amari....... Go Girl, ... Go
You can only play as you practice..... ( very hard ). Z

 

[victor64]

I have been predicting great things from Amari so I hope you are right. We have little to base our evaluation on except a few open jumpers when the games were out of hand.

The available data is minimal. She appears to have decent range facing the basket (she was more than willing to put it up), Amari and Piath had several nice two man games from the high and low post position. The unknowns are whether she can score with her back to the basket, can she catch and finish off a pick and roll, is she consistently able to use her left hand to score.

She was ranked consistently in the top ten in the country and made at least one FIBA team. Offensive skills must have demonstrated during those times.

Plus, if Geno didn't think she had potential, suggestions would have been to possibly consider going elsewhere.

I always thought that among other things she couldn't play anything but zone defense and that kept her off the floor.

All conjecture for sure.

 

[FormerCTrez]

She seems to contradict herself a few times. “I was too laid back. . . it’s aggravating I took it as lightly as I did. . . I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could.”

She still sounds unsure of herself. Can she fill a role? “That remains to be seen.” I would have hoped her response would be “Damn right, I’ll fill a role.”

Contradiction? Maybe. But her statement could also be viewed as her being a young, immature basketball player. Now, she’s a year older, a little bit wiser, somewhat smarter, and finally realizes how hard she has to work for a spot on the floor. I believe in her, and am rooting for her to show the talent and skills she’s blessed with.

 

[SVCBeercats]

It wouldn't let me read the article without a subscription.

Wow! Sounds very immature! I don't see this changing. Peoples' value systems do not change easily. I expect zippo from Amari. If she jacks around this season like she did last season, well pull the scholarship and send her packing. Focus on the players committed to working. There is only so much time to teach the players. Why waste time and effort on someone not committed to the UCONN way?

• Amari doesn’t want a repeat of what was a lost freshman season.
• “This season I’m going to show them I’m going to work hard all summer so I gain that trust that they know I can be counted on when needed. Geno: She comes and goes.
• It was a test-the-waters type of year when I could have done a little more.” If I were her teammate I'd read her the riot act!
• DeBerry could not deliver even when there were only seven or eight players available due to injuries.
• “I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could. (Obviously not!) There was more that I could have done. Yes it was aggravating. … for Geno and CD and your teammates.
• At the NCAA tournament, Geno said, ‘With what you did (didn't do?) this year, you could have been helping us a lot more right now.’
• “The day before we had a public practice and he pulled me to the side and said, ‘I want to let you know you have to be ready. I’m serious now. Be ready and don’t pee your pants when you’re out there.’ So I told him, ‘I’ll go the bathroom before the game and I’ll be good.’ He goes, ‘I’m serious,’ and I told him again that I’d be fine. Grow up kid!
• Can DeBerry fill a role? “That remains to be seen,” Auriemma said. “I would love to see that happen.” (Bet he is not holding his breath.)
• Coming in here I thought I was doing OK. Playing against Liv and Dorka I quickly realized that this was something different. Who goes to UCONN to do OK?!

Ok! If Ayanna and Isunah came to UCONN to do more than OK, focus on them and forget Amari.

 

[GG]

Excited to see Amari’s hard work pay off this year.

 

[Alydar]

From what my eyes have seen of Brady and Patterson they are both hard workers so DeBerry has no choice but to work as hard or risk falling behind them too. Toss the return of Griffin into the pot too.

 

[TeamFirst!]

If you really are objective about Amari's development, she improved a lot last year. She's much quicker than she was in high school. She lost a lot of weight. She made substantial progress. She was a big lumbering post in high school slow to get up and down the floor and succeeding mainly on her height advantage and a few post moves. Now she is developing her outside shot, and more mobile on defense. She still needs further shot development, strength for rebounding and defense. More agressiveness. I think she's developing as fast as she can and she may be an ONO level player by the time she graduates. I love her personality and team spirit. She's obviously a very likeable person. I think she's got a problem though with both Ayanna and Ice taking some of her expected PT.

 

[Skeets]

Wow! Sounds very immature! I don't see this changing. Peoples' value systems do not change easily. I expect zippo from Amari. If she jacks around this season like she did last season, well pull the scholarship and send her packing. Focus on the players committed to working. There is only so much time to teach the players. Why waste time and effort on someone not committed to the UCONN way?

• Amari doesn’t want a repeat of what was a lost freshman season.
• “This season I’m going to show them I’m going to work hard all summer so I gain that trust that they know I can be counted on when needed. Geno: She comes and goes.
• It was a test-the-waters type of year when I could have done a little more.” If I were her teammate I'd read her the riot act!
• DeBerry could not deliver even when there were only seven or eight players available due to injuries.
• “I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could. (Obviously not!) There was more that I could have done. Yes it was aggravating. … for Geno and CD and your teammates.
• At the NCAA tournament, Geno said, ‘With what you did (didn't do?) this year, you could have been helping us a lot more right now.’
• “The day before we had a public practice and he pulled me to the side and said, ‘I want to let you know you have to be ready. I’m serious now. Be ready and don’t pee your pants when you’re out there.’ So I told him, ‘I’ll go the bathroom before the game and I’ll be good.’ He goes, ‘I’m serious,’ and I told him again that I’d be fine. Grow up kid!
• Can DeBerry fill a role? “That remains to be seen,” Auriemma said. “I would love to see that happen.” (Bet he is not holding his breath.)
• Coming in here I thought I was doing OK. Playing against Liv and Dorka I quickly realized that this was something different. Who goes to UCONN to do OK?!

Ok! If Ayanna and Isunah came to UCONN to do more than OK, focus on them and forget Amari.

Grains of truth, but overly harsh. Why do we feel the need to trash our own players? I would rather support Amari than trash her.

 

[HuskyNan]

Wow! Sounds very immature! I don't see this changing. Peoples' value systems do not change easily. I expect zippo from Amari. If she jacks around this season like she did last season, well pull the scholarship and send her packing. Focus on the players committed to working. There is only so much time to teach the players. Why waste time and effort on someone not committed to the UCONN way?

• Amari doesn’t want a repeat of what was a lost freshman season.
• “This season I’m going to show them I’m going to work hard all summer so I gain that trust that they know I can be counted on when needed. Geno: She comes and goes.
• It was a test-the-waters type of year when I could have done a little more.” If I were her teammate I'd read her the riot act!
• DeBerry could not deliver even when there were only seven or eight players available due to injuries.
• “I was working hard every practice, as hard as I could. (Obviously not!) There was more that I could have done. Yes it was aggravating. … for Geno and CD and your teammates.
• At the NCAA tournament, Geno said, ‘With what you did (didn't do?) this year, you could have been helping us a lot more right now.’
• “The day before we had a public practice and he pulled me to the side and said, ‘I want to let you know you have to be ready. I’m serious now. Be ready and don’t pee your pants when you’re out there.’ So I told him, ‘I’ll go the bathroom before the game and I’ll be good.’ He goes, ‘I’m serious,’ and I told him again that I’d be fine. Grow up kid!
• Can DeBerry fill a role? “That remains to be seen,” Auriemma said. “I would love to see that happen.” (Bet he is not holding his breath.)
• Coming in here I thought I was doing OK. Playing against Liv and Dorka I quickly realized that this was something different. Who goes to UCONN to do OK?!

Ok! If Ayanna and Isunah came to UCONN to do more than OK, focus on them and forget Amari.

Wow, what a rant. You think it’s easy to be an 18 year old freshman for the Huskies?

“Freshman year is, I think, terrible for anyone,” said [Napheesa] Collier, who led the early dominant charge by UConn starters in the first quarter before little-used reserves entered for the second. “It’s really hard being a freshman at any program, let alone Connecticut, where you have all these things that come with it. ... I do relate to [the freshmen]. But you've got to push through it. It's easier said than done, but it's something you really have to do. Otherwise, you're not going to grow. You're going to stay locked in the cycle of not being confident and not playing the way we want to play.”

UConn’s Napheesa Collier Says Freshman Year Is ‘Terrible For Anyone’

UConn’s play Thursday in a 78-60 victory over Tulsa, and perhaps Geno Auriemma’s blunt assessment that followed, clearly left players slightly uncomfortable. Senior Kia Nurse, junior Az…

www.courant.com

"I think all of us always joke that you're actually more in trouble if he's not yelling at you," Bird said, laughing. "The quicker you figure that out, the better. He's probably yelling at you, and he's probably hard on you because he sees the potential, and he's just trying to get you to reach it."

The first tip {Sue, Stevie, Napheesa] gave me is that you cannot handle Coach Auriemma," Bueckers recounted. "He kind of just comes at you, and you really don't have any say about it. He's gonna push you. He's gonna test you. I talked to Stewie, and I played on a 3-on-3 team with Napheesa Collier, and they told me that freshman year is going to be pretty hard just because you're transitioning from high school to college, and you have a lot of things you have to work on."

WNBA superstar Sue Bird gives college basketball's newest sensation some advice on playing at UConn under Geno Auriemma

Fellow UConn greats Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart also gave Paige Bueckers some insight, including "that you cannot handle Coach Auriemma."

www.insider.com

“The{ coaches] really do a good job of preparing people to succeed, of preparing people to be hard workers and to give back in some way, to understand what it actually means to work hard,” Lobo said.

Twenty-five years ago, UConn women start dynasty with first national basketball title

The 1994-95 Huskies demonstrated internally and externally what UConn could be — not just by winning national championships, but by impacting the game well beyond the confines of Storrs.

www.tampabay.com

 

[CL82]

It wouldn't let me read the article without a subscription.

Alternative link to article

It is an interesting read.

(@HuskyNan - I’m not sure I would call it a rant, it seems more like a ramble. I do find Amari‘s use of qualifiers in her quotes interesting. It’s a little different from what we typically hear from Huskies.)

 

[HuskyNan]

Alternative link to article

It is an interesting read.

(@HuskyNan - I’m not sure I would call it a rant, it seems more like a ramble. I do find Amari‘s use of qualifiers in her quotes interesting. It’s a little different from what we typically hear from Huskies.)

Seemed like a rant against Amari to me but, po-tay-to, po-tah-to, same difference.

Rebecca has said many times she thought she was working hard in her freshman year but turned out to be wrong. I finally found this:

(Auriemma) helped me realize that I could go farther than the boundaries I had set up for myself. When I thought, ‘This is all I can do, this is how hard I can work and I can't work any harder, I can't go any farther,' he wouldn't accept that and he'd push you past that point. Next to my parents, he's had the biggest impact on who I became as a young woman, just because I look at things differently. I don't look at anything as impossible and I don't look at anything as being something I am unable to do.

Collected Wisdom: Rebecca Lobo, former UConn/WNBA star and ESPN broadcaster

Before becoming one of ESPN's top women's basketball broadcasters, Rebecca Lobo was one of the sport's pioneers. She helped lead Connecticut's rise as a national power, capping a perfect 35-0 season …

www.oklahoman.com

Rebecca also said she nearly transferred in her sophomore year because Geno was so hard on her so it’s not like she woke up during her freshman year and decided to do what he wanted. People need to be patient. Everyone matures and blooms in their own time.

 

[CL82]

Seemed like a rant against Amari to me but, po-tay-to, po-tah-to, same difference.

My bad, I thought you were referring to Amari‘s quotes, which, obviously, didn’t seem like a rant. On the reread, I agree that @SVCBeercats post did seem like it was a little higher energy than it needed to be.

 

[LarryLegend]

If you really are objective about Amari's development, she improved a lot last year. She's much quicker than she was in high school. She lost a lot of weight. She made substantial progress. She was a big lumbering post in high school slow to get up and down the floor and succeeding mainly on her height advantage and a few post moves. Now she is developing her outside shot, and more mobile on defense. She still needs further shot development, strength for rebounding and defense. More agressiveness. I think she's developing as fast as she can and she may be an ONO level player by the time she graduates. I love her personality and team spirit. She's obviously a very likeable person. I think she's got a problem though with both Ayanna and Ice taking some of her expected PT.

She better play more than 83 minutes total.

 

[JellyBean]

Journal Inquirer

Serving towns east of the Connecticut River

www.journalinquirer.com

Thanks for sharing this awesome article. Reading Amari's comments, I love the maturity of this young lady. I am rooting for her and believe that she is going to be a solid player this season.

 

[Carnac]

Seemed like a rant against Amari to me but, po-tay-to, po-tah-to, same difference.

Rebecca has said many times she thought she was working hard in her freshman year but turned out to be wrong. I finally found this:

(Auriemma) helped me realize that I could go farther than the boundaries I had set up for myself. When I thought, ‘This is all I can do, this is how hard I can work and I can't work any harder, I can't go any farther,' he wouldn't accept that and he'd push you past that point. Next to my parents, he's had the biggest impact on who I became as a young woman, just because I look at things differently. I don't look at anything as impossible and I don't look at anything as being something I am unable to do.

Collected Wisdom: Rebecca Lobo, former UConn/WNBA star and ESPN broadcaster

Before becoming one of ESPN's top women's basketball broadcasters, Rebecca Lobo was one of the sport's pioneers. She helped lead Connecticut's rise as a national power, capping a perfect 35-0 season …

www.oklahoman.com

Rebecca also said she nearly transferred in her sophomore year because Geno was so hard on her so it’s not like she woke up during her freshman year and decided to do what he wanted. People need to be patient. Everyone matures and blooms in their own time.

Me too, but I read his comment with an open mind. I’m always interested in the thoughts and observations of other “UConn fans” (not trolls). We don’t have to agree with everything that is posted here. There was some truth mixed in those comments. I agree that players (people) mature and gain a sense of awareness at their own pace.

I’ve encountered 15 year olds that were way more mature and responsible that some 18-19 and 20 year olds I’ve met. Amari didn’t live up to the expectations Geno and UConn Nation had for her. We know it, and she knows it. That‘s why I’m very interested in seeing how she conducts herself this year.

How focused and serious is she in becoming the player Geno thought she could be when he offered her? We’ll soon find out. I’ll repeat something “Oldude” commented recently….Amari will either step up, or step aside this year. She’ll either be part of the solution or a cheerleader once again. There is a place for her in the rotation if she wants it. If not, there are several others that can and will fill the void. The choice is hers. No one can stop or hold her back except her. She said she threw the Pom poms away. She won’t need them anymore. We’ll see.

I’m on the front row of her cheering section and I have my Pom poms!!