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Post by ismhuskyfan on Mar 26, 2024 17:31:23 GMT
Why do I feel that UCONN will be favored to beat Duke on Saturday? Because they will. We all know Buckets is ready to play, AE needs to match her game intensity. Our freshmen are no longer playing like freshmen with the real time experience they are getting. I bet you a lot more people are starting to repeat what Rebecca Lobo said about UCONN in this tournament. Our kids are smelling F4 and frankly, so am I. Go Huskies!!!
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Post by momandapplepie on Mar 26, 2024 18:16:48 GMT
Why do I feel that UCONN will be favored to beat Duke on Saturday? Because they will. We all know Buckets is ready to play, AE needs to match her game intensity. Our freshmen are no longer playing like freshmen with the real time experience they are getting. I bet you a lot more people are starting to repeat what Rebecca Lobo said about UCONN in this tournament. Our kids are smelling F4 and frankly, so am I. Go Huskies!!! Current betting line has UConn as 8.5 point favorites. At #7 Duke is the lowest seed among the Sweet 16. That arguably gives us the easiest path to the EE among the remaining teams. Presume we will face USC in the Regional Final. Baylor barely got by a VT team playing without its best player and All American Elizabeth Kitley. I don't think they can beat the Trojans. Frankly, I am concerned about our ability t do so as well. Good guards have been the achilles heal in all of our losses. JuJu Watkins is probably better than any of the guards that have torched us to date. And at 6'2" she is taller than both Nika and Paige and that is going to pose defensive problems as well. Back to reality. This is not a vintage UConn powerhouse team that allows us to talk about future games as if victories in intervening are a given. We need to take it one game at a time and just focus on Duke. In roughly the past month the Blue Devils have recorded a double-digit victory over NC State and a double-digit road win against the same Syracuse team we just beat. They also beat VT earlier in the year when they had a healthy Kitley in the lineup. They played ND closer than we did too. No matter what the betting line or predictive models show for this game, Duke has multiple wins this year that prove they are capable of taking us down. Having said that, if we play up to our normal ability level, and don't suffer any injuries, I think we should win. Duke really doesn't have any superstars and relies on depth with 9 of their 11 players averaging 12.4 mpg or more. That is going to test our stamina. Hopefully, we will be able to build up enough of a lead to guard against tired legs in the 4th quarter after playing a roster of 6 against 9 for the previous three. |
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Post by ismhuskyfan on Mar 26, 2024 19:23:51 GMT
Why do I feel that UCONN will be favored to beat Duke on Saturday? Because they will. We all know Buckets is ready to play, AE needs to match her game intensity. Our freshmen are no longer playing like freshmen with the real time experience they are getting. I bet you a lot more people are starting to repeat what Rebecca Lobo said about UCONN in this tournament. Our kids are smelling F4 and frankly, so am I. Go Huskies!!! Current betting line has UConn as 8.5 point favorites. At #7 Duke is the lowest seed among the Sweet 16. That arguably gives us the easiest path to the EE among the remaining teams. Presume we will face USC in the Regional Final. Baylor barely got by a VT team playing without its best player and All American Elizabeth Kitley. I don't think they can beat the Trojans. Frankly, I am concerned about our ability t do so as well. Good guards have been the achilles heal in all of our losses. JuJu Watkins is probably better than any of the guards that have torched us to date. And at 6'2" she is taller than both Nika and Paige and that is going to pose defensive problems as well. Back to reality. This is not a vintage UConn powerhouse team that allows us to talk about future games as if victories in intervening are a given. We need to take it one game at a time and just focus on Duke. In roughly the past month the Blue Devils have recorded a double-digit victory over NC State and a double-digit road win against the same Syracuse team we just beat. They also beat VT earlier in the year when they had a healthy Kitley in the lineup. They played ND closer than we did too. No matter what the betting line or predictive models show for this game, Duke has multiple wins this year that prove they are capable of taking us down. Having said that, if we play up to our normal ability level, and don't suffer any injuries, I think we should win. Duke really doesn't have any superstars and relies on depth with 9 of their 11 players averaging 12.4 mpg or more. That is going to test our stamina. Hopefully, we will be able to build up enough of a lead to guard against tired legs in the 4th quarter after playing a roster of 6 against 9 for the previous three. We have Buckets and they don’t. Teams can not double team Paige because we have reliable shooters she can dish too. I’m going with UCONN by double digits 78-65. There, I said it 😀 |
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Post by momandapplepie on Mar 26, 2024 19:52:29 GMT
We have Buckets and they don’t. Teams can not double team Paige because we have reliable shooters she can dish too. I’m going with UCONN by double digits 78-65. There, I said it 😀 I would only have been surprised if you did NOT predict a double-digit win ISM! In a 5- or maybe even a 3-game series, we win the series every time. But the one-and-done nature of the NCAAs leaves no margin for error. We have all seen lesser teams beat more talented teams in a single game by getting very hot from the arc. Just ask the Kentucky men about that. Duke has beaten two very good teams this year - NC State by 11 and a VT team with AA Kitley in a 63-46 blowout. That proves that on any given night they can beat a very good team. They are the underdogs against us and thus have no pressure. Everyone expects them to lose. They use a 9-person rotation that is particularly well suited for opponents who have short benches like ours. The rankings, predictive models, and bookies all say UConn but they all said the same thing before some of our losses too. This could be a trap game if we take their #7 seeding lightly and/or are looking ahead to USC. We have to trust Geno and the staff to not let that happen. Their 39-year track record in that regard suggests they won't. If we play to our ability, we should gain a shot at returning to the FF after a one year absence. The other side of the coin and reason for optimism - both of the Duke wins I cited came in the friendly confines of Cameron. We are playing them in close-to-our-home Boston. Both of those opponents also defeated Duke when they played in their own home gyms. |
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