NCAAW Hoops talk!

[Green Chile]

If Juju comes back (and I really don't know why everybody seems so sure she will, especially if Dallas gets the #1 pick), her, Jazzy, and Kennedy are going to be an absolute problem.

[hermes]

hawkeyes blew the doors off evansville

[Green Chile]

Fantastic win for UCLA.

I said it last year right up until they got throttled by UConn, but UCLA seems almost unbeatable.

Like last year, Betts surrounded by 6'4" shooters. But now with Kneepkens. If Kneepkens is a top 2 pick in the draft, I wouldn't be surprised. I love Fudd, but I'm not sure what Fudd does better than Kneepkens.

Kiki looks healthy, and there's always the Jacquez and Dugalic of it all (I swear Dugalic just seems destined to be a good rotation player for the Lynx).
They still got Gardiner and little Betts coming.

And they beat a hell of a team. Oklahoma isn't very deep. But that starting lineup is about as good as anybody.

Beers is Beers. Chavez got in foul trouble early, but she looks the part as the top young PG in the country. Vann is a stud. Sahara fits right in.

Speaking of players that are destined to be in a Lynx rotation, I'm a huge fan of Verhulst. Somebody is going to get her in the 3rd round and she's going to stick in the W.

[Green Chile]

So proud of those Heels.

18 point losses aren't typically considered impressive, but as young as we are, going against this UCLA team with just an insane amount of talent, depth, and length, we went toe-to-toe for 2.5 quarters.
1st half was some of the best basketball I've ever seen them play. And the exhaustion of trying to do it against a superior team set in.

I like what Courtney has cooking. This team is so young. They ain't there yet, but they are getting there.

[Green Chile]

hawkeyes blew the doors off evansville

I didn't realize ChitChat went to Iowa.

Really good player. I remember her giving UNC fits with GT (though all those GT guards did).

[hermes]

hawkeyes blew the doors off evansville

I didn't realize ChitChat went to Iowa.

Really good player. I remember her giving UNC fits with GT (though all those GT guards did).

yeah she is very good, and very important for the team. she's probably not our best or most talented player but she's the most critical to the success of the team right now. we have good depth everywhere...except for point guard, so we need chitchat to be on the court and effective as much as possible

she's the straw stirring the drink

[Green Chile]

These neutral site games are so stupid.

I love women's ball, but it's not popular enough to fill up random arenas. This week, we've had a bunch big time match-ups at neutral sites with 1000 people in the stands on national TV.

At least put these games in front of some home college crowds that will give the game the energy it deserves.

[Green Chile]

Neutral site or not, these Michigan kids coming out guns ablazin'.

[Green Chile]

Syla, and these Michigan kids, are pretty badass.

Hidalgo is great, but this ain't Akron she's playing against.

[Green Chile]

Fairfield is a great mid-major program, and they fought like hell. Loved the way the Heels responded and finally pulled away.

Curious to see what rotation Banghart will eventually settle on come Feb/March. Essentially playing 11 players now.

s

[DOT]

Sarah Strong is the best player in the country, and I will hear no objections lol

Absolute monster game from her, 29/13/7 with 8 stocks on .792 TS

She's like if Alyssa Thomas could shoot 3s

I took my parents to the game today, crazy the WNBA thinks they're too good for Hartford, it's legit a really nice arena now that they renovated it.

[hermes]

iowa beat uni pretty handily but it was kind of a sloppy game

some big tests coming next week with baylor and miami

[Green Chile]

Sarah Strong is the best player in the country, and I will hear no objections lol

Absolute monster game from her, 29/13/7 with 8 stocks on .792 TS

She's like if Alyssa Thomas could shoot 3s

I took my parents to the game today, crazy the WNBA thinks they're too good for Hartford, it's legit a really nice arena now that they renovated it.

No objections from me.

Ultimately, I don't think current college players are really her competition. If she stays healthy and on the trajectory that she's on, her competition will be against the all-time WNBA greats.

And that freshman Blanca from Ecuador looks like an absolute stud.

[ellobo]

Sarah Strong is the best player in the country, and I will hear no objections lol

Absolute monster game from her, 29/13/7 with 8 stocks on .792 TS

She's like if Alyssa Thomas could shoot 3s

I took my parents to the game today, crazy the WNBA thinks they're too good for Hartford, it's legit a really nice arena now that they renovated it.

No objections from me.

Ultimately, I don't think current college players are really her competition. If she stays healthy and on the trajectory that she's on, her competition will be against the all-time WNBA greats.

And that freshman Blanca from Ecuador looks like an absolute stud.

I'm a UCONN fan, but I had no idea who Blanca Quinonez was until I saw her against Loyola-Chicago, and I've been very impressed. She's big, athletic, skilled, and experienced against older competition. I looked up her background, which is very interesting. She got recruited to an Italian club team at 13 years old after playing on an Ecuadorian youth national team, so she's been living and playing in Italy. Then she played in a Basketball Without Borders showcase at the 2024 WNBA All-Star game, which is where UCONN noticed her (and she knew Dorka Juhasz in Italy, who told her about UCONN). She's bilingual in Spanish and Italian, and her English is already good enough to do interviews and press conferences (and presumably schoolwork).

Here are a few typical Geno quotes about her:

[After she shot badly in an exhibition game] “She missed so many shots yesterday that I didn’t know which language to say, ‘Stop shooting.’ So I said it in English, I said it in Italian and I told her, flat out, ‘Stop shooting,’” Auriemma quipped on his last radio show. “She shot it the next three times she touched it. So we got an [Ecuadorian]-Italian Svetlana (Abrosimova) on my hands right now. Then she made the next three 3-pointers and kinda looked at me like, ‘Yeah, get ready for four more years of this.’”

“She tries to do a lot of things. So in the beginning, that’s okay because she's out there trying to impact the game,” Auriemma said after the BC exhibition. “She'll throw some passes that no one else can throw. There were a couple of them today. Then she'll throw a couple passes that no one else should ever throw.”

These are the kinds of things he says when he really likes and believes in a player.

Despite being top heavy with Strong and Fudd, I think UCONN has a lot of good, but flawed and inconsistent players. Obviously, they're a top team and championship favorite, but if Strong gets in foul trouble and they're cold from three, they're very beatable. Last year's team had Strong and Fudd plus Paige freaking Bueckers, so it's hard to be near as good after losing an all-time great like that from your top three. Serah Williams was a nice addition, but Quinonez looks to me like she has the potential to have an even bigger impact when all is said and done.