David and Goliath, Elsewhere Known as UConn and Louisville: Women's Final Tips Tonight

Uh Oh. Looks who is baaack:

photo:  espn.com

UConn, losers of the previous three matches with Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame, lit the Irish's offensive sets on fire and made s'mores. On the offensive end, freshman Breeana Stewart bombed them with shots from every spot on the court. Yup. UConn is back. And playing their best basketball of the year. The Huskies look positively UConnian.

photo:  Lee Michaelson

Their opponent tonight in the final is about as much fun as you can have, short of a can of silly string and finger paints. Shoni Schimmel does crazy things on the court. She drives into Brittney Griner. She gets in the face of Odessey Sims. She makes ridiculous no-look behind the back bounce passes to her sister. She drains tres. But mostly, I think, she inspires her team. Even so, I haven't seen Louisville do what UConn just did -- put together a complete 40 minute game.

And somehow, even when having lapses and lulls, the Cardinals have gone on this run, taking out Baylor, Tennessee and Cal. It is nothing short of miraculous. It's not always pretty but it is always, always fun. With Shoni Schimmel held in check offensively on Sunday night, the Cards played shut down defense in the second half, holding Cal to just 20 points in 20 minutes. That's just crazy. Then the rest of the Cards -- Antonita Slaughter, Shoni's sister Jude, and  the rest of the Cards stepped up, erased a 10 point deficit, then set to work to build their own lead. Every time I count them out, the rise to the occasion.

But as fun and magical and incredible as this run has been, they can't be UConn, can they? Can they?

Let's take a quick look through the numbers.

First, there's the history. UConn is, well, UConn, the most storied women's team the history of women's sports not named Tennessee. Coach Geno Auriemma is looking for his eighth national title (which would tie the great Pat Summitt.) But that's history, right? There's no Sue Bird on this UConn team, no Diana Taurasi, no Maya Moore.

Still, they're UConn. Their average scoring margin advantage this season? 33.2 points per game, best in the nation. (This includes beating up on very good teams in the regular season by wide margins -- Duke by 30 points, Texas A & M by 31 points, Stanford by 26 points, South Florida by 34, lest you think the stat is padded with a bunch of 'Little Sisters of the Poor and Meek' type teams.) In the tournament, their average margin of victory is 35 points.

On the other hand, Louisville's average is not quite in that rarified air, but it is a very respectable 14.8 point per game advantage. And the games in the tourney have been nail-biters, nearly all of them but the first round.

What about the players? UConn has a huge height advantage, with four players over 6' 2" tall -- Stephanie Dolson (6' 5"), Morgan Tuck (6' 2"), Breeana Stewart (6' 4") and the little used (due to injury) Kiah Stokes (6' 3").

The Cards counter with freshman Sarah Hammond (6' 2") and ... okay, Sarah Hammond. Okey-Doke. I guess this is a literal David v. Goliath situation then.

And then there's that UConn defense, capable of discombobulating even the best offenses. Consider what they did to Skylar Diggins, the best point guard I've ever seen in the womens' game, just this past Sunday night? Notre Dame's offense was hinky and out of joint. They were forcing bad shots and each player was trying to win the game on her own -- which is completely unlike them. Did Notre Dame just fall apart out of nowhere? Not bloody likely. No. UConn's defense did that to them.

It seems impossible an impossible task for Louisville to take down this team, doesn't it? But the Cards have two things going for them.

photo:  Gerald Herbert, AP

One is that the Schimmel sisters play fearlessly. They play 'Rez Ball' as it is affectionately known. Shoni is a firey player and Jude is much more cerebral, but their teammates feed off of both of them, I think. This team team ain't skeered. They ain't skeered of anybody. And as they play UConn every year in the Big East, they are less intimidated than other teams might be. (Not that that helped the Irish much on Sunday night.)

The other thing the Cards have going for them is that defense. Since taking over at Louisville in 2007, Jeff Walz has taken the Cards to two NCAA Championship games (this year and in 2008-2009, when the Cards lost to UConn.) If you're reading this post, chances are you know a good bit about UConn's Geno Auriemma, but you may not remember that Walz was an assistant coach for Brenda Frese at Maryland when the Terps won the championship in 2006 versus Duke. Walz has been so good at Louisville, such a defensive master, that I have started to believe that he was one of the biggest reasons for that national championship in Maryland. In the last week or so, he has created defenses to shut down Baylor and Tennessee and Cal. If anybody can think of a way to shut down Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Breeana Stewart, this is the guy to do it.

Given all the above givens -- the history, the size advantage, the records -- by any measure this is UConn's game to lose. I don't think that Louisville has an answer to Stewart, who came to life in the Elite 8 and has been unconscious ever since. I haven't seen Louisville play a complete 40 minute game yet. Can they? Can they match UConn for 40 minutes? Can they find a way to curb Stewart and Mosqueda-Lewis and Dolson and Bria Hartley? It's a tall task. 

There is the very real possibility of a UConn blow out. 

But there is also the possibility of history being made. 

Sixteen Reasons to Watch the Women's Sweet 16

Yup, that's RG III
photo:  Doug Feinberg, AP

Four Behemoths -- Baylor, Notre Dame, UConn and Stanford. Depth has grown by leaps and bounds in women's basketball over the last five years. For my money, the second round games with 32 teams remaining are some of the most entertaining you'll ever see. That said, Baylor, UConn, Notre Dame and Stanford are in their own category of greatness. I can't see any of them losing in this round (I could see Stanford being a bit shaky in the Elite 8 ...), so if you like seeing dynastic teams, if you like watching the monsters of the sport, the Baylor Bears are for you.

The 2013 Women's Hoops Tourney -- Round 1 Review

from USF's athletic site

Who helped carry their team through the first round? What player who you never heard before showed up big under the big lights? This is by no means a complete list, but through the first two days of the tournament, these players jumped off the screen for me.

-- Inga Orekhova, South Florida. In the most exciting game of the first day (as Baylor coach Kim Mulkey put it, 'best dang game of the day'), the South Florida Bulls pulled off an upset of Texas Tech, on the Red Raider's home court. As much as I enjoy watching the Smith twins play, it was the pride of Sevastapol, Ukraine, Inga Orekhova who led her team down the stretch, hitting a huge 3-pointer with about a minute to go to tie the game. In all, she had 20 points (5 of them inside the last two-minutes) and her team fed her the ball with confidence.

Of Leviathans and Cinderellas, the Women's Final Tips Tonight

For the last several years, I've heard it said that the problem with women's basketball is the hegemony of UConn (and Tennessee and Stanford, to a lesser degree.) Suddenly, yesterday, after Texas A&M knocked off Stanford and Notre Dame took down mighty UConn (you know what they say -- fourth time's a charm), I heard it said that nobody will watch tonight's final because, wait for it -- UConn and Stanford aren't playing.

Huh? Too much UConn? Too little UConn? I'm confused. So now David felling Goliath is a bad thing? Are dynasties good? Or bad? Are we supposed to want a visit from Cinderella or not, for crying out loud?!

We need UConn (and Tennessee and Stanford) because Cinderella is just another obscure, unknown housewench without the evil step-mother. And make no mistake, the Huskies and the Vols and the Cardinal are the evil stepmothers in this tale. We need them because underdogs don't exist in a vacuum. They require opposition, are reliant on tyranny (or at least overwhelming odds.)

David disappears into the vapor without Goliath.

But it's also no fun if Goliath always wins. Who wants to tune in if David never ever notches a victory? We watch because of the possibility of Cinderella dancing with Prince Charming. So we need UConn (and Tennessee and Stanford). And we also need them to get knocked down every now and again because what compels us, what grabs our attention is the push-pull, the tug of war between big and little, the battle of expected against unexpected, the dynastic and the scrappy.

Without the diametrical opposition of the underdog versus leviathan paradigm laying over it, the 1985 Villanova men's team is just another champion. Which is my high-falutin' way of saying, had 'Nova beaten any team other than Georgetown, nobody remembers that game. But given what Georgetown was, Villanova's victory is considered one of the greatest upsets in men's tournament history. Everybody remembers it, everybody refers to it; heck, 25 years have passed and that game is as relevant, as present, as though it happened yesterday.

So what does this women's final mean, given that the titans have already been toppled, knocked from their exalted perches on high?

It means that this is a Final Four we'll be talking about for a long time to come because it's a harbinger of the development of the game.

It means that depth of field is developing over time. These things don't happen overnight. What we are watching, and I find it fascinating to have a front row seat for this, is a sport mid-stride in a massive growth spurt. For now, the underdogs are teams from power conferences (the Big East and Big 12 are the two best in the women's game, by far), but we're on the road to seeing a team from a lesser conference or a mid-major break through.

It means that there is no substitute for good basketball, which is what all four teams gave us Sunday night. That the outcomes of both Final Four match-ups turned out differently than most anticipated is of little consequence. Those were great games and both Notre Dame and Texas A&M made their way to this stage the hard way.

And isn't that a good thing for any sport?

Last Chance, Last Dance -- Ten Players to Watch in the Women's NCAA Basketball Tourney

One of the most satisfying things about watching women's college hoops is that you get a chance to know the players over a long period of time. Nobody leaves early for the WNBA. [To paraphrase a radio jock I once heard, if a WNBA game broke out in my back yard, I'd pull the blinds and go to bed.] And despite the fact that a new young player or two grabs my attention every year (hello Aaryn Ellenberg and Stefanie Dolson), there are those players who I feel like I've gotten to know over their careers. I know their strengths and weaknesses, I've seen them develop different parts of their games. In fact, it feels strange to sit down and watch the tourney without Jayne Appel and Tina Charles this year. In short, this is my last chance to see the players who I have enjoyed watching for several years, players who are dancing for the last time in their wonderful college careers. In no particular order,

TEN SENIORS TO WATCH IN THE WOMEN'S NCAA TOURNEY:

1. Deveraux Peters, Forward - Notre Dame. I've written about it many times before, but basketball in the Big East is like a prize fight. Last team standing wins. To win defensive player of the year in this conference, you have to play like a pissed off Dick Butkus. No doubt Peters' 60 steals and 58 blocks helped her win this award, you have to see her to see how disruptive she is on the defensive end of the floor. Plus, she's got the best shooting percentage (.583) on the team.

2. Courtney Vandersloot, Guard -- Gonzaga. I don't get to see as many of the 'Zags games as I would like, but when I do, it is a real treat to watch Vandersloot. She has extraordinary vision. It seems like she has eyes in the back of her head. She moves, ball fakes, dribble-drives and then, as they say in football, she throws her teammates open. I've never seen a better passer in the women's game. She is an assists machine.

3. Jantel Lavendar, Center -- Ohio State. Last year, the Buckeyes were bounced in the second round by Mississippi State, continuing a disturbing trend wherein OSU has lost to a team with a worse seed in the first or second round in four of the last five seasons. I know coach Jim Foster is fed up and I expect Lavendar is, too. She plays nearly every minute of every game and averages a double-double (22.7 points and 10.8 rebounds.) This is her last shot to make a deep run in the tourney.

4. Maya Moore, Forward -- UConn. What can I say about Maya Moore that hasn't been said before? She is a force of nature and while every player at this level is competitive, Moore's competitive drive 'goes to eleven.' Georgetown held her to 6 points in the Big East tourney, so the next day, she took it out on Rutgers. She couldn't be stopped. She has a great chance at going out on top, and the Huskies have been pretty near unbeatable as long as Moore has been in residence in Storrs.

5. Danielle Adams, Forward/Center -- Texas A & M. The thing about Adams is that she is quicker than she looks. Combine that with her tremendously soft hands and she rarely misses chances in the paint. She's really blossomed and grown into her game under Gary Blair. I love watching a player who appears to be having fun, which is another reason I like watching Adams so much.

6. Danielle Robinson, Guard -- Oklahoma. The team that used to belong to the Paris sisters is now totally and completely D-Rob's. She leads her team in scoring, in steals, in assists. Plus, she's silky smooth. Much as I enjoy watching her, she'll need help from Whitney Hand and freshman phenom Aaryn Ellenberg if the Sooners are going to make a run to another Final Four appearance.

7. Angie Bjorklund, Guard/Forward -- Tennessee. Bjorklund lived through the 2009 first round loss and lived to tell. Since then, the Summitt has rebuilt her Vols program back to her usual standards. Bjorklund played the SEC title game with big-time intensity, like she really wanted that number one seed in the Big Dance. Big Time. The big question on Rockytop is, can she and junior Shekinna Stricklen get Tennessee back to the Final Four?

8. Jeanette Pohlen, Guard -- Stanford. Is shooting nearly 42% from three-point range and leads her team in assists. Last year, it was Pohlen's last second heroics that propelled the Cardinal into the Final Four. This year, in handing UConn their first loss since Stanford beat them in the Final Four in 2008, Pohlen was en fuego, draining five three-point shots to lead her team. She played the game of her life. The way the brackets are set up, Pohlen and Stanford could meet UConn again in the final (thank you committee) and if that happens, can she do it again, can she play the best game of her career?

9. Ta’Shia Phillips, Center -- Xavier. The player who's heart was broken because of Pohlen's last minute heroics last year, Phillips is the all-time leading rebounder in the history of the Atlantic 10 conference (and second in the nation with rebounds per game this season.) She's also third in shooting percentage (60.8%). Watch a Musketeers game and you'll lose count of how many put-backs Phillips gets.

10. Victoria Dunlap, Forward -- Kentucky. She's such a smart player and has a beautiful burst of speed. Though they list her at only 6' 1" (only in women's basketball do I ever write things like, 'only 6' 1"'), she can really sky. Can Dunlap and the 'Cats bounce back from the whupping the Vols laid on them? Dunlap has to stay out of foul trouble, has to be on the floor, if they even want to get past the second round this year.

BONUS UNDERCLASSMEN TO WATCH FOR:

The Juniors -- Keisha Hampton, Forward -- DePaul; Nnemkadi Ogwumike, Forward -- Stanford; Shekinna Stricklen, Guard/Forward -- Tennessee; Jasmine Dixon, Forward -- UCLA.

The Sophomores -- Brittney Griner, Center -- Baylor; Morgan Stroman, Forward -- Miami (Fl.); Sugar Rodgers, Guard -- Georgetown; Skylar Diggins, Guard -- Notre Dame.

The Freshmen -- Aaryn Ellenburg, Guard -- Oklahoma; Stefanie Dolson, Center -- UConn; Odyssey Sims, Guard -- Baylor.

Checking in on the 2010 Women's NCAA Tourney Elite Eight

From True/Slant on March 29, 2010:

Women’s NCAA Tourney Elite 8 Upon Us

In a statistic that seems patently impossible, UConn’s Maya Moore is hitting 71% of her shots from 3-point range in the tournament. Outrageous. With Moore on another planet and the magnificence that is Tina Charles, playing UConn right now must be a little like standing in the eye of a hurricane for 40 minutes. While I do not believe that any team is utterly invulnerable, let’s just say the Huskies have parked their team bus right next to unbeatable and walked over.

Meanwhile, the only other team to roll through the first three rounds with ease is Stanford, which makes it seem more and more likely that the two behemoths are on a collision course. I don’t mean to diminish the other teams by stating that. Xavier junior center Ta’Shia Phillips put on an eye-opening performance with a big-time double-double in their win over Gonzaga; Florida State gutted out a tough win against a very good Mississippi State team; I could write tomes about Oklahoma’s depth and Kentucky’s speed; and even more about Baylor and Duke (below). But I really have to wonder if any of those teams can keep the big girls on the block from their appointment with destiny?

Over in “The Bracket of Death” ™ (the Memphis region — any region with Tennessee, Baylor, Duke, WVU, and LSU must be considered a veritable charnel house), Baylor took down the mighty Vols of Tennessee. Brittney Griner was, quite simply, a force of nature. She played every minute of that game and dropped 27 points on Tennessee, but her real impact was her 10 blocked shots. Every time Tennessee got a look they wanted, Griner swatted the ball into the third row. It must be really frustrating to work so hard to create offensive opportunities, simply to have them literally smacked down.

So Baylor moves on in the Bracket of Death to face Duke tonight, a match-up I am really looking forward to as much for the players as for the coaches.

Baylor coach, Kim Mulkey, dresses like Tanya Tucker and struts and fist pumps and jumps around like Jerry Lee Lewis, so I can see where Mulkey might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I must admit, I love it. I just get a kick out of a coach who is as much of a cheerleader as the teams most rabid fan — hell, I think she’d wear face paint if Baylor’s AD would let her. Mulkey’s emotions are right on the edge, barely under the surface; she got misty while the Tennessee game was in live action and a bit more misty during her post-game presser. If she doesn’t genuinely care about her players, then she deserves an Oscar.

Mulkey already has a national championship under her belt, one that Baylor won by beating Michigan State in the final in 2005. The coach at Michigan State that year? Another coach I love to watch — Joanne P. McCallie, now coach of the Duke Blue Devils. McCallie is just lovable. Maybe she because she looks like somebody I could be related to or have been pals with in college, but I have a soft spot for McCallie. (A friend who works in television production was working the women’s tourney in 2005. He did the final between Baylor and Mich. State, so he spent a lot of time around both teams. He raved about McCallie, confirming that while I am often full of it, in this particular case, my instincts were dead-on accurate.)

While I’m on the subject of coaches, after their Sweet Sixteen victory, Huskies coach Geno Auriemma had no criticisms of his team (many in the Storrs area collapsed from shock), but cousin Geno being cousin Geno, he had to stir the pot a bit, so he commented on the Tennessee loss to Baylor the day before by saying that he was glad that a UConn-Tennessee meeting in the Final Four was off the table, not because he doesn’t want to play Tennessee, but because it would inevitably become the “Pat & Geno” show. He felt that would be unfair to the other teams, the players themselves and that the Final Four is, or should be, larger than just two coaches.

I want to go on record as saying that I’ll miss seeing Her High Holiness The Summitt, not because I want to see “Pat & Geno ™” necessarily, but because she’s a coach I really enjoy watching. I love the Summitt Death Stare and if you’ve ever watched even a single LadyVols game, you know what I mean. So, I’ll miss Summitt. (For that matter, I’m bummed that Rutgers went out in the first round because I love watching C. Vivian Stringer, too. I guess you can’t have everything, right?)

While I agree with Auriemma in that the tournament should be about more than just two coaches, everybody wants to see UConn-Tennessee (even Jere Longman at the NYT.) Oklahoma’s Sherri Coale, Stanford’s Tara Vanderveer, and the above mentioned Mulkey and McCallie are not exactly pikers, but at the end of the day, Summitt and Auriemma remain the faces of women’s college basketball as much as Maya Moore and Jane Appel are. The game needs Summitt and Auriemma.

It needs their larger than life personalities. It needs the sustained excellence of both programs, the instantly recognizable Tennessee orange and the passion of the UConn fans.

It needs their genuine antipathy for each other.

Heck, I’m going to watch the games anyway, regardless of the presence or absence of Summitt and Auriemma, Coales and Vanderveer. But we’re not talking about me. Even to the biggest women’s sports neophyte, the names Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma are known quantities, brands as people are fond of saying these days. So if the sport is to continue to grow, it needs Maya Moore and Britney Griner, but it also needs the Pat & Geno show.

I know that cousin Geno and Her High Holiness The Summitt see eye to eye about as often as Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer do, but I think they both care about the game. So it really is time to have a come to Jesus meeting and re-ignite the regular season Tennessee-UConn rivalry.

Checking in on the 2010 Women's NCAA Tourney Sweet Sixteen

From True/Slant on March 27, 2010:


Women’s Sweet 16 Tips Today. Who Invited All These Mid-Majors?

The women’s Sweet 16 is set to start today with an unexpectedly diverse field — even with all four No. 1 seeds advancing, there are lots of gate crashers. Only the Kansas City Region has gone according to form and certainly nobody expected to see two mid-majors advance this far, as well as seeing mighty Ohio State and Jantel Lavender go down in the second round.

Down go the Buckeyes.

On Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, I parked myself courtside, expecting to see live and in person the Jantel Lavender show. Instead, I witnessed the emergence of rising star Alexis Rack and a Mississippi State Bulldog team that plays some of the best defense outside of Storrs, Connecticut.

Some background. Lavender is likely an All-American. She is huge. She’s 6′ 4″ (which, I would point out to give it perspective, is as tall as Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.) And she’s solid. No wonder that she led her team in scoring, in shots attempted, in fouls drawn, in rebounds, and in shot blocks. In short, despite considerable contributions from point guard Samantha Prahalis and sharp-shooting forward Sarah Schultze, every thing the Buckeyes do goes through Lavender.

Most of the game, it was Chanel Mokango’s job to neutralize Lavender. During warm ups, I thought there was no way Mokango could handle it, because while she has the height (she’s listed at 6′ 5″), she is ultra-lean. She looks like a model (back when models didn’t look like they were about two weeks away of dying from starvation.) But Mokango handled Lavender by being in the right spot just about every time the Buckeyes fed the ball to her. Coach Sharon Fanning-Otis and her staff clearly did a great job scouting the Ohio State team; Mokango and her teammates followed the road map to stifle and frustrate the inside game that the Buckeyes desperately wanted to establish.

Not to mention that Mokango has a sweet little mid-range jumper, which is totally unexpected from a player who didn’t pick up a basketball until she was 15 years old.

It was quite a performance. To start the game, Bulldogs found themselves quickly down. They never let the Buckeyes build an insurmountable lead and every time it looked like OSU was going to go on a run, the Bulldogs made a key bucket or a big rebound. Halfway through the first half, things started to turn. OSU’s shooters, who had hit everything in the opening minutes, went stone cold, there was a Bulldog player everywhere they looked, everywhere they tried to dribble, in every passing lane pass, challenging every shot. Every move was contested. The Bulldogs caused a dozen turnovers in the first half. And then a dozen more in the second. Truly, even though Alexis Rack put up 30 points, and Mississippi State had four players in double figures, the turnovers were the story of the game. Ohio State’s frustration was palpable.

Playing with four fouls late in the game, Prahalis was pinned along the baseline with the ball by one of the State guards (I think it was Diamber Johnson). She was so frustrated that she started chirping at the official just behind her, then just winged the ball right off Johnson’s knee. She was T’ed up and out of the game. I don’t mean to call out Prahalis, who plays with a lot of emotion, but it pretty much sums up the second half for the Buckeyes nicely.

The Mighty Zags.

The Gonzaga men’s team has become a staple of March Madness. When the boys of Spokane first started making noise, everybody was enamored of them, the little Jesuit college who could. But after a while, we got used to it. The men’s program is now considered to be like a mid-major plus-plus. It’s not a surprise to see them in the Sweet 16 anymore.

But the women? Last year, the Zags made the dance and lost in a close second round game to Pitt. This year, they were determined to make it past the second round and secure their first ever Sweet 16 bid.

I thought going into this game that the biggest challenge to A & M would be Courtney Vandersloot operating on the outside; and the biggest problem for the Zags would be Danielle Adams operating inside. I was kinda sorta right. Kinda.

If you had told me that at the end of the first half, Vandersloot would have six turnovers and be just one for five shooting from the field, I would have told you that the Aggies had a large lead. Although those stats were true, the story of the game was senior forward, Vivian Frieson.

Frieson dominated the game both inside and out. She carried her team. She rebounded at both ends of the floor, she blocked shots, she hit buckets when her team needed them most. Most of the first half, it was the Inside Vivian Frieson show. In the second half, with Vandersloot still discombobulated, Frieson moved outside and distributed the ball to her teammates, while Vandersloot ran the baseline, working for open looks.

Frieson did everything. She was a big physical presence, with the vision of a true point guard, and the shooting touch of a two guard. It was a tremendous singular performance and Frieson is the reason the Zags take on Xavier in the Sweet 16. Welcome to the dance ladies. Good to have you here.

San Diego State? Really?

The Mountaineers never got into any kind of offensive rhythm against the San Diego State Aztecs. The SDSU D was perhaps the most impressive defensive showing in a round chock full of jaw-dropping, lock-down performances.

Here’s an indication of just how dominant the SDSU defense was: On the night, West Virginia had just three assists in the entire game. Three! The only reason that the Mountaineers weren’t completely and totally routed was the individual efforts of both Sarah Miles and Liz Repella, even though Repella’s shooting touch just wasn’t there from the outside. That was just two talented, tough players gutting out points because there was no real offense to speak of.

Meanwhile, SDSU’s Jene Morris was locked and loaded. Every time Repella or Miles made something happen at the offensive end for WVU, Morris would answer for SDSU. In the last five minutes of the game, Morris had 12 points. Some people say there’s no such thing as “clutch,” that stats just bear out over time. Horse-patootey. Morris’ 12 points in these key moments secured the win just as much as the SDSU defense.

What does it all mean?

What do all these teams have in common? They all play stifling defense. They all use their defense to essentially lift them up on the offensive end. They believe that if they create turnovers, foment confusion, frustrate the other team, it will lead to good things.

I can think of another team that does that so well it carries them to national championships. It’s about time other teams started using UConn’s blueprint.