NCAA - Women's College Basketball - 2021

Bleedred

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Does anyone follow women's college hoop? My sons attended Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA (classes of 2020 and 2017). It's probably the premiere women's HS program in Massachusetts for the past 30 years. Two recent alums were in the news this week. 2019 graduate Katie Benzan attended Harvard for 3 years then transferred to Maryland this year. In 3 years at Harvard, Katie became the all-time Harvard 3 point shooter. As of today, Katie's Maryland team is #6 in the country and she is the leading 3 point shooter in the nation at 53.42%.

Current Nobles senior Caroline Ducharme was just named 1 of 24 women McDonald's All-Americans and will attend UConn next year. She's 6'0", great passer, deadly from distance and can score inside too (although probably not in college).
 

RedOctober3829

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Does anyone follow women's college hoop? My sons attended Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA (classes of 2020 and 2017). It's probably the premiere women's HS program in Massachusetts for the past 30 years. Two recent alums were in the news this week. 2019 graduate Katie Benzan attended Harvard for 3 years then transferred to Maryland this year. In 3 years at Harvard, Katie became the all-time Harvard 3 point shooter. As of today, Katie's Maryland team is #6 in the country and she is the leading 3 point shooter in the nation at 53.42%.

Current Nobles senior Caroline Ducharme was just named 1 of 24 women McDonald's All-Americans and will attend UConn next year. She's 6'0", great passer, deadly from distance and can score inside too (although probably not in college).
Interesting note—Katie is Patscap Miguel’s niece.

Ducharme and Azzi Fudd will join Paige Bueckers at UConn next year. Fudd is being hyped as the best prospect in decades and Bueckers is the best freshman in the country.
 

BaseballJones

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Moreover, UConn is already #1 in the nation, and will graduate not a single player from this year's squad. They're going to be unreal - back to the dynastic UConn teams of the past kind of good.

Bueckers may be the best PLAYER in the country right now, not just the best freshman.

#8 in the nation in assists per game (6.5)
#4 in the nation in three-point shooting (49.5% on 5 attempts per game)
#28 in the nation in points per game (20.1)

She's presently averaging 20.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 2.5 steals, and she's shooting 54.7% from the floor, 49.5% from three, and 81.3% from the line. Plus she's running the show for the #1 team in the country.

If she's not THE best, she's right up there, and should be a first team All-American already.
 

Humphrey

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I guess it didn't take much for UConn to shake off a couple of (for them) so-so years in women's basketball. So-so in their case was making the Final 4 but not winning it since 2016.

I'm sure the Big East return didn't hurt matters. The AAC was pretty weak in women's basketball.
 

riboflav

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Interesting note—Katie is Patscap Miguel’s niece.

Ducharme and Azzi Fudd will join Paige Bueckers at UConn next year. Fudd is being hyped as the best prospect in decades and Bueckers is the best freshman in the country.
I've coached against Fudd since she was 8 and playing against my 11u team. It's no hype I assure you. She always gave us everything we could handle over the years.

I'm always surprised when players commit to play for Geno because he's such an ass to them. Having talked with several who played for him over the years, they have very little good to say about the man. But, I get the other trappings that go along with committing there. All that said, Fudd's mom is about as hard as a sports mom can be on her kid so she shouldn't be fazed much. As an aside, her mom was an amazing scorer at Madison.
 
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BaseballJones

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I've coached against Fudd since she was 8 and playing against my 11u team. It's no hype I assure you. She always gave us everything we could handle over the years.

I'm always surprised when players commit to play for Geno because he's such an ass to them. Having talked with several who played for him over the years, they have very little good to say about the man. But, I get the other trappings that go along with committing there. All that said, Fudd's mom is about as hard as a sports mom can be on her kid so she shouldn't be fazed much. As an aside, her mom was an amazing scorer at Madison.
I totally disagree with what you're saying about how the players feel about Geno. I've been around this program a long time, and have known personally many dozens of the players. They know he's hard on them, but they know he loves them, and when they graduate, their comments are almost always extraordinarily positive. When you coach that many players over that many years, you're not going to make everyone happy. So I'm not saying that the players you know aren't speaking truthfully from their experience. I just have heard exactly the opposite from TONS of the players throughout the years.
 

yeahlunchbox

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I'm starting to get into women's basketball. URI has been terrible for really pretty much ever, with only one tournament appearance back in the mid 90's, but second year coach Tammi Reiss is the real deal. This year we are 4th in the A10 and had our first winning conference record since that tournament season. Between her improving the women's program and David Cox being hot garbage as the men's head coach, when we're back to being able to go to games I'll be switching my men's season tickets to the women's program.
 

BaseballJones

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UConn should be banned from the tourney just like a men’s team would. It won’t ever happen though.
Virginia had Covid issues, isn't banned. Duke had Covid issues, isn't banned. (though Duke didn't make the tournament because they suck this year)

As long as they are tested and follow the protocols, UConn shouldn't be banned either.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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joe dokes

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The NCAA doesn’t care about the women’s tourney. Their ”weight room” is maybe 5% as big as the men’s room.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2021-womens-ncaa-tournament-ncaa-says-women-got-smaller-gym-than-men-because-there-wasnt-enough-space/

“there wasn’t enough room” was the first reply by the NCAA. They will be sorry if anyone was offended
What if both teams stayed in their lockerroms for an extra 20 minutes to call attention to this or something. Post game interview ("we played hard and the NCAA sucks my hairy ass.") TV networks are paying the crooks at the NCAA a Fucktillion dollars and then the NCAA folks stick the cash their greasy pockets and fuck over anyone they can.
 

canderson

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She's awesome - although I'm mad at her for coaching her team back from a huge deficit to beat one of my alma maters (where she coached at previously, too).
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Unreal game. Such intensity. UConn got lucky after missing so many free throws and it’s too bad that Baylor’s outstanding defender got hurt. But hey, that’s part of the game. They may be the two best teams in the country. Shame one of them had to lose. (But I’m glad it wasn’t UConn!)
 

joe dokes

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Unreal game. Such intensity. UConn got lucky after missing so many free throws and it’s too bad that Baylor’s outstanding defender got hurt. But hey, that’s part of the game. They may be the two best teams in the country. Shame one of them had to lose. (But I’m glad it wasn’t UConn!)
Yeah. Really too bad about Richards. But both teams were on the ropes and kept at it.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Baylor got screwed on their last play, it was a clear foul.
They had let both teams hack the crap out of each other. If they had called that in that spot, THAT would have been a travesty given how they'd been reffing the entire game. That was actually a good example of reffing that remained consistent instead of changing at the last moment.
 

joe dokes

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They had let both teams hack the crap out of each other. If they had called that in that spot, THAT would have been a travesty given how they'd been reffing the entire game. That was actually a good example of reffing that remained consistent instead of changing at the last moment.
One of my gripes about women's game reffing is they usually ticky-tack the hell out of the game. This one was pretty physical, and I thought that was going to really help the bigger Baylor.
But yeah, that *could* have been a foul, but it hadn't been all night. (Or they would've been playing 4 on 4.)
Seeing it again, the defender reached and the shooter jumped a bit forward. The call is defensible.
 
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bosox188

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If they'd called a foul on that last shot, it would have spawned an outcry of "wasn't a foul for 39 minutes but now it is" and rightfully so. They let the players maul each other the entire game and that shot was nothing compared to the rest of it.
 

Marceline

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Admittedly I only caught the last 5 minutes or so of the game, so I feel better about the no call. Great game, sorry I missed most of it.
 

Kliq

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Terrible no-call. Take the blinders off guys, that was a crime.
 

bosox188

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Terrible no-call. Take the blinders off guys, that was a crime.
Like I said, it's exactly the way they called the game for 40 minutes, and yes that even includes hands to the arms/face. Here's a clip from just a few minutes earlier of Christyn Williams taking a hand to the face driving to the rim, no call:


I don't think it's an unreasonable assessment. I think there's an ingrained expectation that in the last 2 minutes of a game the refs will start acting differently (because they infuriatingly tend to do so across all sports), but in this case they just didn't.
 

Kliq

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Like I said, it's exactly the way they called the game for 40 minutes, and yes that even includes hands to the arms/face. Here's a clip from just a few minutes earlier of Christyn Williams taking a hand to the face driving to the rim, no call:


I don't think it's an unreasonable assessment. I think there's an ingrained expectation that in the last 2 minutes of a game the refs will start acting differently (because they infuriatingly tend to do so across all sports), but in this case they just didn't.
It's ridiculous to think that wouldn't be a call at the end of the game. It's a clear foul. It's frankly embarrassing to suggest that it wouldn't be.
 

thehitcat

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It's ridiculous to think that wouldn't be a call at the end of the game. It's a clear foul. It's frankly embarrassing to suggest that it wouldn't be.
The argument isn't about the timing it's that they called it loose all game. Changing to call it tight at the end would be embarrassing. They called it the same way throughout. That's good officiating and both teams adjusted to that and played to the looser whistle.
 

Mystic Merlin

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About as bad as the bullshit offensive foul near mid court in the fourth quarter as the UConn player carried the ball.

The officiating in this game played into Baylor’s hands most of the game with how loosely it was generally called, so I don’t feel bad at all about that last shot.
 

BaseballJones

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It's ridiculous to think that wouldn't be a call at the end of the game. It's a clear foul. It's frankly embarrassing to suggest that it wouldn't be.
Sorry. I mean, yes it was a foul under normal circumstances. But the refs let them beat the crap out of each other all game long. ESPN’s Carolyn Peck just showed a highlight earlier in the game of Carrington hammering Bueckers in the face and the refs didn’t call a foul.

You simply cannot let all that go for 39 minutes and 55 seconds and then call it in the last 5. The announcers talked all game long how physical the refs were letting them play. It’s reffing malpractice to suddenly change how you ref it in the last five seconds just because.

(Personally I wouldn’t have let them get away with so much during the game so yes I’d have called that last play a foul. BUT, I’d have called a lot more fouls during the game too.).
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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And by the way, on at least two occasions they called a charge on UConn when a secondary (help) defender stepped in against a driving UConn player, and the Baylor player was squarely in the circle. Which by rule is a blocking foul, not a charge. So the refs not only got judgment calls wrong, they hosed UConn twice by not even following the rule book.

https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/women-s-basketball-moves-4-foot-arc-lane

“ A secondary defender must be outside the arc and in legal guarding position to draw a charge. If the player is in the restricted area when the contact occurs, a block will be called.”

So Baylor can cry me a river.
 

Kliq

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The argument isn't about the timing it's that they called it loose all game. Changing to call it tight at the end would be embarrassing. They called it the same way throughout. That's good officiating and both teams adjusted to that and played to the looser whistle.
Incompetence in the past does not justify further incompetence in the present. This is not a ticky-tack foul that could go uncalled in a "physical" game. It was a clear, obvious foul on TWO UCONN players. The video that was quoted above, which showed a no-call on a fast break, was the kind of foul that goes uncalled in a loosely officiated game. This is a critical moment of the game where the refs really have to get it right, and they failed to do so.

This reminds me of the NFC Championship game. The refs in the game let a lot of physical play go throughout the game, allowing defensive backs to hit opposing receivers. At a critical point of the game, a key third down for Tampa that if they got it would ice the game, Brady threw a pass over the middle and the Green Bay defender clearly pulled a handful of the Tampa player's jersey. DPI was called, a first down was given, and Tampa won the game. Green Bay fans were livid that during a game that had been called very loosely, the referees would make that call. However, the rules exist for a reason and in that decisive moment, Green Bay violated them and were penalized accordingly. To not have called that penalty at such a critical juncture would have made a complete mockery of the rules themselves.

I'm all for letting a lot of stuff go in most sports; I think we can all agree that watching two teams compete hard in a game with little stoppages in play for enforcement of the rules is entertaining. However, you simply can't ignore the rules completely, especially in the critical moments of the game. People seem to think that in the closing moments of the game, refs should be LESS strict in how they enforce the rules, when that doesn't make any real logical sense. With each possession being so important to the outcome of the game, they should be more strict in how they enforce the rules. That is why you typically see more stoppages in play and calls being made in the final minutes of games.

To put it another way, if we use the "they were letting things go all game" defense, that would seem to suggest that therefore NOTHING could be called a foul in the final moments to avoid the slippery slope argument that is being presented here. Because this was a very clear and obvious foul, and it is a shame that it will overshadow what was a very entertaining game.
 

BaseballJones

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No Kliq. The refs should call it consistently all game. If they signal to the players all game long that they will allow a certain degree of contact and they ref the game that way for 39 minutes, 55 seconds, they are doing everyone a disservice if they suddenly call things they’d been letting go all game long.

What they should do is call the game correctly all game long. They didn’t do that but at least they were consistent.

Your last point is a straw man. There is plenty they could have called and been consistent with how they reffed all game long. That last play didn’t rise to the level of contact for them to call it, based on how they had called the game up til that point.
 

Bleedred

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Paige Bueckers is just awesome to watch. No fear, incredible skill and timing, great passer. Plays like a 9 year veteran who has been there before. I was absolutely transfixed on her play and she even missed about 6 straight shots. Caitlin Clark of Iowa is another. Really fun to watch
 

joe dokes

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Paige Bueckers is just awesome to watch. No fear, incredible skill and timing, great passer. Plays like a 9 year veteran who has been there before. I was absolutely transfixed on her play and she even missed about 6 straight shots. Caitlin Clark of Iowa is another. Really fun to watch
She has a very Havlicekian one-hand runnah.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Moreover, UConn is already #1 in the nation, and will graduate not a single player from this year's squad. They're going to be unreal - back to the dynastic UConn teams of the past kind of good.

Bueckers may be the best PLAYER in the country right now, not just the best freshman.

#8 in the nation in assists per game (6.5)
#4 in the nation in three-point shooting (49.5% on 5 attempts per game)
#28 in the nation in points per game (20.1)

She's presently averaging 20.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 2.5 steals, and she's shooting 54.7% from the floor, 49.5% from three, and 81.3% from the line. Plus she's running the show for the #1 team in the country.

If she's not THE best, she's right up there, and should be a first team All-American already.
Bueckers just won the AP national player of the year award, the first ever freshman to do so. I can't say that I called it for sure, but I was definitely driving this train quite a while ago. She's amazing.
 

jon abbey

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She and Jalen Suggs have evidently been friends since grade school, Suggs said she inspired him before their Elite Eight game:

"I texted her after, and we FaceTimed and talked for a little bit," Suggs continued. "Last night, she said some things that really helped me. I've been kind of struggling, trying to get my footing in these tournament games.
"Of course, seeing her go out there and play great like she did and then talking afterwards, she kind of said some words, it kind of got me uplifted. It got me going. Definitely helped tonight. ... She's the GOAT for a reason."
https://sports.yahoo.com/jalen-suggs-credits-friend-goat-paige-bueckers-for-help-in-run-to-final-four-041202704.html
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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She's really good. UConn is making a TON of uncharacteristic mistakes as well. Their starting center has blown at least three wide open layups so far and Bueckers can't get it going (McDonald is the reason for that though). UConn is in a lot of trouble. I'd have to guess that Geno can find a solution, but it will take a superior effort for them to pull this out the way Arizona is playing.
 

joe dokes

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She's really good. UConn is making a TON of uncharacteristic mistakes as well. Their starting center has blown at least three wide open layups so far and Bueckers can't get it going (McDonald is the reason for that though). UConn is in a lot of trouble. I'd have to guess that Geno can find a solution, but it will take a superior effort for them to pull this out the way Arizona is playing.
AZ is playing so hard on defense. I think at least a couple of those missed layups were affected by the defender not giving up even after getting beat. Not exactly affecting the shot, but still being in the play. If McDonald doesn't get tired, and if AZ can keep up the pace on D and avoid foul trouble, uconn might be in trouble. Lotsa ifs.
 

Marceline

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I don't get UConn fouling with so much time still left on the clock. They should have just tried to get a defensive stop.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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The stats for UConn in the final four are one of those crazy sports anomalies that is almost impossible to figure. 11-10 in the semis and 11-0 in the finals.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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Another big time choke by UConn in the semis, getting tired of comforting my wife after them losing to lesser teams. It is kind of the Patriots conundrum though, like yeah it's disappointing to lose in excruciating ways but rather this than not be relevant.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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UConn will be ridiculously loaded next year. The problem is Nelson-Adoda. She was AWFUL tonight and she’s not a big time player.