Doggy's Doghouse 1/14/2021

Great report.
David confirms that this year's team is not the worst shooting team in all Geno's years. Imagine that: Geno exaggerating to make a point.

Loving the look of Amari. She seems a bit sturdier than Liv was coming in. I think it's taken a couple of years for Liv to dominate. Maybe Amari will do it sooner.

ONO has been slow to develop in a couple areas, but to her credit it hasn't been due to a lack of intensity or not being willing to play with physicality. DeBerry is physically and skillwise very similar to ONO. They both faced very weak HS competition and their only exposure to players their size were the limited AAU travel tournaments they played. And kids don't get much in-depth individual coaching with those teams. She'll get the coaching she needs at UConn but the key to DeBerry being able to develop into a top tier college inside player will depend on whether her intensity and physicality are high enough. 

Agreed.  Also for most teams on the AAU side, defense is taught only when they get to the dead-bottom of the list of afterthoughts, especially for bigs.  Some kids do get HS coaching on that front ... of varying quality, but I have been told outright by AAU coaches that they don't want their bigs to risk fouling out by defending or blocking shots. 

Essentially, "Please be an arms-up traffic cone and never move.  Just let them shoot and concentrate on getting the rebound if they miss.  We're better off having the center on offense and gathering boards at both ends." 

That's a fascinating philosophy - that the bigs carry four areas of contribution and we'd rather give up that one for the entire game than lose all four for a few minutes in the game.  It is also one fewer thing they need to teach - and maybe learn, since very few ever played back to the basket.