Three Questions for UConn

Is this your father's UConn team?

Well, in a lot of ways it is. Offensively, they still don't take a lot of threes (3PA/FGA 343rd in the nation -- there's 347 teams in D-1). They are fundamentally an offense started by driving to the hoop from their perimeter players, letting their big men score mostly off offensive rebounds and dishes.

On defense, they still block more shots than anyone despite losing Thabeet (lending credence to my longstanding theory that the UConn scorer is very, very generous with the stat). They don't try to cause turnovers and they never, ever foul.

They are a little different this year. For one, they simply aren't as good a team as last year, which is nice. Two, they don't offensive rebounds nearly as well as they have in the past.

That sounds pretty lopsided for the Hoyas.

Well, it's not an awful matchup for us and has been pretty good in recent years. During III's reign, the Hoyas are just 3-4 versus the Huskies, but they've won the last three.

That said, it isn't all roses. They may not shoot a lot of threes, but they make them at a decent rate. Since the Hoyas defense seems to almost encourage them, this may not work in our favor.

Connecticut may not rebound like they used to, but they still offensive rebound better than Marquette and I still remember the second half of Wednesday's game.

Lastly, somewhere along the way, Stanley Robinson got good. He's turned into a quality scorer when he used to be only an athlete. At least by the stats -- I'm curious to see how much of that is still reliant on his athleticism.

So, what do the Hoyas need to do?

It's the same old yarn: watch the turnover and rebound. More important, though, is the latter, since the Huskies don't really try to force turnovers. The team just got out-rebounded by Marquette. We had a better start this year on the boards, but the game versus the Golden Gold brough back memories of last year. Gavin Edwards and Alex Oriakhi will try to push our players around -- how much will determine who wins.

Well, that or another crazy performance from three.