Congratulations are due, and in abundance, for our girls and Coach Muffet. Anyone who doesn't get that is, frankly, a jerk.
As I mentioned in the Brey thread, elite basketball teams have two superior elements which they MUST have to win championships: error-free tough-minded guard play and board-dominant bigs. THEN you can add your great wings, shutdown defense etc. Connecticut was built exactly at the essentials; Notre Dame was not. {this isn't Muffet's fault, as there are very few dominant bigs in the country, and Connecticut [like a certain southern football school] gets its pick, and those who are left often can't get into ND}.
The loss of Achonwa hurt badly, as she was our best chance to ameliorate the inequality at the boards. Even with her, three is more than one.
On another issue, I have in minor fashion helped coach girls teams. Most girl basketball players can't jump. {however note that our Jewel Loyd was the premier jumper on the court}. They are built with a natural deficit in this regard, but could maximize their potentials a lot more than what is done. Note that almost every girl playing college volleyball CAN jump. The contrast is astonishing to watch both sets of athletes side-by-side. Why is this? Volleyball girls practice jumping all the time. Basketball girls don't. It's not very mysterious. Our BBall girls don't effectively jump because they not only don't really do it a lot, but they [amazingly] don't know how to do it properly --- LOTS of guy BBallers don't either, weirdly.
For those who don't want to think this through, and prefer to blame the coaching staff, well, one thing to consider is that in volleyball two-thirds of the essential physical action involves spiking or blocking [i.e. jumping]. Huge amounts of practice time is right on that talent. In basketball there is nowhere near that emphasis. Practice time is short. Most of it is forced to be dedicated to other mental processes and other skills [especially shooting, running, and team organization.]
Bottomline: given our rebounding and paint-defense inequality, plus the loss of Queen Nathalie, we probably played about as one could expect ... this time. That is NO reason to bad-mouth this glorious team.
