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A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Defending Sims no easy feat for UConn

It's pretty certain that when Geno Auriemma met with the media before embarking on the trip down to Baylor, he knew how he planned on defending the Lady Bears' dynamic senior guard Odyssey Sims but he was going to keep most of it to himself.

The prevailing notion is no matter what an opposing team does, Odyssey Sims is going to get hers so perhaps it is more productive way of doing business to focus on the rest of the Baylor players considering how inexperienced they are.

"That is one of those things when you go with your gut instincts and see what happens," Auriemma said. "I never know the right thing to do, I go back and forth on it over the years."

What Auriemma does know is that Sims, one of six college players named to the U.S. senior national team pool, is one impressive player.

"I have watched her on film and she is the best player I have seen this year, no question, nobody else is every close," Auriemma said. She can hit the 3, she gets in the lane, she fouls you out, she makes runners."

If Kelly Faris still played at UConn it seems rather likely that she would have drawn the assignment on Sims but now it is a little harder to predict. Hartley is the most experienced perimeter player and considering that she has committed just 22 fouls in 17 games, perhaps she can check Sims without getting into foul trouble. Moriah Jefferson played against Sims every Saturday at a local fitness center when she was back home in Texas during the summer so she has the familiarity with the nation's leading scorer. Perhaps even Brianna Banks and Saniya Chong will take their chances at dealing with Sims. It should be fun to watch regardless of how UConn opts to defend the Lady Bears.




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