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Queenie
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
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 Posted: 05/02/16 8:06 pm ::: |
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| I have a uniquely skewed sense of disappointment on this: I wish Azurá Stevens had the metaphorical cojones her sister did.
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#Occasionalwnbafan
Joined: 01 Mar 2012
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| Posted: 05/02/16 9:19 pm ::: |
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| bballjunkie wrote: |
Not sure why you are reacting to Glenn the way you are, after all he is just giving his opinion, just as yours is an opinion.
I disagree with you, IMO Stevens game is not in the mold of Stewarts and I doubt very much that she could block 3 shots in succession. Stewart is who she is after being at Uconn for 4 years. Stevens from watching her at Duke and with USA does not play with any of the same intensity as the Uconn players. In fact the knocks on Stevens have been her lack of intensity and hustle.
Now, clearly it seems she wants to get better and she must realize that trying to play at Uconn will be much more difficult than any of her efforts at Duke. IMO she will need to improve greatly on defense which is what Uconn can do for players but not all, she will need to improve her speed and quickness and her ability to read and react both offensively and defensively. Duke hasn't exactly helped in any of those areas. |
Stevens might not play with the intensity that made Stewart such a good defender (even tho Stevens looks like a better perimeter defender) and she does seem to have a lack of conditioning, but from what I've seen she's definitely a wing, that's why I was surprised that the press release has been calling her a 6'6 center. |
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 05/03/16 12:46 am ::: |
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| #Occasionalwnbafan wrote: |
| Stevens might not play with the intensity that made Stewart such a good defender (even tho Stevens looks like a better perimeter defender) and she does seem to have a lack of conditioning, |
I was amazed by her skill as a freshman. If I had to bet on it, I'd think one of the biggest differences between her and Breanna is a mental tenacity/toughness: Azura might be a bit soft in that department. HOWEVER, I'm equally certain JPM did her no favors in that regard. If she can click with Geno and staff, she may be one of the best ever to come out of there.
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Oldfandepot2
Joined: 05 Jul 2013
Posts: 996
Location: Northeast
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| Posted: 05/03/16 4:48 pm ::: |
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| Davis4632 wrote: |
| Didn't the Boneyarders accuse Dawn Staley of accepting transfers as a way to shore up her recruiting shortcomings? Well Geno hasn't signed a center out of high school since Dolson, Butler hasn't panned out yet, and their 2015 PF Boykin transferred. Stevens basically replaces Boykin in the lineup and I don't blame Geno for accepting her. |
There is a big difference in recruiting deficiencies between Geno and Dawn. Last year Geno had the number one, six and 22nd recruit (Boykin who they will sorely miss). This year he has the best guard in the country coming in. They, with the infusion of this talent with the existing team, could be successful and compete for a NC without transfers though their bench would be very thin. Butler unless she improves dramatically might not start.
Dawn on the other hand without Gray and Davis would be in serious jeopardy not to obtain the success she has had the past two years. They both will start.
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themick1952
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 05/03/16 9:14 pm ::: |
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[quote="GlennMacGrady"]Wow, two posters predicting Stevens will be a first team AA! We'll see.
Stevens' two year stats on Duke are impressive, but Duke hasn't been. So I'm not sure how to weigh those stats. In high school, Stevens was ranked No. 57 (Prospect Nation), No. 55 (Blue Star), No. 27 (ASGR), and No. 23 (Girls Basketball Report/HoopGurlz). She did not make McD or WBCA All-American. How often does a player with those high school credentials make first team AA in college?
quote]
Not often, but not impossible
Tiffany Mitchell - 46 on ESPN
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 05/03/16 10:08 pm ::: |
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| Oldfandepot2 wrote: |
| This year he has the best guard in the country coming in. |
We all know THAT doesn't necessarily play out as advertised. [See: Mercedes R./Tenn]. But. Geno WILL make her one of the best before too long, if history is any indicator.
Regardless of all that, Azura is an excellent pick up for UConn, and I'm excited to see just how talented she can be.
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PickledGinger
Joined: 04 Oct 2013
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| Posted: 05/04/16 1:56 am ::: |
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[quote="themick1952"]
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Wow, two posters predicting Stevens will be a first team AA! We'll see.
Stevens' two year stats on Duke are impressive, but Duke hasn't been. So I'm not sure how to weigh those stats. In high school, Stevens was ranked No. 57 (Prospect Nation), No. 55 (Blue Star), No. 27 (ASGR), and No. 23 (Girls Basketball Report/HoopGurlz). She did not make McD or WBCA All-American. How often does a player with those high school credentials make first team AA in college?
quote]
Not often, but not impossible
Tiffany Mitchell - 46 on ESPN |
Not sure about the other services but Courtney Vandersloot was ranked 63rd by Scout.com
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#Occasionalwnbafan
Joined: 01 Mar 2012
Posts: 1380
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| Posted: 05/04/16 7:12 am ::: |
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[quote="PickledGinger"]
| themick1952 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Wow, two posters predicting Stevens will be a first team AA! We'll see.
Stevens' two year stats on Duke are impressive, but Duke hasn't been. So I'm not sure how to weigh those stats. In high school, Stevens was ranked No. 57 (Prospect Nation), No. 55 (Blue Star), No. 27 (ASGR), and No. 23 (Girls Basketball Report/HoopGurlz). She did not make McD or WBCA All-American. How often does a player with those high school credentials make first team AA in college?
quote]
Not often, but not impossible
Tiffany Mitchell - 46 on ESPN |
Not sure about the other services but Courtney Vandersloot was ranked 63rd by Scout.com |
I think Angel McCoughtry might have been unranked coming out of high school. |
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
Posts: 7821
Location: Shenandoah Valley
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| Posted: 05/04/16 9:32 am ::: |
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| Howee, kindly lay off Mercedes (or any other bigs) for their first couple of years. Stevens is an anomaly, rather than the rule, along with Stewart and a few others. And please see my post on the development of big players in general. I do know something about how kids grow and how brain development works in conjunction with physical development. Beyond that, it takes good consistent coaching for these players to become really good, and with the kind of coaching many now have in AAU and HS, that often does not happen. BTW, Mercedes improved quite a bit over the past season and I look to see her get better the next couple of years, so just hold your fire.
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 05/04/16 10:48 am ::: |
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| summertime blues wrote: |
| Howee, kindly lay off Mercedes (or any other bigs) for their first couple of years. Stevens is an anomaly, rather than the rule, along with Stewart and a few others. And please see my post on the development of big players in general. I do know something about how kids grow and how brain development works in conjunction with physical development. Beyond that, it takes good consistent coaching for these players to become really good, and with the kind of coaching many now have in AAU and HS, that often does not happen. BTW, Mercedes improved quite a bit over the past season and I look to see her get better the next couple of years, so just hold your fire. |
 There's no "fire" to hold here, m'dear: Mercedes is fairly decent, given her set of concerns. BUT: she NEVER WAS deserving of a Number 1 Ranking. Your theory re: "Bigs Need More Time" is decimated by names like Candace, A'ja, Breanna, Nneka, Chiney, Britney, et.al.--All #1-ranked gals who made an impact from day 1.
Certainly, many DO need that time to develop. But then....don't rank them as a #1 in their class.
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myrtle
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
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| Posted: 05/04/16 7:21 pm ::: |
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| Howee wrote: |
| summertime blues wrote: |
| Howee, kindly lay off Mercedes (or any other bigs) for their first couple of years. Stevens is an anomaly, rather than the rule, along with Stewart and a few others. And please see my post on the development of big players in general. I do know something about how kids grow and how brain development works in conjunction with physical development. Beyond that, it takes good consistent coaching for these players to become really good, and with the kind of coaching many now have in AAU and HS, that often does not happen. BTW, Mercedes improved quite a bit over the past season and I look to see her get better the next couple of years, so just hold your fire. |
There's no "fire" to hold here, m'dear: Mercedes is fairly decent, given her set of concerns. BUT: she NEVER WAS deserving of a Number 1 Ranking. Your theory re: "Bigs Need More Time" is decimated by names like Candace, A'ja, Breanna, Nneka, Chiney, Britney, et.al.--All #1-ranked gals who made an impact from day 1.
Certainly, many DO need that time to develop. But then....don't rank them as a #1 in their class. |
As a HS player, she might have been, but how many HS bigs live up to their billing? Answer: very damn few. Which is why you should ignore HS rankings as soon as they get into college.
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Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom
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ridor
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 1055
Location: Frederick, Maryland
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| Posted: 05/05/16 9:22 pm ::: |
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I do recall that there was another transfer from Duke to UConn in 2000s or so. I'm trying to recall that name. I thought it was odd that both players signed & played at Duke and transferred to UConn.
But there is a rumor that the Duke Athletic Director "sat" on a videotape that recorded some kind of physical fight or belligerent behaviors among the players and/or coaches. The unverified rumors said that the AD sat on it until a player or an assistant coach filed a formal complaint about what's going on with the team. By having that "formal notification, the AD referred to HR to do the internal investigation. I thought it was odd that AD would refer the formal complaints to HR should the players complain about coaches or players? I thought everything stops at Athletic Director?
It is obvious that we are seeing a turmoil at Duke, UNC, Louisiana Tech, Loyola-Chicago and Kentucky.
As far as I am concerned, Tyler Summitt destroyed Louisiana Tech, there will be no way for them to return to the glory days. I wonder how Pat reacted to the scandal?
Virginia is not doing well as they kept on losing players to transfers. I believe in the last 5 years, the team lost 7 or 8 players to St. Joseph's, South Carolina, Fordham, Xavier, East Carolina and few more. Her inattentive to the coaching & recruiting hurts badly when she was trying to adopt a baby from Africa.
And when Joanne finally focused, she brought LaKeshia Frett Meredith, it is good news. She is well-liked in talent-rich Tidewater region. She used to be a post player, she knew how to coach, play and recruit. When Joanne hired her, LaKeshia did not waste her time in gaining post players which seemed to be a chronic problem at Virginia. Now we get 6'4, 6'9 and 6'3 for next year's edition.
If Joanne is out (Littlepage said to give her one more year - oh, lord), I just wish Gail Goestonkors could come to Charlottesville and revitalize Virginia. She would be awesome considering the facts that I gave up on Joanne Boyle. But if Gail is not interested, I would campaign for Lakeshia Frett Meredith as Head Coach. I'm so sick of seeing talent-rich players in Virginia being taken away to UNC, Duke, Maryland, Tennessee et al. With her name as Head Coach, I think she will be the answer to stop the thefts.
But I do know there was another Duke player that did transfer to UConn?
R-
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Fighting Artichoke
Joined: 12 Dec 2012
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| Posted: 05/05/16 9:33 pm ::: |
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| ridor wrote: |
I do recall that there was another transfer from Duke to UConn in 2000s or so. I'm trying to recall that name. I thought it was odd that both players signed & played at Duke and transferred to UConn.
But there is a rumor that the Duke Athletic Director "sat" on a videotape that recorded some kind of physical fight or belligerent behaviors among the players and/or coaches. The unverified rumors said that the AD sat on it until a player or an assistant coach filed a formal complaint about what's going on with the team. By having that "formal notification, the AD referred to HR to do the internal investigation. I thought it was odd that AD would refer the formal complaints to HR should the players complain about coaches or players? I thought everything stops at Athletic Director?
It is obvious that we are seeing a turmoil at Duke, UNC, Louisiana Tech, Loyola-Chicago and Kentucky.
As far as I am concerned, Tyler Summitt destroyed Louisiana Tech, there will be no way for them to return to the glory days. I wonder how Pat reacted to the scandal?
Virginia is not doing well as they kept on losing players to transfers. I believe in the last 5 years, the team lost 7 or 8 players to St. Joseph's, South Carolina, Fordham, Xavier, East Carolina and few more. Her inattentive to the coaching & recruiting hurts badly when she was trying to adopt a baby from Africa.
And when Joanne finally focused, she brought LaKeshia Frett Meredith, it is good news. She is well-liked in talent-rich Tidewater region. She used to be a post player, she knew how to coach, play and recruit. When Joanne hired her, LaKeshia did not waste her time in gaining post players which seemed to be a chronic problem at Virginia. Now we get 6'4, 6'9 and 6'3 for next year's edition.
If Joanne is out (Littlepage said to give her one more year - oh, lord), I just wish Gail Goestonkors could come to Charlottesville and revitalize Virginia. She would be awesome considering the facts that I gave up on Joanne Boyle. But if Gail is not interested, I would campaign for Lakeshia Frett Meredith as Head Coach. I'm so sick of seeing talent-rich players in Virginia being taken away to UNC, Duke, Maryland, Tennessee et al. With her name as Head Coach, I think she will be the answer to stop the thefts.
But I do know there was another Duke player that did transfer to UConn?
R- |
It was Brittany Hunter 12 years ago: http://espn.go.com/ncw/news/story?id=1825703
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 05/08/16 9:08 pm ::: |
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[quote="#Occasionalwnbafan"]
| PickledGinger wrote: |
| themick1952 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Wow, two posters predicting Stevens will be a first team AA! We'll see.
Stevens' two year stats on Duke are impressive, but Duke hasn't been. So I'm not sure how to weigh those stats. In high school, Stevens was ranked No. 57 (Prospect Nation), No. 55 (Blue Star), No. 27 (ASGR), and No. 23 (Girls Basketball Report/HoopGurlz). She did not make McD or WBCA All-American. How often does a player with those high school credentials make first team AA in college?
quote]
Not often, but not impossible
Tiffany Mitchell - 46 on ESPN |
Not sure about the other services but Courtney Vandersloot was ranked 63rd by Scout.com |
I think Angel McCoughtry might have been unranked coming out of high school. |
Many don't realize that Angel was in the prodigious high school class of 2004 because she attended a 5th year of high school at a prep school. She was ranked 97th or 98th by Blue Star in the class of 2004.
I don't think Lindsay Whalen was ranked coming out of high school and she made the Kodak 10 player first team.
Aerial Powers was ranked only by Dan Olson (96) and HoopGurlz (99). I don't think she made any AA first teams but she came close.
However, none of these under-ranked high school players had two players of the caliber of Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier on their own teams to compete against.
I think Stevens may have a very productive two year career at UConn, but I'm skeptical about first team All-American based on the tea leaves, chicken bones and tarot cards so far. |
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CBiebel
Joined: 23 Dec 2004
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| Posted: 06/17/16 2:11 am ::: |
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| sammieee wrote: |
Ughhh, I guess ND/SC/Ohio State/Baylor better aim for a championship next year. Because in 2017, it looks like it will be UConn's to lose.
Great get for UConn, and for Stevens, who will improve a lot though. We can hope Stevens opts to stay only 1 year.  |
Yes, a ND team with Turner (Senior), Westbeld (senior), Johnson (Senior), Mabrey (Junior), Ogunbowale (Junior), Patberg (junior), Young (Sophomore), and Boley (sophomore) are total slouches with no possible chance of having the talent to beat UConn.
I mean it isn't like 7 of the 8 players above were McDonald's AAs... Oh wait...they were!
It's not like 2 of the players above both scored in double digits against a UConn Uberteam on the road while they were freshmen... oh wait...they did!
It's not like there are two former Miss Basketball Indianas are on the team. Oh wait, there are!
It's not like one of those Miss Basketball Indiana's was the all time leading scorer for Indiana, both boys or girls. Oh wait, she was.
It's not like there are two players on this roster who both scored over 3,000 points in the HS careers.... Oh wait...
Remember that it took a senior PG to stop a FRESHMAN Marina Mabrey (I saw a lot of UConn fans bragging after that game about how a senior was able to stop a freshman when the finally assigned her in the 2nd half. Well, duh!).
I think you might want to wait to crown that 2017 NC for UConn. I mean, 2016 hasn't even happened yet.
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bballjunkie
Joined: 12 Aug 2014
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| Posted: 06/17/16 8:35 am ::: |
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| Oh wait, and they lost and did not even make the elite 8.
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linkster
Joined: 27 Jul 2012
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| Posted: 06/20/16 12:34 pm ::: |
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| CBiebel wrote: |
| sammieee wrote: |
Ughhh, I guess ND/SC/Ohio State/Baylor better aim for a championship next year. Because in 2017, it looks like it will be UConn's to lose.
Great get for UConn, and for Stevens, who will improve a lot though. We can hope Stevens opts to stay only 1 year. |
Yes, a ND team with Turner (Senior), Westbeld (senior), Johnson (Senior), Mabrey (Junior), Ogunbowale (Junior), Patberg (junior), Young (Sophomore), and Boley (sophomore) are total slouches with no possible chance of having the talent to beat UConn.
I mean it isn't like 7 of the 8 players above were McDonald's AAs... Oh wait...they were!
It's not like 2 of the players above both scored in double digits against a UConn Uberteam on the road while they were freshmen... oh wait...they did!
It's not like there are two former Miss Basketball Indianas are on the team. Oh wait, there are!
It's not like one of those Miss Basketball Indiana's was the all time leading scorer for Indiana, both boys or girls. Oh wait, she was.
It's not like there are two players on this roster who both scored over 3,000 points in the HS careers.... Oh wait...
Remember that it took a senior PG to stop a FRESHMAN Marina Mabrey (I saw a lot of UConn fans bragging after that game about how a senior was able to stop a freshman when the finally assigned her in the 2nd half. Well, duh!).
I think you might want to wait to crown that 2017 NC for UConn. I mean, 2016 hasn't even happened yet. |
While I certainly think that Notre Dame has a great deal of potential I can't help but see that most of your comments about the players refer to their high school prowess. Three of the 8 players you name have yet to play even one minute of college basketball. And I think it's revealing that while Notre Dame fans constantly refer to Mabrey the younger's game against UConn early in the season, they seldom mention the falloff in her production later in the season, when her defensive liabilities kept her on the bench a great deal. Ogunbowale displayed a great deal of talent but also seemed to have a great deal of trouble fitting into a team concept. Glass half full vs glass half empty.
Fan bases are constantly seeing blue skies ahead. I'm not even making any predictions about 2017.
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CamrnCrz1974
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 06/28/16 11:18 am ::: |
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| Quote: |
"It's been an adjustment being in a different program but I love it here and I'm glad to be here," Stevens said. "It's been great to get to know my new teammates and new coaches and getting used to Connecticut.
"I knew what I was looking for. I was looking for a place to improve my own game to help me get to that next level. I want to make the most of my last two years."
Stevens called her final year at Duke "difficult." After the season, Duke conducted an evaluation of its women's basketball program, though it resulted in coach Joanne P. McCallie keeping her job.
"It might be a good program for other students and players, but it wasn't what I was looking for," Stevens said. |
https://www.sny.tv/uconn/news/stevens-camara-making-themselves-at-home-at-uconn/186565090
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