[WBB fan]

Good comments. Just to quibble on one point, it's only been in recent years that Tara has played 11, because there were so many who could play and Tara hoped to run a lot and wear the opponents down. In past years she would typically tighten the rotation a lot by tournament time.

Exactly right. And if you go back a lot of years, to 1989-90 and the 1st Natty, Tara really had a restricted rotation. That year, even when way ahead, she stuck mostly to a 6 player rotation -- the starting line-up (Jennifer Azzi, Katie Steding, Sonia Henning, Trisha Stevens, Julie Zeilstra) plus Val Whiting coming off the bench as a freshman. Beyond that, at times she brought in Stacy Parsons and occasionally, Martha Richards, who had been HS player of the year in 87-88. Other than those, the others got very little playing time. Of course, the five plus Val did include 3 who ultimately were All Americans (Azzi, Henning, Whiting) and two who were National Freshman of the year (Henning and Whiting, coming off the bench in 1989-90). Seems to me that it was an approach quite similar to the one that Geno uses today at U Conn -- have a core team and keep them in, even when way ahead, and they will really know how to play with each other. Not saying it's the right approach, and it certainly doesn't contribute to developing bench players for the future, nor to keeping people fresh, but it was the way Tara did it then. As CompSci87 says correctly, it's only in very recent years that Tara has moved to a much broader rotation.

[WBB fan]

Good comments. Just to quibble on one point, it's only been in recent years that Tara has played 11, because there were so many who could play and Tara hoped to run a lot and wear the opponents down. In past years she would typically tighten the rotation a lot by tournament time.

Exactly right. And if you go back a lot of years, to 1989-90 and the 1st Natty, Tara really had a restricted rotation. That year, even when way ahead, she stuck mostly to a 6 player rotation -- the starting line-up (Jennifer Azzi, Katie Steding, Sonia Henning, Trisha Stevens, Julie Zeilstra) plus Val Whiting coming off the bench as a freshman. Beyond that, at times she brought in Stacy Parsons and occasionally, Martha Richards, who had been HS player of the year in 87-88. Other than those, the others got very little playing time. Of course, the five plus Val did include 3 who ultimately were All Americans (Azzi, Henning, Whiting) and two who were National Freshman of the year (Henning and Whiting, coming off the bench in 1989-90). Seems to me that it was an approach quite similar to the one that Geno uses today at U Conn -- have a core team and keep them in, even when way ahead, and they will really know how to play with each other. Not saying it's the right approach, and it certainly doesn't contribute to developing bench players for the future, nor to keeping people fresh, but it was the way Tara did it then. As CompSci87 says correctly, it's only in very recent years that Tara has moved to a much broader rotation.