Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 3/23/15

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Here is my UConn/Rutgers Pregame Report

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Looks like KML will be good to go for the UConn/Rutgers game after being held out of most of the St. Francis game with a sore Achilles tendon from wrapping her ankles too tight. Good news for UConn.

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Here are a few observations from games I was able to watch.

Duke was able to pull away from in the last 10 minutes of the second half, holding Mississippi State to one basket over a 7 minute stretch. Duke switched up their defense and Mississippi had no clue how to attack it. Neither team was very impressive and my thoughts was that one team had to lose, not that either team distinguished themselves. Over the last 4:30, Duke did not have a field goal, and only made 7-17 free throws. They were fortunate that Mississippi State struggled so much on offense. One controversial call when it looks like an offensive foul on Duke's Greenwell was called a block and the MSU coach was called for a technical for arguing. Elizabeth Williams had it right after this one - "Survive and advance, I guess,".

The Dayton-Kentucky game was the game of the tournament so far. Not a lot of good defense, but the 99-94 upset by Dayton was a lot of fun to watch. Dayton lost three starters and were down by four when their leading scorer Andrea Hover fouled out on a HARD block/charge that sent her flying to the floor. No flop there. Dayton hit some clutch threes and were terrific down the stretch on their free throws. They were 28-31 on FTs for the game, 6-11 on threes and shot 56% overall. For a little while, they just hit everything the put up. Once the lead was pushed to two possessions, Kentucky had to foul and Dayton didn't miss. They were 10-11 over the last three minutes. Quite a disappointing loss for the No. 2 seed Kentucky. Many questioned that seed for the Wildcats including myself and we were all proven correct. I loved the post game interview with the Dayton coached. He was clearly moved by the moment and spoke so eloquently about his players. Wonderful.

Looks like the only SEC teams still alive are South Carolina and Tennessee. Seven teams were selected, five have been eliminated before the Sweet Sixteen. Not a great performance by a supposed superior conference.

South Carolina hammered Syracuse in the rematch as I predicted. Dawn has them fired up to get to the final four. Tennessee is playing Pittsburgh on Monday and I think they will roll over the Panthers. Can the Lady Vols get by either Oregon State or Maryland to get to the final four with a historic matchup with UConn? I just have a feeling that this is the time they finally meet.

The Oregon State-Gonzaga game was awesome!!! The Zags pulled away at the end, but Oregon State did a great job getting back into the game after being down 12. A three pointer by Oregon State tied it at 64 with 3:28 remaining but they could never get the lead. Great upset and now the Zags move on to play the winner of the Tennessee-Pittsburgh game. I can hear the cheers of the Lady Vols fans from here. There is no way they wanted to play Oregon again without Harrison. But now they might have an even tougher opponent. Gonzaga plays great basketball and it will be a home game for them in the Spokane Regional.

DePaul made a game of it with Notre Dame for a little while. But boy, Notre Dame is really good. Even on an off night by Jewel Loyd, they were able to put a real hurtin' on Doug Bruno's girls. The Irish defense got them started and when Mabry has a night like this, hitting 5-7 threes, it's tough to stop the Irish offense. They get the winner of the Stanford-Oklahoma game. My money is on Oklahoma. The Irish/Sooner game would be a good one. Oklahoma can score!

If UConn can get by Rutgers they will play a solid Texas team. They have size in 6'7" Stafford-McGee and 6'4" Kelsey Lang. They combined for 34 points, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks. I'll look into them more closely towards the end of the week.

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Here is the region by region results with news links about the games from Saturday. Upset in red.