Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 3/28/17

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Standings in the DoggyDaddy's Dailies brackets going into the Final Four.

Bracket

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Here is my UConn/Oregon Post Game Report.

Here is my UConn/Mississippi State Pre Game Report.

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The AP All-American team has been announced and UConn now has two new players for the Wall of Fame!!!

Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier made the first team and Gabby Williams made second team AA.

Considering that the two first team AA's are only sophomores, and the 2nd team AA is only a junior, UConn will continue their domination into next season, even if they don't win the championship this year (mojo fix).

Kelsey Plum, A'ja Wilson and Brionna Jones fill out the rest of the first team.

Kelsey Mitchell, Brianna Turner, Chantel Osahor and Alexis Peterson join Williams on the 2nd team.

Osahor, Peterson, Plum, Jones and possibly Mitchell (if she declares for the draft) will not be back next season. That leaves four spots open on the ten player team.

My vote would be for Stevens and Nurse for UConn. What do you think? Half the ten player AA team would be UConn players? That is so unfair!!!

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"People who are making these 30+ points blow out prediction are insane"

Poster pvdoggy on the UConn message board

I don't know, pvdoggy. Were you talking to me? I believe I said 35+ points in my Pre Game Report?

That's ok. I understand. Sometimes even I can't believe how good this team is. And boy, did they prove that in this game.

It didn't take long for the first run to happen. After a slowish start, the score was 6-4 UConn and BAM, the game was basically over. UConn went on a 17-0 run fueled by a few three pointers, but mostly some terrific defense. Steal after steal led to easy baskets. Chong looked like the AA in this run!

At this point I believe Oregon changed up their defense to a zone and it slowed down the Huskies enough that they outscored UConn 9-5 over the last 3 minutes of the 1st quarter to keep it to only a 28-13 lead for the Huskies. Nice composure shown by the young Ducks.

The second quarter started with more of the same. The game was back and forth with Oregon closing to 13 points a few times, the last with 6:15 remaining in the half, 34-21. Then again, BAM....UConn went on another big run, 13-0 to take a 47-21 lead. A nice three point play by Lexi Bando stopped the bleeding but a Williams drive to the basket after splitting the defense at the foul line ended the first half scoring with UConn leading 49-24.

On Oregon's last possession, Collier blocked the same player twice and that was it.

Geno told the team at halftime that the first half was the as good a first half as they could hope for. Wow. Can't argue with that! He added that they need to do the same thing in the third quarter.

The third quarter started out with UConn slowly but surely pulling away even more. After Chong threw this beautiful wrap around bounce pass to Williams for a layup, UConn had outscored Oregon 8-2 in the first 4:00 minutes of the quarter. Again, credit goes to Oregon again. They finished the quarter outscoring UConn 17-15. They certainly played even with UConn for several minutes at a time. But the score was 72-43 going into the fourth quarter. Only the final margin was yet to be decided.

Geno said after the third quarter that teams that stop playing are sitting home watching. Kinda a Yogi-ism. All the teams sitting home have stopped playing..lol. But we get it. He is so right

And the team took his words to heart. They played hard on every possession to start the fourth quarter, going on a 9-2 run behind the two subs, Dangerfield and Butler along with some great offensive play by Collier. At that point, with 5:42 left in the game, the two 1st team AA's left the game. Predictably, the scoring came to a screeching halt. But kudos to Butler, who had 5 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks in her limited minutes. UConn outscored Oregon 18-9 in the quarter for the final score of 90-52.

Some points of interest -

- Geno passed Pat Summitt for NCAA all time wins with his 113th victory. He will own ever single coaching record by the end of his career.

- This is also UConn's TENTH consecutive Final Fours. Amazing.

- As the announcer said....36-0, 111th straight win....unbelievable.

- I don't think I have seen Geno happier. He was grinning ear to ear in the post game interview. And when he said "I thought they were great tonight, they were great tonight, they were really really great tonight". Wow....a two "really" comment. Check out this grin!

This guy knows he has something special with this team.

Then he gives Napheesa a shot about her defense. It was hysterical. He was talking about how laid back the team is, that nothing seems to bother her.....then he said "Look at Napheesa, she scored a 1000 points tonight and it didn't bother her one bit that the players she was guarding scored 1400".

And he rubs off on his players. As the game was ending, Geno turned to the team and said "wow..that is 10 straight final fours, that is incredible"....and Lou looked at him and said "you suck". Are you kidding me? I love this team!!!!

After the interview, they showed the team gathered at midcourt and there was Geno clearly coaching up Dangerfield. She played like a freshman in this game and Geno was working her through it. No yelling, just showing her and telling her what he wants from her.

So what do you think the Mississippi State players are thinking after watching this game?

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I started to watch the Florida State/South Carolina game. I just couldn't do it. After watching UConn play such precision basketball, anything else gives me a headache. I'll post the final score and links to the game later.

Ok, I'm back and boy am I sorry I watched the last three minutes of the game. South Carolina did their best to give away the game with some really bad turnovers, but Florida State couldn't make enough baskets to get all the way back in the game. The refs made some bad calls in the last few minutes as well in South Carolina's favor. They didn't call a foul on SC's Davis on a clear hook and offensive foul that she finished with a layup to give the Gamecocks a five point lead. That one was a killer. And then Romero looked to tap away a dribble of Davis and had a clear line to a layup but she was called for a foul.

The final was 71-64 as South Carolina put the game away from the foul line. Not an impressive win. They had 18 turnover in this game, a terrible number. And they had only TWO offensive rebounds for the game. One was a team rebound. Crazy stat.

So, the final is set on that side of the bracket. Stanford against South Carolina. This could be a good game. I'll be pulling for Karli and Stanford.

Behind stellar defense, SC beats Baylor to advance to Elite Eight

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By David in Naples!!!!!

Sometimes the outcome of a game is clear at halftime. Tonight's game was one of those games. Oregon turned the ball over 17 times in just 20 minutes. UConn had 12 steals and held the Ducks to 9 baskets. After scoring just 13 points in the 1st period, Oregon came up with only 11 in the 2nd.

UConn, on the other hand, came out on fire and scored 28 points in 10 minutes. The Huskies added 21 in the next 10 minutes to extend the lead to 25 points at the half. Game over, head back to the West Coast Oregon.

Napheesa and Saniya had 26 points at the half, the Ducks only 24. Kia and Gabby had 6 assists, the Ducks as a team had 6 assists. UConn hit for 20 baskets and were perfect from the free throw line (4-4). The Ducks didn't stand a chance..!!

Go Huskies..!!