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

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Logan slept over last night. Here he is after a bath brushing his teeth.

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Here are the AAC awards to date. The major awards come out Friday.

AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE AWARDS

Defensive Player of the Year: Gabby Williams (UConn)
Sixth-Man Award: Tanaya Atkinson (Temple)
Most Improved Player: Maria Jespersen (South Florida)
Newcomer of the Year: Shanice Johnson (Cincinnati)
Sportsmanship Award: Leslie Vorpahl (Tulane)

First team: Napheesa Collier (UConn), Feyonda Fitzgerald (Temple), Aliyah Gregory (Central Florida), Maria Jespersen (South Florida), Kitija Laksa (South Florida), Katie Lou Samuelson (UConn), Gabby Williams (UConn).

Second team: Alliya Butts (Temple), Donnaizha Fountain (Temple), Alicia Froling (SMU), Kolby Morgan (Tulane), Kia Nurse (UConn).

Third team: Saniya Chong (UConn), Cheyenne Creighton (Memphis), Brea Elmore (Memphis), Shanice Johnson (Cincinnati), Zykira Lewis (Central Florida), Leslie Vorpahl (Tulane).

Freshman team: Crystal Dangerfield (UConn), Shug Dickson (Tulsa), Kendrian Elliott (Tulsa), Angela Harris (Houston), Jasmyne Harris (Houston), Tamara Henshaw (South Florida).

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Congrats to the injured Kia Nurse, who was supposed to resume basketball related activities on this past Wednesday. She was selected as an Academic All-American on Thursday.

Well deserved!!!

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By David in Naples!!!!!

Katie Lou Samuelson became the most recent UConn player to reach 1,000 points, in the game against USF on Monday. The milestone occurred in her 66th game as a Husky. That is only the fifth least number of games that a player has needed to reach 1,000 points. First, here are the Huskies behind KLS in quickness to 1,000.

77 games - Diana Taurasi
75 games - Tina Charles
74 games - Bria Hartley, Nykesha Sales
72 games - Kara Wolters
70 games - Shea Ralph

Then comes Katie Lou at 66 games. Even faster than KLS are the following players:

64 games - Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis
63 games - Abrosimova, Lobo and Stewart
62 games - Kerry Bascom
55 games - Maya Moore

Two observations. First, Katie Lou is in some pretty special company with her 1,000 points in 66 games. Second, that Maya kid must have been really, really good.

Go Huskies..!!

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None of the early conference games really interest me. But when the team I love to hate loses in their first game of their conference tournament, well, I just can't resist writing about it.

Tennessee lost to Alabama 72-64 in the second round of the SEC tournament. After this performance by the Lady Vols, I'm pretty convinced that the only reason they didn't lose in the first round was because they had a bye.

This has to be the strangest team I have ever seen in WCBB. I mean it. How many teams can beat four top ten teams in the same season they lose to four teams outside the top RPI 200.

In this game, Tennessee took a 29-22 lead into the second half. I didn't tune into the game until late in that half, so I don't have much to say about that other than 22 points in a half by Alabama is pretty "Uggy". But Alabama started to really play well in the third quarter, where they hit the boards like the Tennessee teams of old. For the game Crimson Tide outrebounded Tennessee 44-31. Shocking for a team that needs to win the battle of the boards to compete.

Alabama outscored Tennessee 21-10 in the third quarter to take a 43-39 lead heading into the fourth quarter. 6'5" Ashley Knight was dominant in the paint with a double-double along with six big blocks. The Tide refused to fold. They meet every Tennessee challenge with either a big basket of a couple of free throws.

By the end of the game, Tennessee closed one more time to two points, 62-60 when Alabama hit one more free throw to push the lead to three and all Tennessee could do was foul as Alabama put the game away.

Incredibly, the two stars for Tennessee, DDD and Russell both fouled out late in the game. The last foul by DDD was just dumb. She tried to tip the ball away from an Alabama player and hit her with her body. A clear foul and a terrible one for that time and score.

Tennessee shot only 36% from the floor and 33% on threes.

It's really a team in disarray. EVERY call that went against Tennessee was met with cries, feet stamping, looks of amazement and a lot of head shaking by the players. It's a very immature team.

The coaching was again horrendous. They had the coaches mic'd and one thing really stood out to me. At one point in the game, they had Holly saying "They aren't taking threes, so play off and don't let them dribble by". Later in the game after Alabama hit a few threes, at the next timeout Holly then said (or screamed) "Cover the three!!!! You can't let them make threes!!!". How the hell does a player know what to do??? Unbelievable.

If they are a 7 seed, as is projected by Charlie SECReme is doing, I would expect them to lose that first round game, ending the season with only 19 wins. They were lucky to beat Green Bay in their first round game. If they get a good zone playing team that runs a good offense, it will be over for the Lady Vols.

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