Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 1/18/16

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In case you hadn't seen it, here is my UConn/Temple Post Game report.

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What a crazy finish to the South Carolina/Texas A&M game. The Gamecocks had a 2 point lead 57-55 when the Aggies fouled Tiffany Mitchell sending her to the line with 20 seconds left in the game. The 80%+ FT shooter missed both. On the ensuring possession, A'ja Wilson fouled Jordon Jones who went to the line with 3 seconds left and a chance to tie the game. She missed the first and made the second. Texas A&M quickly fouled Sessions who made one of two to give South Carolina a two point lead with 3 seconds left.

Believe it or not, Jennings was able to catch an 80 foot pass on the inbounds and score to tie the game with 1 second left. Of course you are now thinking overtime. But inexplicably Shlonte Allen grabbed Sessions on the inbound to send her to the line. She made one of two for the final 59-58 margin. A heartbreaking loss for Texas A&M and a fortuitous win for South Carolina.

A few observations from watching this game.

Courtney Walker and Jordan Jones are two really good players. They both have beautiful jumpers. I have no idea why A&M lost to Arkansas and BYU. They are a pretty good team.

South Carolina is not very impressive even though they have 3 impressive players. Mitchell was good early, scoring 7 points in the first quarter. But she only scored 2 points in the second half and was 1-5 on threes and 2-5 from the line. Not good for a supposed AA.

A'ja Wilson is a load. She gets the ball down low and she is tough to stop. But get her outside the circle and she really struggles. She'd like to be but she is no Stewart.

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At one point in the first half of the South Carolina/Texas A&M game, the announcers said that SC center Alaina Coates has three assists tying her career high. That is the big difference between UConn's bigs and most others. Stewart and Tuck AVERAGE 3.9 and 3.5 APG. Of course she didn't get another assists for the rest of the game.

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It's hard to believe that Northwestern was No. 12 in the country this season. Since then, they lost to DePaul, Penn State, Purdue and Michigan State. Sunday they lost to No. 8 Maryland 80-62, scoring only 9 points in the 4th quarter. They went 2-18 on threes. Yuch!

From No. 12 and 10-0 to 13-5 and unranked. The good news is they are no longer overrated.

Nice game by Kristen Confroy, who was 8-10 on three pointers for Maryland. That is some high quality shooting.

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And then there were two. No. 4 Texas, the only other undefeated team besides UConn and South Carolina went down Sunday to No. 6 Baylor in a game that was not as close as I expected, 80-67.

Texas came out quickly, running to a 16-9 lead with 3 minutes left in the 1st quarter. Baylor turned that around with their aggressive play and that forced Texas into big foul trouble. The Bears outscored Texas 17-4 to end the quarter to take a 26-20 lead. Eventually pushed the lead to 19 points late in the 3rd quarter before Texas made one final push closing to 6 with two minutes left in the game. They could get no close as Baylor closed them out making 8 straight foul shots for the final margin of 13 points.

Imani Boyette was terrific for Texas with 15 points and 17 rebounds. She even hit a three. Brooke McCarty made four of five three pointers and added 16 points.

Alexis Jones played great in this game for Baylor with 29 points and Nina Davis added 24. Great win for Mulkey and the Lady Bears!

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From David in Naples

The six most important games UConn has played in the last three years have all been in the Final Four. UConn is 6-0 in those critical games and Breanna Stewart has been the star every game. Consider her stats against Notre Dame (3 times), Louisville, Stanford and Maryland:

1. In the six victories, Stewie scored 124 points on 77 shots. That is 21 pts per game.
2. Stewie also grabbed 98 rebounds, 8.8 per game.
3. She had 13 assists and only 8 turnovers for a 1.62 ratio of assists/t.o.
4. Overall, Stewie shot 44-77 or 57.1% from the field.
5. From 3 pt range, she was an amazing 10-20 or 50%.
6. Stewart had 19 blocked shots in 6 games for a 3.1 per game average.
7. Stewie averaged just under 37 minutes per game, including 39 minutes in the last 4 Final Four games.

Great players are best in the most important games. Stewie has been a super star when UConn needed it most..!!

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Sunday was a great example of how parity is coming to WCBB. Yes, UConn is a step above everyone else. Ok...maybe 5 or 6 steps. But in the real world, the teams are so much closer together than any time than I can remember. It's too bad the play seems to be so poor. Even the top teams seem to struggle to play consistently good basketball. But when all the teams seem to play that way, you get a lot of close games and even many upsets.

There were three upsets with Washington over No. 25 USC, Arkansas over No. 24 Missouri and No. 6 Baylor over No. 4 Texas. USC and Missouri can say goodbye to the top 25.

There were also some games that could have been upsets. No. 15 Texas A&M only lost by one to No. 2 South Carolina, No. 9 Kentucky beat Auburn by seven, No. 17 UCLA barely beat Washington State by two, No. 20 Florida had to ralley in the fourth quarter to beat a weak LSU team, Louisville had to score 35 points in the fourth quarter to be NCST by two.

Because I collect this data for you every day, I can honestly say that day after day there are upsets and competitive games. It's a good thing but it would be better if they would play a better brand of basketball more often.

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So, without further ado!!!

Ladies and Gents, DD looks at the news........