Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 1/19/16

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Well, I did watch the No. 18 Tennessee Lady Vols take on the No. 3 Irish of Notre Dame Monday night. The game went pretty much as I expected. Using the crowd for energy, Notre Dame went on an early 8-0 run to take a 13-7 lead. The Tennessee defense did it's job, forcing ND into a 1-10 shooting run while Tennessee scored 11 points to finish the half up 18-15.

The second quarter was a lot of back and forth before being tied at 25 each with four minutes left in the half. As I expected, Notre Dame was put the lead to seven with a 9-2 run and the score was 36-29 with Notre Dame in front.

Tennessee closed to five 42-37 but a 15-2 Notre Dame run to end the third quarter making it 57-39. Notre Dame continued it's dominating play with a 9-3 run to start the quarter making it an overall 24-5 run over 8 minutes and 41 seconds. Notre Dame now had a 66-42 lead with 7:25 left in the game. Tennessee made it not as ugly with a 24-13 run to end the game.

Another terrible performance by Tennessee. They shot 42% from the field, 4-15 on threes and 20 turnovers. Seven of those turnovers were in the deciding 8 minutes.

I remember when the Notre Dame fans were happy with only losing by 10. But they were down 22 points with around 9 minutes left in the game, similar to this game. Can Tennessee take solace in the fact that they outscored ND 24-13 to end the game? At this time, it's really all they have.

It amazed me how Tennessee played with such intensity and urgency the last 8 minutes when they were down 25. Something is terribly wrong in Knoxville.

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I only bashed Tennessee and didn't say how impressed I am with Notre Dame. While I believe that UConn is still too good to lose, Notre Dame has some terrific players and most of those will be back plus they add that terrific guard Ali Patberg, who redshirt this year and two great players from the 2016 class in UConn target Erin Boley and Jackie Young. You can just feel that they will win a National Championship in the near future.

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Well, it happened. Duke is out of the top twenty-five poll for the first time in 16 years. 316 straight weeks. Crazy, I know. I've been harping on Duke to fire Coach McCallie and if things don't change, it will happen soon. Or maybe after the season is over. Something has to change.

UConn with 423 straight weeks and Tennessee with 561 lead the pack.

Tennessee is 18th in the latest poll and they just lost to Notre Dame. They have Vanderbilt at home, No. 9 Kentucky on the road and No. 10 Mississippi State on the road coming up. They should be next to have their streak broken.

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This is certainly true in the long WCBB season. Some teams get off to hot starts and then fade and some teams can't get out of their own way before figuring it out. Here one of each so far this season.

I mentioned them yesterday, but let's take a closer look at Northwestern -

Preseason they were ranked 24th.
Week 2 - After winning their first game the moved to 20th.
Week 3 -  They moved to 19th after being 3-0.
Week 4 -  After winning their next three games, they made a big jump to 15th.
Week 5 -  They went to 8-0 and moved three more spots to No. 12 in the country.
Week 6 -  They finally lost a game and were 10-1 when they dropped to 15th.
Week 7 -  They won their only game to move to 11-1 and stayed 15th.
Week 8 -  They won their only game to move to 12-1 and drop to 14th.
Week 9 -  They lost their only game to move to 12-2 to drop to 16th.
Week 10- They lost both games to drop out of the poll move to 12-4. 1st in "receiving votes".
Week 11 - They split their two games. 13-5 and still out of the poll and now 2nd in "receiving votes".

Wow...talk about from the penthouse to the outhouse. So, they start at 24, rise to 12, then fall out of the top twenty-five all in 10 weeks.

First ten games - 10-0 playing against an average RPI of 180
Last eight games - 3-5 playing against an average RPI of 85

Now, on the other end of the spectrum is the Louisville Cards.

Preseason they were ranked 8th.
Week 2 - They lost their 1st game and dropped to 16th.
Week 3 - They lost their 2nd game to move to 0-2 and dropped to 22nd.
Week 4 - They lost 2 out of 3 at the Gulf Coast Showcase to move to 1-4 and disappeared from the post and "receiving votes".
Week 5 - They won their next two to move to 3-4 and still out of the polls but received 1 vote.
Week 6 - They lost to No. 8 Kentucky and won one other game to move to 4-5 and lost that one vote.
Week 7 - They won three games to move to 7-5. Still no votes.
Week 8 - They won their only game to move to 8-5. Still no votes.
Week 9 - They won their two games including against No. 15 FSU to move to 10-5. Grabbed 4 votes.
Week 10- They won their two games including against No. 22 Duke to move to 12-5. Ranked 23rd.
Week 11- They won their two games to move to 14-5. Ranked 17th.

Talk about a down and up season. In the top ten then out of the poll in 4 weeks. What a horrible start. But now Louisville is on a roll. A young team that has grown up.

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From David in Naples

UConn has scored 1,420 points in 16 games so far this season. That works out to 88.8 pts per game. Stewie and Morgan are the team's leading scorers at 19.5 and 14.9 pts per game. What if those two didn't play in a game?

Well, the next five scorers are MoJeff at 13.2, Kia w/ 9.9, Gabby at 9.3, Lou w/ 8.9 and Napheesa at 6.6 pts per game. So, those five together average 47.9 pts. That is not quite the 51.5 pts that opponents average. Just add in Saniya at 5.6 pts and UConn's average would be 53.5 per game. That beats 51.5 every night.

So UConn could outscore opponents, without Stewie and Tuck, if the #3 through #8 players just scored their average. That doesn't even include Natalie Butler...

And another -

Natalie Butler is finally healthy and seeing plenty of minutes off the bench. Her stats keep coming up 6's.....

1. Nat has appeared in 6 games.
2. She has scored 36 points for an average of 6.0 per game.
3. Butler has 6 blocked shots, plus 6 personal fouls and 6 turnovers.
4. Her rebound total is 36, also an average of 6.o per game.
5. Natalie's combined assists and steals are twelve, which is twice 6.
6. She wears #51, which adds up to 6.

Natalie should get better and better, since the next 6 opponents are AAC conference games....

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What a dismal performance by Diamond Deshields, who was selected on the Wooden list just recently. I thought that was a terrible selection. There are several players that should be on the list ahead of her. And in Monday nights game against Notre Dame, Deshields came up short when Tennessee needed her most.

In typical Deshields fashion, she scored eight of her 17 points and four of her five steals in the last 7 minutes after the lead was 24 points. That's not what a superstar is supposed to do.

What did she do during when Tennessee needed her in the 8 minutes and 41 seconds that Notre Dame put the game away?

She was out of the game for the first two minutes of the ND run. She mostly passed the ball around the perimeter and occasionally ran through the lane. On defense, she let Ogunbowale drive by her down the lane. The ND freshman missed the layup and when Deshields was passed the ball she made a long pass to the freshman Cooper who the traveled. The head shake was more typical Deshields. Her body language is horrible. On the next offensive possession for ND, Cable drove easily by her for a short jumper and then DD jogged down the court after the play. Holly took her out after the next stop in play. She was in for a minutes and only hurt the team. I think it's the first time I've seen Warlick do that. It's about time.

She came back in and immediately air balled a jumper and then on the defensive end, pointed at Madison Cable, a 50% three point shooter, instead of running to Cable to defend the shot. Of course Cable drained the three pointer and ND completed the 24-5 run.

Now, was it Warlick's fault? Maybe Deshields plays well enough to prevent that long run if given the minutes. But I don't buy that. I watched her waltz around the perimeter, rarely working hard on offense and defense. She looks to play her defense off the ball, and occasionally gets the steal. But overall her play is just lazy.

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So, without further ado!!!

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