DoggyDaddy's UConn/South Florida Post Game Report




 

 

 

No. 1 UConn Huskies                                    No. 22 South Florida

75                                                             59     

 

 Post Game report

   

This game was another slow start for UConn. They took quite a few open threes as South Florida packed the paint to negate the inside advantage the Huskies held especially with USF's star front court player Alisa Jenkins out with an ankle injury.

 

The problem was that UConn really struggled early from the outside, missing their first 5 three pointers. And while that was going on, the Bulls took advantage of their open looks, especially their star Courtney Williams and the freshman from Latvia, Kitija Laska.

 

Kitija Laska hit her first three on a missed assignment by Nurse in the corner. Collier motioned for Nurse to cover the play,  but she hesitated and that is all the Latvian assassin needed to "let it fly". What a great shooter. She hit her second three on a pass of the break when Collier neglected to cover her. Two missed assignments, two threes for Laska. When Williams hit a three with Nurse right in her face, it was 11-4 USF and UConn's early struggles continued. When Ferierra hit a three with 4:00 left in the quarter, South Florida was 4-5 on threes while UConn was 0-4 and the Bulls had a 14-6 lead.  

 

Stewart broke the three point streak by making one to cut the lead to five. Nurse followed with a three of her own and UConn's comeback had started in earnest. After one more Stewart three UConn had closed the gap and Gabby Williams scored to give UConn it's first and final lead 17-15 at the end of one quarter.

 

The second quarter started with terrific pass from Jefferson on the break and a tough layup by Williams for an "and one". After Williams free throw, UConn now led by five. After a Laska jumper cut the lead back to three, Morgan Tuck scored seven of UConn's next nine points to push UConn's lead to ten, 31-21. Courtney Williams refused to let South Florida disappear and scored the next seven points for USF and the last five of the quarter to cut UConn's lead to 5, 33-28 at the half. There is a reason Geno said "I don't think there's another player that we've played against this year that's as hard to guard as Courtney Williams,". She is just amazing.

 

The third quarter started with a lot of misses. UConn started 0-2 and USF 0-5 (with a couple of offensive rebounds) before Stewart score to push the UConn lead to seven. It was then the "Latvian Assassin" (someone call USF to tell them I have a new nickname for her) turn to keep South Florida in the game. She hit two quick threes to cut the lead to one, 35-34. One the first one, Stewart didn't fight over a screen quickly enough and the second was after UConn went to a zone and she was wide open. After an offensive foul call on Nurse, USF had a chance to take their first lead since the first quarter. Laska missed a jumper and after two offensive rebounds and misses by Jesperson, UConn went on 12-2 run and the game seemed to be over as the UConn lead was back to double digits. Of course USF went on a mini run of their own to close to 6 points two different times behind another three by Laska but a Jefferson three pointer gave UConn a 53-44 at the end of three quarters.

 

The fourth quarter started and if you went for a bathroom break and missed the first two minutes when you came back the game was over. Jefferson, Tuck and Samuelson hit consecutive threes and the UConn lead was 18. After Nurse hit a pair of free throws and a nice jumper, the lead was expanded to 21 with around four minutes left in the game. Of course, South Florida went on a quick 9-0 run of their own with 3 three pointers, two by Courtney Williams. But that was as close as the Bulls would get. UConn pushed the lead to 18 before Courtney Williams hit her final basket for the final score, 75-59.                     

        

 Game Stats and Box Score

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  Game Quotes From Geno 

 

"It was a really well-played game between two teams," 

"I don't think there's another player that we've played against this year that's as hard to guard as Courtney Williams,"

“We knew going in this was going to be really hard and we prepared a little bit different. There is a little different vibe on this team because they know that this team has played us enough times that they think, rightly so, that they are just as entitled to win this conference as we are. They act like it and play like it.”
 

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Game Quotes from Coach Jose Fernandez  

 

"The game kind of exploded on us."

"Four years ago, Courtney (Williams') freshman year, three-quarters of the arena is Connecticut fans. It's changing."

"Was I pleased with our guys' effort? Yeah. To play without a guy that means so much to us, I thought our guys really, really competed and didn't worry about that."

"We knew matchup-wise, it was gonna be tough, especially the Morgan Tuck matchup. That was the biggest difference, but we got it down to one in the third quarter and we went empty on two trips."

"The days of our guys not thinking that they can play (with UConn), guess what? Those days are long gone,"

 

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Player Evaluations 

Breanna Stewart

 

Stewie hit a couple of huge threes in the first half but as my friend David observed, she was grabbed, held, pushed and harassed every possession. The refs just don't see enough of the off the ball fouls, in my opinion. In spite of that, I thought that Stewart had a solid game and her 12 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 blocks were key in the victory.

 

 

   Moriah Jefferson

 

Jefferson played a tough 39 minutes. I'm pretty sure her focus on defense and ball distribution impacted her shooting some, as she went only 3-10 from the field and only 2-3 on threes. But she had six assists and only two turnovers and she played excellent defense as always.   

 

   Morgan Tuck

There was one article that said "No. 1 UConn takes no Bull, Tuck-errific once again". I love it! 

 

Morgan did it offensively in every way you can think of. She was 3-6 on threes. She handed out four assists. She scored 22 points. She drove to the basket, posted up. It was an all-American performance by a FIRST TEAM AA. It was great to hear how good her knee felt after she felt a little discomfort two days ago. 

 

"Today was a good day [health-wise]. We've been trying to make sure it would be the day [that she would come back]. I've been out the last couple of days, but I really wanted to play."

Kia Nurse

I watched her miss her first three and said, oh no, here we go again. But she sure turned that around for the rest of the game. In her 33 minutes she scored 16 points and went 4-8 on threes. Her hustle was as good as ever. She did miss a couple of defensive assignments, but it's tough when you have two excellent three point shooters to defend. Sometimes you make the wrong choice on who to guard, especially in a zone defense.         

Napheesa Collier

 

Collier only played 14 minutes in this game but she managed to tear down 6 rebounds. She looked lost out there on defense, something you don't see very often. But an overall solid performance. I'm sure Geno would like to see her more aggressive on offense. She has the skills.

 

  

Gabby Williams 

 

I thought that was a terrific 17 minutes by Williams. She scored 7 points, had 4 rebounds and 2 assists. She was one for one on the free throw line and is 16-21 for the season, a tidy 76.2%. A great example of a player doing a great job working on a weakness.     

 

 Katie Lou Samuelson

 

 Katie hit a couple of big threes in the fourth quarter and overall played a nice game. She managed to snag four tough rebounds and played some nice defense. She played 22 minutes in scoring 8 points.  

 

Final Thoughts

       

Whew, what a great game. You saw incredible performances by players on both teams. I hope USF wins every game here on out except against UConn and they receive a fair seed in a good bracket away from UConn. They are good enough to do some tournament damage.

 

One more shout out to Courtney Williams. She did everything she could to keep USF in this game and has a complete offensive game.  

 

And here are some nice words about Tuck by the best player in the country, Breanna Stewart -

 

"She's a big part of our team, offensively and defensively. To able to spread the floor, with her three-point shooting and ability to get to the basket, really helps us. I don't think there's any doubt, once you look at who contributes to the really good teams [in the nation], you'd be hard-pressed to find someone as valuable to their team as Tuck is to us. All you had to do was come to the Houston game [to judge her value]. She makes everyone on the team better. And the bigger the game, the bigger the stage, the more at stake, the better she plays and it's been like that for pretty much her entire career."

 

I'm sure we will hear over the next few days why Butler played 1 minute and Chong didn't get in the game. My own thought are that Chong's knee playing 3 games in 5 days, was barking and they decided to not push it. And with Butler, I think the game was too fast and it was a matchup that Geno didn't like.       

 

What bullcrap those two offensive foul calls on Stewart were. Just terrible. The second one had the USF player falling before Stewart made a move. Refs suck.

 

How about that Jefferson move in the third quarter. She tricky dribbled into the lane and then had her legs go one way and her hips go the other as she hit a floater from 8 feet. Fantastic play!!

 

I'm sure I will have some fun over the next few days taking to task the fans that feel the need to hammer UConn's performance and even individual players on message boards. But perspective is a good thing to have. It was their 3rd game in 5 days on the road ending with a terrific team in South Florida. They are coached by a wonderful coach in Jose Fernandez. They had the confidence they could compete with UConn and they did until they didn't. UConn had a 21 point lead with 4 minutes left. They shot the crap out of the ball in the second half. No complaints here.