Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 2/22/16

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Sunday, my beautiful 9 year old granddaughter Noa's cheer team won their competition and are on their way to D2 Summit April 30th.

Summit bids are only awarded to the TOP 10% of the competitive Cheerleading squads in the Country. D2 Summit takes place in Tampa this April, where only the best of the best compete against one another.

I'm so proud and I'm booking our flights to Tampa for tournament!!!!

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Congrats to one of my favorite players, Minnesota's Rachel Banham.

In a wild and wooly 114-106 loss to Michigan State, Banham scored 52 points to become the all time scoring leading in the Big Ten. She has been on fire lately averaging 41 ppg over her last five outings. Amazing.

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Ok...finally. No more questions. It's now a fact. Tennessee will be out of both Top 25 polls once the AP poll comes out on Monday afternoon. Not even the AP voters can screw up this one. Formally No. 24 Tennessee lost to SEC basement dweller LSU 57-56 in an amazing ending.

The game was all LSU in the first half. Tennessee turned the ball over 10 times, LSU took advantage and had a 28-18 lead at the half. Tennessee came out with more defensive intensity and had held LSU to only two points for much of the third quarter. With 2:43 in the quarter, LSU scored on a free throw after Tennessee had outscored them 14-2. The score was 32-31 when LSU grabbed the momentum back with an 8-4 run to take a 39-35 lead at the end of three.

The third quarter was the Diamond Deshields show. She dominated the Tennessee offense scoring 10 points and hitting two threes. And she was just as active in the fourth quarter.

Deshields score 7 more points for 17 of her 19 points in the second half. A terrific performance.

The fourth quarter was a lot of back and forth with LSU doing it's best to hold on to their tenuous lead. With 4:13 left, Tennessee finally tied the game up at 47 on a Deshields layup. LSU retook the lead only 20 seconds later on a Bethel jumper. Graves tied it back up at 49 at 3:36 and behind one free throw by Russell Tennessee took a 50-49 lead. Around that free throw over the next futile 3 minutes was a litany of mistakes by both teams. Several missed layups and turnovers. Just some ugly ball. But the best was yet to come.

With 46 seconds left, Deshields came off a screen and his a foul line jumper. She can really elevate. LSU's Deemer took a three pointer and missed but LSU's Jones grabbed the rebound and put the ball back for a 52-51 game with 36 seconds left. LSU let 14 seconds off the clock tick off before fouling Middleton. She made both to give Tennessee a 54-51 point lead with 22 second remaining. With 15 seconds left, Graves fouled Rina Hill for LSU and she made both to cut the lead to one. LSU fouled on the inbounds and Graves made one of two free throws to give Tennessee a 55-53 lead with still 15 seconds on the clock.

Alexis Hyder then tried to dribble quickly to the basket but she got a little sloppy with the ball and Deshields stole it giving Tennessee possession with 11 seconds left. The Lady Vols called a timeout at this point and that would prove to be critical. On the inbounds pass, LSU fouled Carter who proceeded to make one of two free throws to give Tennessee a three point lead with ten seconds left. At this point, I'm thinking that even Tennessee can't blow this one.

You'd think LSU would go for a three to tie. But instead they drive quickly to the basket for a layup and after the basket, LSUs' Norton fouled Russell with no time coming off the clock. 4.5 seconds left. Tennessee up 56-55 and Russell shooting two. Why is Russell, at 57% from the FT line is even in the game? Ask Holly.

She misses the first one, and you can see the look in her eyes that she was not going to make the second. LSU rebounded the ball and with 3.4 seconds left, Andraya Carter, a player who has shown nothing but class in the recent press conferences, a very sweet young woman made a terrible mistake. She reached in to try to knock the ball away from Hyder and the refs had to call the foul.

Hyder, who was 6-6 on free throws at that point in the fourth quarter calmly hit both free throws. With no time outs left (I told you it would be critical), Tennessee had to go full court in 3.4 seconds to get off a 35 foot prayer by Carter. This is not the first time Warlick has used her timeouts too soon. I'm sure the Vol fans will be all over that one.

This is just one more terrible loss for Tennessee, who has lost several games late blowing big leads. This was one different but maybe even more painful. You have to really feel for the players at this point. What a lousy trip back to Knoxville this will be.

This was not a loss to a very good team. LSU was 8-18 and 2-11 coming into this game. They lost to UConn 86-40.

Tennessee had 18 turnovers and only 8 assists. And they shot only 38% from the field and 29% on threes. You just can't win many games like this. Tennessee is now 16-11 overall and 7-7 in the conference. I wonder where Charlie SECreame will have Tennessee.

I really had to laugh when the SEC shill on ESPNU said "One of the deepest conferences in the country, and that proves to be the case once again."

He left off deep with crappy teams.

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From David in Naples

Geno recruits superstar players who are willing to share the basketball and make the extra pass. Against East Carolina, the Huskies had 22 assists on 28 baskets. Those 22 assists were spread out among 8 different players and equaled UConn's season average of 21.96 assists per game. That average is pretty consistent with last year's team, coming in at 21.3 assists per game and the 2013-14 team logging 21.2. Even scoring stars like Stewie have unselfish totals of 122 assists in 2013-14 and 122 again last year. This year, she is already at 106 assists for an average of 4.1 per game.

The other top rated women's basketball teams don't share the ball quite as much. Notre Dame, ranked #2, has an average of 18.1 assists per game. South Carolina (#3) comes in at 14.5 assists per game while Maryland (#6) averages just 13.5. Ohio State, which has worked its way back up to #5, has 15.0 assists per game. Interestingly, against UConn, those four teams averaged only 13 assists per game.

Baylor is the only top 6 team UConn has not played. They average almost as many assists per game as UConn at 21.5, but against inferior opponents. For example, against Texas A&M-Commerce they scored 104 points, won by 63 pts and had 30 assists. Versus Arkansas-Monticello, Baylor also scored 104 points, won by 65 and had 32 assists. Against power house McNeese State, Baylor had a season high 105 points and 37 assists. In their only loss this season, Baylor managed only 7 assists against Oklahoma State.

UConn will not match last year's feat of having all five starters get 100 or more assists. They will most likely finish the season with more total assists, but just spread out among more players. After 26 games, the Huskies have 571 assists, while their opponents have just 265.

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I don't know your tolerance for pain, but here are two post game interviews after the Tennessee Game. The first was with Coach Warlick. Very painful to watch. Sniffling a lot. And her mantra was free throws and turnovers. Fix that and they win.

The second one is with Diamond Deshields and Bashaara Graves. This can't be easy for these young women.

Deshields did her best not to trash Warlick but reading between the lines, she was not happy with playing only a few minutes in the first half. She did say she committed two early turnovers that was the reason Holly sat her. Definitely upset that Warlick sat her.