Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 4/5/16

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Here is my UConn/Syracuse Pre Game Report

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Here is the link to my ESPN Challenge page.

After Friday's action, here are the leaders -

Synthia - 1050
Chappette - 1030
Jbb1985Knife-edge - 980
JerrJerrMorg - 960
JerrJerrmo - 960
ptgrd69 - 940
Jbb1985Karnevil9 - 910
DoggyDaddy - 900

Congrats to Synthia, who picked Syracuse to get to the final four and is still leading!!

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Well, here we go. Game day coming up. UConn vs Syracuse in a battle of the old Big East. What a shame that these teams aren't still together in the same conference.

If you didn't know the history between these two programs let me fill you in on a few tidbits.

UConn and Syracuse first played each other Dec. 28, 1980. The Cuse won that one 73-68. This game was held shortly after the Big East conference was formed in 1979 but from what I can see, it wasn't a BE game. That didn't happen until 1982. The first six games that UConn played against Syracuse were all losses and coached by Jean Balthaser, who was hired as the first UConn women's coach in the Big East. She was not very successful those years, with UConn going 52-88 overall and a sparkling 6-41 conference record.

In 1985, a young assistant coach from Virginia, Geno Aurmiemma was hired. Over the next 7 games, UConn was 3-4 against Syracuse. Geno was just building the program over those three seasons going 43-39.

As an aside:

39 loses in the first three years.

39 losses over the next five years.

38 losses over the next thirteen years.

18 losses over the next ten years.

At this pace, it would take another twelve years for another 20 losses.

AMAZING

Anyway, back to Syracuse. After the loss on January 1989, UConn beat Syracuse four consecutive times before losing in 1992. Another seven game winning streak for UConn occurred before the next and last loss to happened in January 1996. SU upset defending National Champion 62-59 at Manley Field House. The fans actually did a court storming.

UConn has since won 23 consecutive games before Syracuse left the Big East for the ACC. They haven't met since. Until Tuesday.

But there are some more recent games that are very interesting and show a little history between the two coaches and former players that seem to be getting brushed under the carpet with a bunch of good will bullshit that I'm not buying.

UConn has played and beaten Syracuse nine times since Hillsman took over the Syracuse program. Only one game was under double digits. But the scores of 76-45, 65-59, 107-53, 87-66, 77-41, 82-47, 95-54, 87-62 and 64-51 couldn't have sat well with a coach as competitive (and insane) as the Q.

Over the years, Syracuse played UConn very physically and I can remember the message boards would be buzzing with how many of the SU players were "thugs". I wasn't a fan of the name calling, but certainly it was clear that Q had his players push the envelope. If the refs wouldn't call a foul, it wasn't a foul....so keep fouling. And if you know Geno, he didn't take lightly to this style of play.

The issues between the two coaches came to a boiling point on January 17th, 2009 in a game at the Hartford Civic Center. In a game that was incredibly physical, Geno let Maya Moore loose. Moore scored a career high 40 points in a 107-53 romp. You will be hard pressed to find another game where Geno ran and played pressure defense the entire game. He was pissed. Here is an excerpt from the ESPN article about the game -

Auriemma received a technical foul with just over 6 minutes left and his team up 56 points for screaming about Syracuse's physical play.

Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman, who said before the game that he thought his squad matched up well athletically with the Huskies, said there was nothing wrong with the way they played.

"I do not think that our team did anything dirty," Hillsman said. "I do not think that our team was overly physical. UConn is a very physical team. You cannot beat UConn if you do not play hard."

If a coach has to defend himself for dirty player, than they played dirty. I certainly remember that game. And I also remember the end of the game.

Geno had words with Syracuse's Nicole Michael in the handshake line after the game and was pulled away by Shea Ralph. As Geno went back through the line to leave the court it looked like Michael stepped in Geno's direction, and he stumbled over her foot.

Geno had his usual take on the incident - "I think I stepped on someone's foot, stumbled or something. I wish I could tell you there was more to it. Kids do funny things when they lose. They
were (mad) they lost by 50. They didn't want to have any part of shaking hands. None. Zero ... I hope my players don't do that."

Yeah, he was annoyed but kinda took the high road. But I believe that because of that game was the start of some really bad feelings between the two coaches and of course the rabid UConn fan base.

And when Coach Q didn't let UConn schedule them this season and made his lame excuse, I was really hoping UConn would play them in the tournament.

Now, more recently, Coach Q turned down UConn when they wanted to schedule a home game for Stewart. At the time, it was felt that he just didn't want to get hammered by the Huskies on his home court where Stewart would be the returning hometown hero.

Stewart, as classy as ever, said - ''It's a little frustrating, to be honest, considering the relationship I had with Coach Q and the staff that was there (at the time of her recruitment). It would have been nice to play at Syracuse because it's literally five minutes from my house. But things happen. I'm just happy that Colgate was able to put us on its schedule.''

Coach Q made his excuse, saying that it takes two years to put together a schedule. I'm not buying that and neither is Geno. The day before the Cornell game, Geno said "So I don’t know what the reason was, but I’m not going to beg anybody to play us. We don’t lack for great non-conference games at Connecticut."

What a shock to be playing them in the final. Maybe Stewart pulls a Maya Moore and scores 40 in this game? We can only hope.

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Syracuse has taken 1,113 three point shots so far this year. By comparison, UConn has taken only 756. Last night the Orange took another 33 threes. They live and die by the three point shot. The good news, for the Huskies, is they only make 29.8% of those attempts.

Against Washington, they made 12 shots from that range or 36.4%. But, that means they missed 21 three point shots..!! They make up for missing so much by getting offensive rebounds. Syracuse averages 17+ offensive rebounds per game. In a nutshell, that is their offensive game plan, shoot 3's and rebound the misses. The Washington Huskies defense offered little resistance against Syracuse. The Orange took 71 shots, missed 41 of them, but grabbed 46 total rebounds. Shoot, miss, rebound and shoot again. The UConn defense should be just a wee bit tougher.

Defensively, Syracuse is all about pressure. They created 18 turnovers last night. That's only an issue if you think Kelsey Plum is a better ball handler than MoJeff. She's not even close. However, this season, Peterson and Fondren, the 'Cuse guards, had 214 turnovers between them. Day and Sykes had 80 and 74 turnovers respectively. In sharp contrast, Moriah had 71 turnovers and would have been 5th in that area on Syracuse. Yes, Syracuse tries to create turnovers and had 890 this season. But, UConn is one of the best at breaking the press. Go ahead, double team the ball. Someone is going to get a layup.

Syracuse missed 1,590 shots from the field so far this season. That is an accuracy rate of 37.5%. Against UConn, that probably won't go up.

Syracuse grabbed 643 offensive rebounds in 37 games. Geno and company will have a plan for that strategy.

Syracuse created 24 turnovers per game with their pressure defense. They didn't play MoJeff and Stewie yet.

Go Huskies..!!

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