DoggyDadddy's UConn/South Florida III Post Game Report

Well, that was one of the best performances by a UConn team for the first three quarters. On both sides of the ball, UConn was just off the charts.

They scored 30, 32 and 31 points in those quarters. And they also gave up only 11, 12 and 10 points to South Florida.

UConn shot an amazing 72% from the field in the first half. 71% on threes. And 4-4 from the three throw line. Burning hot!

Enjoy the highlights, interviews, stats and pictures and my write ups for each player!!! 

Game Highlights

From Storrs South

From the AAC Conference

Full Post Game from the AAC

 Game Stats and Box Score

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Game Quotes From Geno

Post Game Presser

"We made hardly any mistakes at all defensively and that just got everything going down at the other end. For the most part this season, when Lou gets it going early and makes some shots early, it just changes everything for our team. She just has the ability to blow wide open and the confidence that we get from that spills over to everything else."

"More importantly, it's the way Katie Lou played not just the way she shot the ball. That was most important to me."

''When she gets like that, it's a thing to watch man. She probably could have got 50 at least tonight. By the time that first quarter ended, you knew it was going to be a different kind of night for her, a different kind of night.''

Game Quotes from

South Florida Coach Jose Fernandez 

“The first time we played Connecticut up there, a lot of (players) on our team had never experienced that. I told our team, ‘Let’s not let this game take away the season that this team has had.’ We replaced four starters off a very good basketball team last year. We’re in the NCAA tournament. We’re still going to be playing and a lot of team are not. We’re looking forward to that, but we have to put this game in the rear-view mirror.”

Player Evaluations

Player Interviews

Katie Lou Samuelson

Any great shooter will tell you. Once you start hitting them, the basket gets bigger and everything shot feels like it's going to go in. And in this case, they did. The last time I saw Katie Lou shoot like this was for team USA where I think in one game she went 9-10 on threes. This outburst was just amazing and has me scratching my head for the last few weeks where she really struggled. But I won't dwell on that. I'll only hope that this great shooting just carries through the NCAA Tournament. Katie Lou ended up with 40 points in only 28 minutes. That is just nuts. And Geno was just as pleased with her defense. She just gets it now. Both sides of the ball.

“I think that shows something about this team, so many different threats and players who can step up on any given night and be that go-to person. It shows why we had so much success so far and how we can always rely on each other because one of us is going to be able to pick the other up. If somebody is not doing well, we have so many people to go to.”

"I kept shooting, it felt good and I was getting open shots. My teammates kept getting me the ball, so I was going to keep shooting until … actually, I was going to keep shooting."

"I was playing as hard as I could on defense, I was cutting hard. My shot kind of falls after that. The games where I focus on shooting, I tend to have overall worse games."

"We just had something going on that's kind of hard to capture. We were able to capture it and hold onto it for a long, long time."

Napheesa Collier

This girl is just a team player. Napheesa knew how hot Lou was and didn't look to dominate the ball as she did the last USF game where she scored 39 points. But don't think that she didn't do her part. In her 22 minutes she had 15 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks. She is also shooting the three pointer at 41.7%.  

"We all knew that Lou's a great player, so the fact that she came out and played so well tonight, we're just to happy for her."

“Two weeks in a row. I got 39, Lou got 40 tonight and we talked about how cool that was. Lou hasn’t been shooting as well as she normally does so to see her come out and explode like this, it was pretty cool.”

Gabby Williams

Gabby was just incredible on defense in this game. She had 2 blocks and 4 steals, but that doesn't begin to tell you how she disrupted the South Florida offense. She also only played 22 minutes, but was 6-7 from the field, scoring 12 points. She also handed out 6 assists. A complete game for a complete player. Check out her center jump at the end of the blog. 

Kia Nurse

Kia also only played 22 minutes. But she looked more like the Kia of old. She is still struggling from beyond the arc but the rest of her game is rounding into shape. She was 3-3 on her two point shots and had 4 rebounds, but more importantly, she had 6 assists and only 1 turnover. I love the picture I posted here. Head up, pointing to someone to do something and all while driving hard to the basket. I have a feeling she will be a big part of UConn's NC run.

Saniya Chong

Another nice game for the senior. Other than her 3 turnovers (unusual for her) she had some nice stats. She was the only player over 30 minutes in the game for UConn and had 11 points on 4-7 shooting and 3-5 on threes. She also had 5 rebounds and 4 assists. She is a smidgen below 40% on threes for the season.    

Crystal Dangerfield

Sometimes you shoot like Katie Lou did and make every shot you see. And sometimes you can't buy a basket. Crystal really struggled from the field, shooting 0-6 for the game and 0-3 on threes. Her first scoreless game since her only other one, a 14 minute scoreless effort against SMU on 2/11. But she didn't let that effect the other parts of her game. Her defense was great and she still handed out 5 assists with only 1 turnover.

Natalie Butler

Ok....put your thumb over Natalie's face and block out her number in this picture and tell me you would have known that was her. What a tremendous physical transformation. She is really a valued contributor to the seven player rotation. In this game she played 21 minutes and had a nice double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds and added another block. She really looked comfortable in this game. Great to see.

Kyla Irwin

I finally found an action shot of her. I hope she continues to get some good minutes the first few games of the NCAA's.

Molly Bent

Another non-descript game for Molly. She works as hard as anyone the court, but not much in results. I hope she can pick it up a little in the NCAA's.

Tierney Lawlor

No game action shots for Tierney but here is a good one after Irwin's three pointers. She only played 4 minutes and is still looking for her first field goal of the season.

 Final Thoughts

I'm looking for the trampoline hidden by the ref

Katie Lou LOVES the camera!!