Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies 3/19/17

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This game went pretty much as I expected. Albany had no answers. But where it surprised me was the contributions of the bench in this game. Usually UConn's offense grinds to a halt in the fourth quarter of blowout wins. But in this game Dangerfield found her long range shot and Butler dominated the post. It was really nice to see.

Kia Nurse looks to have her game back. She was 6-7 on threes scoring a team high 24 points. The rust is off and her ankle is feeling so much better.

I'll try to put together a post game report, but I'll be also working on the UConn/Syracuse pre game report for Sunday so I might not get to it.

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Standings in the DoggyDaddy Dailies brackets will be out on Tuesday after the second round games are complete.

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UConn goes against Syracuse, who used an incredible first quarter to take a huge lead. The Orange were actually outscored by 5 points over that last three quarters but it didn't matter as the won 85-65.

The first quarter was exactly what Syracuse wanted. Take a ton of threes and make them and then press on defense and turn Iowa State over......and over....and over.

Freshman Gabriel Cooper hit a three pointer THREE seconds into the game. And the rout was on. Syracuse was 8-13 on threes. IN THE FIRST QUARTER!!! They also turned Iowa State over 6 times. It's the Syracuse blueprint to victory.

The rest of the game? More like how the SU games usually go. They were 7-16 on threes and Iowa only turned the ball over 12 more times.

Cooper shot 8-15 from the field. And all were three point shots. Sykes was 4-6 on threes and scored 28 points while AA candidate Peterson was 2-5 on threes and scored 25 points. They got ZERO points from the bench and the bigs only scored 8 points for the game.

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2 seed Stanford was almost ousted early against 15 seed New Mexico State winning 72-64. Stanford was down as much as 9 points in this game, but rallied in the second half to take this one. Alanna Smith had 19 points and 11 rebounds and Lou's big sister Karlie Samuelson hit five 3-pointers and finished with 17 points. The Cardinal haven't played in two weeks and it really showed. But was it rust or is Stanford eminently beatable? Time will tell.

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I just witnessed one of the worst non-calls I've seen at the end of a game. Miami and FGCU were tied at 60 and Miami had the ball. The got the ball into the post to their big player and she proceeded to back her defender towards the basket. She turned to her right, hooked the defender and then ran over her to knock the defender to the floor. Basically two fouls on one play and neither were called. Terrible, just terrible.

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Back on the SEC bashing, 5 seed Texas A&M barely beat 12 seed Penn 63-61 with a huge 4th quarter, outscoring the Quakers 28-9 erasing a 17 point Penn lead. Crazy! There was a controversial late call on an out of bounds situation in Texas A&M's favor. Squeaking out a win like this is not a good showing.

In another 5 vs 12 matchup, Tennessee was able to get by Dayton 66-57 using a big third quarter to create a lead they never let go. I did watch a lot of this game and Tennessee was pretty unimpressive in this one. It should be a tough game for them against Louisville on Monday.

And the last SEC team LSU lost to California in a low scoring affair 55-52. Both teams in this one were pretty offensively challenged.

And in AAC country, Temple lost a heartbreaker to lower seed Oregon 71-70. They had a lead for most of the game but Oregon was able to catch them and hit a game winning shot late in the game. UConn is now the only AAC team left in the tournament.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

The only numbers that one would need to see, to understand UConn's victory over Albany, is the score by quarter for the Great Danes. They scored 18 points in the 1st quarter. Then, they got 14, then 12 and finally 11. Suffocating defense and tired legs will shut down any offense. Despite winning 12 of their last 13 games, Albany could not keep up with the pace of the Huskies. Their four seniors will graduate with a wonderful four year record of 101-31, but also a 61 point beat down in their final game.

UConn's defense was awesome again, limiting Albany to 4-22 shooting from three point range and creating 19 turnovers. UConn out rebounded the Danes 44-29 and made their leading scorer take 32 shots and free throws to get her 19 points. Led by Gabby's 5 steals, the Huskies stole 12 balls and blocked 7 shots. For the game, Albany shot 32% from the field and missed 44 shots.

Offensively, everything worked for UConn, including 50% shooting from 3's (13-26), 85% on free throws (17-20) and 70% from inside the 3 point arc (30-43). The Huskies had an amazing 34 assists on 43 baskets. They kept turnovers down to just 10 for the game and had three players score over 20 points. Led by 24 points by Napheesa and Kia, and backed up by Gabby's 20 and Crystal's 16, the Huskies scored over, under and around the Not-so-Great Danes defense for 116 total points. 8-)