Sometimes injuries hurt a team, but other times, it gives another player the chance to improve their game, and a chance to shine on the big stage. This is what happened with Kia Nurse and the ankle injury. Certainly UConn would be better off without her getting hurt. She is crucial to UConn's chances of winning a championship. But in the short term, this injury gave Dangerfield the chance to take the next step in her otherwise imperfect freshman season. And in this game she was just terrific.
She would have been the big story in this game if it wasn't for the amazing Napheesa Collier. She just dominated the Bulls in every way you can imagine.
UConn started out with a nice run and while South Florida kept is reasonable in the first half and into the third quarter, UConn used a typical last third quarter run to push the lead to 23 where they continued to keep the pedal on the metal in the fourth quarter.
So, 29-0, 14-0 at home, 14-0 on the road and 1-0 in their one neutral court win. An unexpected regular season that was just validated with this big in on the road in Tampa.
GO HUSKIES!!!!
Game Highlights
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Game Quotes From Geno
''It's not a big story because an undefeated regular season has been done so many times. At this point, you hate to say it but all we've done ... it's all going to be determined (by) what happens the next four weekends.''
"If you are not careful, you don’t celebrate things along the way because you have your eye on that one thing that is at the end of the season. If you are not careful, the only thing that matters is winning a national championship, so all this great stuff that happens along the way, if you are not careful, it gets brushed under the rug. Ho hum, ho hum it is just Connecticut winning games again. The streak, it is not for us to jump and down about."
''I think Napheesa did what she's done all season. I don't think there's anything different. She knows where she wants the ball, she goes to that spot and she gets it and she finishes. She's incredibly efficient, she's incredibly consistent. She's just really hard to play against. Our guys don't normally score 39 points, that's a lot of points.''
"Obviously I'm surprised because going in I never thought we would be able to get through, certainly that early part of the schedule. With a group of players that had not been tested in that manner before and I didn't know how they would respond."
"If you are not careful, you don’t celebrate things along the way because you have your eye on that one thing that is at the end of the season. If you are not careful, the only thing that matters is winning a national championship, so all this great stuff that happens along the way, if you are not careful, it gets brushed under the rug. Ho hum, ho hum it is just Connecticut winning games again. The streak, it is not for us to jump and down about."
''I think Napheesa did what she's done all season. I don't think there's anything different. She knows where she wants the ball, she goes to that spot and she gets it and she finishes. She's incredibly efficient, she's incredibly consistent. She's just really hard to play against. Our guys don't normally score 39 points, that's a lot of points.''
"Obviously I'm surprised because going in I never thought we would be able to get through, certainly that early part of the schedule. With a group of players that had not been tested in that manner before and I didn't know how they would respond."
“104 straight wins? It is hard to fathom. It is hard to imagine and I am in the middle of it. I think back to what happened and it is almost like somebody else did it. Naw, that’s not true. It is really hard. Last night we all went out to dinner, our coaching staff, and it was probably the first time we were all together and we could go, ‘man, you know what is going on here? It is the first time that we admitted to ourselves that is what we were doing, before that it was the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Then you finally sit back and go I don’t believe it. If somebody said go back and do it again I would say you are out of your mind.”
Game Quotes from
South Florida Coach Jose Fernandez
''Collier was special tonight"
''Definitely much better performance than the game up there, that's for sure. We go into halftime down 18, and you're shooting close to 50 percent from the floor. What else can you do?''
“We just had no answer. We have to find other ways for (Collier) not to get touches, because when she gets touches, she’s hard to stop.”
“They’re logging a lot of minutes. In the last week and a half they’ve had two games in three days.
“We have four girls in the top six of the conference for minutes played per game. That’s difficult, but it’s not going to change. That’s who we are.”
Player Evaluations
Napheesa Collier
Ok...I'm done. I have nothing left to say. I'm out of superlatives for this young woman. I always thought she would be a good player for UConn. Maybe really good. But this good this soon? No way. In her 36 minutes and scored 39 points. 39! And she just makes it look so easy. She is now shooting over 40% on threes. Really? So now she just dominates in the post and can take it outside the three point line. It's almost unfair. Oh yeah, did I mention that she is still only a sophomore?
"We were running the offense a lot more smoothly than we have been the last couple of games. I think my teammates did a really good job of finding me. … After I missed my first shot, I tried to zero in on why I missed it and focused a little bit more on my next shots."
"It feels really good. I was just really excited. My team was really excited for me, so it was just fun to go into the locker room."
“I wish I had made the free throw and I could have made it an even 40,” .
Gabby Williams
Can you really have a quiet 18 point, 9 rebound, 7 assists and three steal game? I guess when you play with Collier it can happen. She had the least amount of minutes for any starter with 33, but she filled up the stats sheet. She had one breakaway that I just thought she might attempt a dunk. I wish!
Katie Lou Samuelson
Not a great shooting game for Lou. But as she has done many times this year, when she is not shooting well, she contributes in other ways. She had four assists to go along with her 16 points. She while she did get beat on a couple of drives (that Geno pointed out to her) she for the most part played terrific switching defense. I think she is still under the weather some. With two games in three days, her long range shot was mostly short. Hopefully some time off between now and Saturday and maybe some limited minutes in the first game will help.
"Toward the end of the season, we kind of started talking about it more, that we wanted to finish the season out without losing. At the beginning of the season, we didn't talk about anything even close to that. I know nobody outside did at all. It shows how tough we were. We really had a hard road to get to here."
“We started off the game saying, ‘let’s finish this out the right way. We knew what we wanted to do. We can look at it for about two days and be happy with what we accomplished, but as soon as we practice on Thursday, we are going to be focused because there is so much more that we want to do as a team. This season has been great so far, and we had our ups and downs, but we are at a good place right now.”
Saniya had an off game but still managed to hit 3 three pointers for her 9 points. Unusual for her, she had only 1 assists and 2 turnovers. But her defense continues to be solid, helping out in the absence of Nurse on the perimeter.
Crystal Dangerfield
Natalie was the only player in the regular rotation to get double digit minutes. In her 10 minutes she showed her usual hustle. Although she was scoreless she grabbed 4 rebounds and had to really nice assists. She will be a solid role player in UConn's tournament run to a possible championship.
Kyla Irwin
Kyla did come in the game in the first half and her overall play was solid although she only played 7 minutes. She had 2 points, 1 rebound and one great hip check that sent a South Florida player flying. I just love this kid!!
Mop up time for these two players. Molly has really regressed. You'd think she see minutes with Nurse out but she is only coming in the game at the end.
Kia Nurse
Come back soon Kia!!!!!
Final Thoughts
POLLY!!!!!!
Here are two guys that I can never thank enough!!!!
Danny UConn on the left and David from Naples on the right.
Thank you both for your contributions to this blog, Danny for many of the pictures I use and David, of course, for his wonderful "Numbers"!!!
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