Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 3/4/18

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Junior Katie Lou Samuelson won the AAC player of the year for 2017-18. Last season she shared this award with her teammate Napheesa Collier, but this year she deserved the award all to herself.

What a great season for Katie Lou. She leads the Huskies in scoring at 18.3 points, which is seventh in the league, to go with a career-best 4.3 rebounds. She is in the AAC's top 10 in assists (tie for seventh, career-best 3.8), assist-to-turnover ratio (second, career-best 2.8), field-goal percentage (sixth, career-best 54.4), 3-point percentage (first, career-best 49.0), and free-throw percentage (fourth, 81.9).

She really became an overall great offensive player this year and her defense was terrific. Congrats to LOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!

By David in Naples!!!!!

With the possible exception of the Notre Dame and Texas games, UConn has played their best basketball in the 1st period all year. The Huskies scored 777 total points in the opening 10 minutes of all games this season. Opponents have managed just 345. So, the average 1st quarter ended with UConn up 27-12. That is an average lead of 15 points. UConn only trailed once at the end of the 1st period this season. That was against Texas and the score was 21-24. In the ND game, the Huskies led 22-18, but needed a big 4th quarter (26-9) to finally win.

The highest scoring 1st quarter was 41 points against Wichita State. Other big 1st quarters include the 33 pts versus USF and 32 against Maryland. Despite losing by 25 pts, Brenda was so happy they won the 4th period. 8-)

The lowest scoring 1st quarters all season were 18 points vs UCF in a slow-motion game and 19 pts versus SMU when UConn couldn't score to start the game, then ripped off 43 straight points. Many games were basically over after UConn's scoring and defensive displays in the first 10 minutes.

The UConn defense is almost always at its' best in the first 10 minutes. The 24 points by Texas was the high water mark. They hit pretty much every 3 point shot until the period ended. Then they score 14, 17 and 16 points in the last 3 quarters. The record for futility in the 1st period for an opponent goes to UCF. Bad shooting and a deliberate slow down offense kept them to 4 and 8 points in the two games. Houston also had a 4 point 1st period and Louisville wasn't much better at 6 points. For the season, teams only averaged 12 points in the opening 10 minutes versus the Huskies defense.

Hopefully, this pattern of opening strong will begin again Sunday in the first AAC tournament game.

Go Huskies..!!

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