Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 1/17/19

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If you know what the word "Kvell" means

you know how I'm feeling after seeing these pictures.

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IMPORTANT INFO!!!!

The UConn game against Temple has been moved to Saturday at Noon. The game is still televised as it would have been on Sunday on SNY.

I said this in yesterday's blog - "With a big snow forecast, it should be an interesting travel day. Maybe they will go down to Philadelphia on Saturday to beat the storm!"

I not only predict scores, I predict weather!

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No. 7 Mississippi State pulled away from No. 15 South Carolina 89-74 with a 24-10 fourth quarter advantage. Theresa McGowan was just dominating in this game with 26 points and 24 rebounds, 12 of those on the offensive end. MSU just crushed SC on the boards 49-24. It really was the difference in the game as well as the horrible offense that the Gamecocks ran in the fourth quarter. Former Lady Vol T'ia Cooper lead South Carolina with 27 points but her 6 turnovers were killers. She also hit two long range buzzer beaters. You don't see that very often.

The big news was that Mississippi State's 6'1" forward Chloe Bibby was injured one minute into the game. She appeared to hurt her left leg and never returned to the game. This would be a big loss for the Bulldogs. She was their 4th leading scorer at 12.6 per game and their best three point shooter at 45%.

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Well, I had reserved this space when I posted my blog at 10:00 for a Tennessee loss. But I didn't expect a loss quite like this.

Unranked Alabama, who came into this game losers of 4 of their last 5 games, with a 9-8 record and a 1-3 conference record just hammered Tennessee 86-65. Yes, that's a 21 point loss for the Lady Vols. TO ALABAMA!

The game was actually close for much of the time, with a 36-34 Alabama lead at the half. The third quarter had Tennessee only down 2 points 53-51 with a little under 3 minutes left in the quarter. Alabama stretched it out to 5 points, 60-55 at the end of the quarter and I was expecting a battle to the end. Then it happened.

Alabama turned into UConn and started the fourth quarter on a 15-2 run and had a 75-57 lead with 4:22 left in the game. And it was over. During this run they hadn't had a field goal in the quarter, going 0-10.

Everyone likes to point to the Lady Vols really bad offense, but Tennessee's defense is just awful. Yes, they sometimes can press effectively but their half court defense really sucks. They don't help off screens allowing easy drives to the basket and I think they confuse themselves more with their zone than their opponents.

For the game Tennessee shot 33% from the field, 17% (4-23) on 3's and had 14 turnovers. And on the other end, they let Alabama shoot 50% from the field and 44% on threes.

Tennessee has now lost four games in a row. I have no idea the last time they have done that. But it was 33 years since they lost 3 in a row, so I expect it was in the early 1900's (actually 1970) since they lost 4. And they have now lost 5 games in a row to Alabama.

They play Arkansas next. They better win that one or it will end up being 6 losses in a row with Notre Dame after that.

I think Tennessee just recruits the wrong type of players. They all seem to have an attitude. Freshman Burrell, with Tennessee down 17 points blocked a shot but fouled the player. She stared down the Alabama player as she was lying on the floor. This is the same player that got into it with the Missouri player Sophie Cunningham after Tennessee lost to the Bulldogs. It's a reflection of the undisciplined team that Holly Warlick allows and sometimes even encourages.

Wow...even I didn't think they would be that bad.

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No. 17 Michigan State upset No. 9 Maryland 77-60 in another Top 25 upset. All this talk about Maryland going undefeated because of their weak OOC schedule and the weak Big Ten looks to be a little off. The Big Ten looks to be stronger than thought and Maryland now has lost to two Big Ten teams in MSU and Rutgers.

Now, Michigan State has had an interesting season to date. They are now 13-4. But they are 4-1 against Top 25 teams and their other three losses are to unranked teams in the Big Ten. Weird.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

Last night's victory over Tulane was UConn's best defensive effort this season. The 33 points given up to the Green Wave was the lowest of the year, as was the 18.3% shooting by Tulane. The Huskies' defense dogged Tulane into 22 turnovers, 49 missed shots and just 4 points in the 1st period. The defense was good late in the game as well, holding the Green Puddles to 6 points in the final period. Four players for Tulane combined to go 0-13 and six others scored only one basket each. Tulane's 3 point shooting was miserable at 2-22 or 9%.

The defensive effort was not the headline, however, as Megan Walker exploded for 34 points for the Huskies. She outscored Tulane all by herself, 34-33. Her numbers in this game were eye-catching compared to the first 15 games. Her 10 free throws was only 4 less than she had taken all year. Her 4 threes was four time her average of 1 three per game. Her 34 points compare to her per game average of just 9.5 in the previous 15 games. In other words, she had her coming out party at the expense of Green with Envy Tulane.

Megan's stats covered up some odd numbers from other Huskies. For example, Christyn shot just 1-10 from the field and 0-2 from the charity stripe. Crystal didn't fare much better hitting just 2 of her 9 shots. The team total of 18 turnovers was a bit high as well. Even so, the night belonged to Megan and Geno was positively ebullient at the post game press conference. For you Duke grads, that means he was very happy. 8-)