Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 2/10/19

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Well, I made it to Florida. I won't have time to get out a full South Carolina Preview but I have a ton of links about the game and I will share a few of my thoughts about the game.

Heading to the golf course tomorrow. I'll let you know how I did after the UConn/South Carolina.

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No. 12 South Carolina is an interesting team. They started out the season going 4-4, losing to 3 ranked teams, Baylor by 25 points, Maryland by 24 points and Oregon State by 2 and also lost to unranked Drake in overtime.

But since their last loss (to Baylor) they have gone 13-1 with wins over Texas A&M, Missouri and Kentucky, all ranked teams at the time they played. Now, not exactly "murderers row", and they beat unranked Purdue in two overtimes, a mediocre Alabama team by 3 points. Their only loss was to Mississippi State by 15 points in a game that was close for 3 quarters.

So, what to make of this team. Much has been made about South Carolina going to a smaller and quicker linkup and how great their guards are playing. Well, not really. Yes, they went smaller, but the deeper dive into the 13 wins says they are not as good as that 13-1 streak would tell you.

Now, it's true they start Bianca Cuevas-Moore recently and she is a very quick player. And they like the freshman Destanni Henderson off the bench. Another quick guard. Tyasha Harris is a very good guard as well and they still have the 20 year senion Doniyah Cliney to contribute. The other starting guard is Te'a Cooper, their leading scorer who transferred from Tennessee.

They also start a couple of bigs, Alexa Jennings and Mikiah Herbert-Harrigan. Jennings is slow and plodding. I expect her to play limited minutes. She just can't keep up with UConn's speed on the break. And Victaria Saxton is a pogo stick jumper who can really block shots.

The problem for the Gamecocks is they don't shoot very well and because if that they don't score a lot of points, only 75.8 per game. Against UConn on their turf, that will be a big problem.

As a team they only shoot 43.2% from the field and 33.1% on threes. They will have to exceed those numbers to have a chance in this game.

As I said, their leading scorer is Cooper. She only shoots 40.1% from the field and 25% on threes. She scores a lot because she shoots a lot. She has taken 57 more shots than anyone else on the team.

Harris is the point guard and does a nice job distributing the ball. She also takes care of it, with 103 assists and only 32 turnovers. And she is shooting 37.2% on three pointers.

Cuevas-Moore likes to take the three, but she is so inconsistent from long range. I've seen her light it up but she has more bad games than good. She is shooting only 32.3% from long distance.

I'd go into more on this team, but you are getting the picture. If UConn can continue to run off missed baskets by South Carolina and force a few turnovers, the Huskies should run the Gamecocks into the ground.

I'm thinking it will be a really hard fought game, but our Huskies come out on top by 12+ points.

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Well, Tennessee, who came into this game after a three game winning streak against the bottom of the SEC, finally played a good team and had their asses handed to them. The Lady Vols lost to No. 6 Mississippi State 91-63. Tennessee was missing their leading scorer and playmaker, Evina Westbrook, who was benched for missing a class earlier in the week.

It looks like Tennessee has a real uphill battle to make the NCAA tournament. As of now I believe they would be left out. They have to beat Auburn at home in their next game before going on the road against Missouri and No. 18 Texas A&M. After that they play No. 12 South Carolina at home. It will be a tough four game stretch. Even if they split those games they would be 17-10 and 6-8 in the SEC.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

UConn fans are a bit spoiled with an offense that averages 83 points per game. Score less than 20 points in a period, even the 4th quarter of a blowout and fans complain. Here are some scores from this weekend that give fans a real reason to bitch.

1. Rutgers is 17-6 and ranked #20 in the country. Today, against Maryland, they scored 4 points the whole 1st period.
2. Pittsburg, w/ a 9-16 record, scored exactly 2 points in the entire 2nd period against U of Miami.
3. ACC powerhouse Duke scored 7 points in the first 10 minutes versus 10-14 Virginia.
4. Wake Forest held Georgia Tech to 8 first period points. Then, Wake best that futility by scoring only 6 pts in their 2nd quarter.
5. Purdue, with 16 wins, only scored 8 against 11 win Nebraska in the 2nd period of their game.
6. Oregon State, 7th in the country, had scoring droughts of only 8 and 9 points versus Stanford Friday night. Stanford sucked themselves by getting 9 points in the 2nd period of a 40 point loss to Oregon.

This is some seriously poor basketball by decent teams. Each period has 10 minutes. You get 2 points for a field goal and 3 pts if it a bit farther away. If a team can’t break double digits in an early period, that is sad.