Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 3/23/19

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I haven't posted any family shots recently so here are a few.

Logan getting some air!! He will be dunking soon!

Well, as long as he is on a trampoline...

Barrett is now a crawling maniac!!!

I forgot this picture of me and Doggymomma at the game on Friday!

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UConn/Buffalo Preview

UConn looked pretty darn good against Towson. It was a good experience to play a BIG team for possible future games against maybe Mississippi State/Notre Dame/Baylor. I'm not sure how I liked how the played the post. Towson got some good shots on the inside early in the game and were just missing. That being said, this game will be totally different.

Buffalo is not a very big team. They will probably start No. 24 Cierra Dillard, a 5'9" senior guard. More on her later. They also start No. 10 Hannah Hall, a 5'3" sophomore guard and No. 00 Summer Hemphill, a 6'2" forward. The last two starters (from the Rutgers game) are No. 25 Adebola Adeyeye, a 6'2" forward and No. 11 Theresa Unwuka, a 5'10" guard. Going by the Rutgers game, Adeyeye and Unwuka start but don't get the majority of the minutes. No. 12 Courtney Williams, a 6'1" senior forward and No. 13 Autumn Jones, a 5'8" senior guard, come off the bench and get a lot of minutes.

That is pretty much the seven player rotation for the Bulls but when you look deeper into the stats, you can see that they are 100% Dillard, 100% of the time. Dillard is the 2nd leading scorer......IN THE NATION! She averages 25.1 PPG. She takes a ton of shots to score that much. She is a true volume scorer. I do like how she plays. She has a fair three point shot, but it's her ability to get to the basket that allows her to score almost at will. Dillard only shoots 38% from the field and 34% on threes. Not great numbers. But she takes almost 17 shots a game with half of those three pointers. Yes, that's an average of 9 three point shots taken. She also gets to the line around 9 times a game and shoots those at a hefty 80% clip. I don't mean to belittle her skills. She is a dynamic player. And it's not like she doesn't pass the ball. She averages 5.7 APG. But I'm pretty sure her stats are a product of dominating her team's offense and the level of the opposition.

As I watched the Buffalo/RU game, I just fell in love with Hannah Hall, their diminutive 5'3" guard. She is just fearless. She hit a few timely three point shots and handed out 8 assists in that game. She didn't take many shots but she ran the offense well, getting the ball into Hemphill and Dillard's hands at the right time.

Hempfill is the second leading scorer for the Bull at 14.5 per game. She is the inside threat for this team. She shoots around 60% from the field and 10.5 rebounds per game.

Other than Hempfill, three of the top four scorers are guards.

So, how do I see this game going? UConn does very well against teams like Buffalo. The Bulls are dominated by one player, and UConn does a great job shutting down teams with that situation. And UConn does really well against smaller teams as UConn is a bigger team with small team skills.

I'm pretty sure UConn will defend Dillard with more than one player. I'll be curious to see how Geno handles it. Dangerfield might be too small, Williams too inexperienced. UConn should dominate the inside scoring. I don't see how Buffalo stops Collier, Walker and Samuelson when they struggled with the Rutgers bigs. It was mostly the out of control guard play by the Scarlet Knights and really hot three point shooting by the Bulls that allowed Buffalo to win that game. I can't see Buffalo shooting 12-23 on threes again.

Toughness does count for something and Buffalo appears to have plenty of that. So my final prediction? UConn by 25+.

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Pre-Buffalo game Interviews

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We don't have that many folks that joined DoggyDaddy's Bracket so I can cut and paste all the results. Looking good Jenny!!!

Group Results

Rank	Bracket, OwnerBracket	R64	ChampionChamp	Max	TotalTot	PCT
1	jayhawkjennyjkrause103	280	Baylor	1880	280	95.2
2*	arlpol 2arlpol	270	UConn	1870	270	84.2
2*	Dutchespn70146111	270	Baylor	1870	270	84.2
4*	Michael85999 1Michael85999	260	UConn	1860	260	62.5
4*	Chong-Masterespn09481555	260	Baylor	1840	260	62.5
6*	DoggyDaddy 1DoggyDaddy	250	UConn	1850	250	48.5
6*	pinotbear1 3pinotbear1	250	UConn	1850	250	48.5
6*	Debbie0602espn66365751	250	UConn	1850	250	48.5
6*	glad123 1glad123	250	UConn	1830	250	48.5
6*	Swash004 7Swash004	250	UConn	1830	250	48.5
6*	patprim70 1patprim70	250	UConn	1790	250	48.5
12	Usa Girlespn79270131	240	Baylor	1800	240	36.9

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Just a pet peeve. I was watching the Notre Dame game and Arike Ogunbowale took a corner three and missed. The announcer said "a rare miss for her". Well, she shoots around 35% on threes so she misses 65% of the time. No way that is a rare miss. Now maybe she hits a higher percentage on wide open threes and maybe I'm just nit-picking. Maybe both.

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I only watched a few games Saturday and all were close (for the most part) hard fought battles.

I just saw the end of the Central Michigan/Michigan State game and what a finish! I was rooting for CM (I have them in my bracket) but it was just too bad one of these teams had to lose. Shay Colley a teammate and friend of Kia Nurse in the Canadian basketball system made a driving layup with 7 seconds left for the final margin of victory 88-87.

I had to watch the Tennessee/UCLA game and the game and final result didn't disappoint. UCLA ran out to a 17 point first half lead and then it looked like the Bruins forgot how to play basketball. They took terrible shots, stopped defending and they let Tennessee actually take a lead in the fourth quarter. But Tennessee slipped back into what has killed them all season. Poor shooting, turnovers and bad defense let UCLA pull away over the last few minutes for the final 89-77 margin. It seemed appropriate that the last shot taken by the Lady Vols was an air ball. Tennessee finishes 19-13 on the season, their first non-20 game win season in 43 years. And after playing in the NCAA tournament for the 38th consecutive season, they lost in the first round for only the second time (Ball State ring a bell?).

Another overtime game happened Saturday between 4 seed Oregon State and 13 seed Boise State. Boy, did Boise State have their chance in this one. They were up 4 with 17 seconds left in regulation and Oregon State managed to tie it up. But Destiny Slocum was just too much on the OT period and the Beavers took this one 80-75. If you have a chance to watch the replay on ESPN3, do it. It was a really fun game.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

A reader of Doggy’s blog asked about the relationship between assists and winning. I explained the true correlation is between shooting % and winning. Most of the time, the higher shooting % team wins. I listed the % at 87%.

As odd as it may sound, sometimes the winning team actually shoots at a lower % but still wins. How is this possible? First, the 3 point basket can impact your total points even if two teams shoot the same number of shots. Second, often times the winning team just takes more shots. Taking 10 extra shots and making just two may win the game. Finally, free throws can make a huge difference. Remember when Katie Lou missed all her shots from the field, but went 12-12 from the charity stripe.

Yesterday there were 16 games. The winning team had a better shooting % 14 times. That comes out to 87.5%. Twice the winning team won despite their lower shooting %. In both cases the winner just shot more and had more baskets. In both cases they also had fewer assists.

Go Huskies..!!

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