Tuesday, November 19, 2019
XL Center
Time: 7:00
Time: 7:00
TV: CBSSN
No. 4 UConn 3-0 Virgina 2-2
Head to Head games
VIRGINIA | UCONN LEADS 4-2
H: 3-0 | A: 1-1 | N: 0-1
03/30/91 #1 UVA 61, #13 UConn 55 New Orleans, La.
02/17/92 #1 UVA 65, UConn 43 Charlottesville, Va.
12/11/93 #15 UConn 74, #8 UVA 63 Storrs, Conn.
03/26/95 #1 UConn 67, #10 UVA 63 Storrs, Conn.
12/18/06 #8 UConn 96, UVA 60 Charlottesville, Va.
12/05/07 #2 UConn 75, UVA 45 Hartford, Conn
Overview
Virginia comes into this game with a 2-2 record. They beat Bucknell 84-60, lost to USC 59-49, beat CSU Northridge 72-47, and lost Kentucky 50-47 in their latest outing.
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UCONN
The player names are clickable to see their Bios
UConn Starters
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VIRGINIA
The coaches/player's names are clickable to see their Bios
On April 16, 2018, Tina Thompson was named the fifth head coach in Virginia women's
Thompson's background is one of the most impressive in the history of women's basketball. She retired as the all-time leading scorer in WNBA history, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a four-time WNBA champion and was the first player drafted in the history of the WNBA.
Thompson joined Karen Aston's staff at Texas in May of 2015 as an assistant coach. She was promoted to associate head coach last September. During her tenure at Texas, she focused on the development of the Longhorns forwards and post players. Texas recorded a 28-7 record in 2017-18, reaching NCAA Sweet 16 in Kansas City. The Longhorns went 84-21 (.800) during her three seasons in Austin. The 2016-17 Texas team reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament and the 2015-16 squad compiled a 31-5 mark on the way to a NCAA Elite Eight appearance.
Thompson arrived at Texas after a trailblazing career in the WNBA, in which she began as the first ever number one overall draft pick in the 1997 inaugural season and ended as the league's all-time leading scorer in 2013.
More info in her full bio.
Virginia Starters
Virginia Bench
Game Analysis
As painful as it was, I did manage to watch the Kentucky/Virginia game from a couple of days ago on YouTube. Ok...it was as ugly as I thought it was by looking at the stats. WCBB has to be down if Kentucky is a top 15 team. That being said, watching the game gave me some idea of how Virginia will approach the game against the Huskies and what type of team they are.
They play a man to man defense the entire game, with really no variation. They do a good job of pressuring the ball with that man to man, but rarely do they double team even in the post. Maybe that will change against a team with a big post like Nelson-Ododa, we shall see.
The Cavs are really careless with the ball on offense. All I saw was a lots of 1-1 play. Jocelyn Willoughby is their leading scorer and rebounder and is the key to any success they have on offense. You can bet that Geno will be looking to take her scoring out of the game. If she doesn't get to double digits, Virginia will struggle to break 40. Their best hope to score points is if they run after a defensive rebound and take it right to the hoop. I saw some of that against Kentucky. But they sometimes just play too quickly. One of their issues is they don't have a true point guard.
They have a couple of players with size in 6'3"senior Lisa Jablonowski and 6'2" sophomore Dani Lawson but they are slow and struggle to finish in the post.
UConn looks to be rounding into shape. Every game has shown improvement and that has to make Geno and the fans happy. Every team has a personality and this team is still trying to find theirs.
I expect UConn to pressure the ball and look to run the slower Virginia team into the ground off defensive rebounds. They have no one to stay with Williams, Dangerfield and Walker on the break.
Just look for UConn to do more of the same as the last game, only better. Virginia is just not a very good team.
Final Prediction
The "Core Four" has been terrific and I don't believe that Virginia has any answers for them. Dangerfield is too quick, Williams is too shifty, Walker is too strong and Nelson-Ododa is too tall. Alone, they can outscore this Cav's team. If the two freshman can have a good offensive game UConn can score in the 80's while holding Virginia to the 40's.
I'm feeling good about this game. UConn by 35+.
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