Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 12/16/19

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Image result for not pretty has to be gritty

It's not gonna be pretty, but it's got to be gritty!

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SO, I watched the first half and fell asleep. Did I miss anything???

Seriously, what a tale of two halves. UConn was dominant in the first half outscoring the Blue Demons 55-26 and DePaul turned up the defense and found the range on their three point shots in the second half to get as close as four points 70-66 after being down 26 at the half. Crazy. UConn ended up winning 84-74. Can't explain this one!

Kudos to Doug Bruno and the DePaul women on never giving up and showing what they are made of. And Kudos to UConn as well for holding on for dear life and making the plays they had to make to put the game away. This will do when good when they are in other close games and it appears there will be a few of those.

Walker was outstanding, coming close to a triple double with 22 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists. And only 2 turnovers in an otherwise sloppy game for the Huskies. Yes, she will be a 1st team AA.

It's late, so I'll put together a post game report tomorrow during the snow storm! I'm sure there will be post game interviews, highlights and some great quotes from both coaches.

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Two other Top 25 games other than UConn Monday night.

No. 3 Oregon put the hammer to UC Riverside 84-41. Sabrina Ionescu had her NCAA (Men or Women) leading 20th career triple-double with 16 points, 18 rebounds and 12 assists. She is something else. The 18 rebounds was a career high. Freshman Jaz Shelley had a career night with 32 points. She was an amazing 10-14 on three point shots. Yes, by herself she hit 10 of them. Even more amazing is that she was not in the Top 100 high school players and 28th for her position. You never know how a player will react to college ball. This was just an amazing effort.

No. 15 Mississippi State beat Louisiana 64-48 in an unimpressive win over a weak Ragin' Cajun team. The Tigers only shot 41% from the field and 3-16 on threes. They also had 25 turnovers. The SEC is going to be really interesting this year. I'm not impressed with any team except for South Carolina.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

Halftime report- because DePaul is already beaten.

DePaul came into their game w/ the Huskies as the team that made lots of three point baskets and forced tons turnovers. If only one of those was going to come true, DePaul should have wished it was the 3’s. Surprisingly UConn took just as many 3’s as DePaul at 13 each in the 1st half. Even more surprising, UConn made 8 and DePaul only 2. It rained threes for the Huskies...!

The Blue Demons forced 11 turnovers in the half, but let UConn shoot 61% on 36 attempts. UConn scores 55 points while DePaul’s 15% shooting from three range left them w/ 29 points. UConn was taller, quicker and shot better. That will win every time.

Part 2- DePaul showed some life, but the hole was too deep. The Blue Demons finished with 11-32 or 34% from three range. UConn went 0-7 from three to finish 8-20 or 49%.

Christyn Williams had a career high 11 rebounds, plus 13 points. Megan went for 22 pts & 13 rebounds. Olivia had more assists (5) than rebounds (4). She added 4 nice blocks.

Go Huskies..!!

I believe David will have a follow up. DePaul wasn't beaten...lol.

From Phil

This is a new section from a friend of mine and a great UConn fan. I hope you enjoy it. I'm not sure how often he will contribute.

In this week's AP rankings, there was almost no movement. Louisville and Baylor swapped places, each moving one spot. South Dakota and Miami also swapped places, each moving one spot.

Consider a metric which counts the number of spots moved, whether up or down. With this metric, week seven had a total count of four. For the purposes of counting, if a team moves into the top 25, I don't track where it was in the prior week, but just treated as if it were 26th. That's easy to check with the ESPN AP ratings, but the Wikipedia summary doesn't keep track of the position beyond 25.

That measure is a tie for the smallest movement since the 2012 – 13 season. Two other times, we had that small a movement. In week seven of 2017 – 18, West Virginia and Oregon swap places as well as Ohio State and Florida State swapping places. All other teams are exactly the same. It may not be a coincidence that it was the same relative week, coming into Christmas break. Perhaps teams don't schedule too many contentious games that can result in movement.

The only other example was week nine in 2013 – 14. Florida State and Iowa swap places, while Arizona State moved from online to 23rd. Again, it may be that in a holiday week, there aren't too many contentious games scheduled.

Didn't literally calculate the account for every single week since the 2012 season. The Wikipedia summary starting with that year color-coded the movement so all you have to do is look for weeks where almost everything is white.

2017-18 basketball rankings
2013-14 basketball rankings

UCONN LINKS

UConn women see 26 point lead fade but pull out win over DePaul
Late game surge falls short as DePaul loses to UConn

Top Twenty-Five Scores and Links
Upsets in Red

No. 3 Oregon 84 UC Riverside 41
No. 15 Mississippi State 64 Louisiana 48

Statistical Sites