Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 1/15/2022

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GO UCONN!!!!!

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A great night out celebrating our 50 year anniversary of our first date!!

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No. 10 UConn Huskies Xavier Musketeers 78 41

I did pretty good with my prediction of a 35+ point win. The Huskies were in control the entire game. Other than a few sloppy passes, UConn looked great in this game.

This stat was an old time UConn stat. 24 assists on 30 baskets. Excellent passing and decision making. These last two games were exactly what UConn needed to build some confidence going cross country to take on a tall Oregon team. More on that game in Sunday's blog.

Let's talk about some player performances.

POG - Olivia Nelson-Ododa. She was just great in this game on both sides of the ball. Her stat line was complete. 11 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 steals and 8 blocks. Wow!!! Yeah, against a weak Xavier team, but you can have bad games against bad teams. She didn't. Two career highs, in blocks and steals. Nice job!

Carolina Ducharme was a little off with her shot, if you can call 4-10 on threes off. She was 6-17 overall. But as usual, she was the leading scorer for UConn with 20 points. But she also added 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals. Hmm...maybe Co-POG???

Christyn Williams continues her excellent senior year with another great game. She scored 19 points on 7-13 shooting and 3-7 on threes. Geno will take that every game. She also had 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Another Co-POG??

Dorka Juhasz played tough in this game with not a lot to show for it on the scoreboard. She was 1-3 from the field and 2-4 on free throws for her 4 points. She added 8 boards and that was her main contribution along with solid post defense. I like that she let the game come to her and didn't force a bunch of shots.

Nika Muhl was once again the heart of the team and led the Huskies in hustle plays. I'm sure she was happy with the win, but she seemed truly up with the play that ended up hurting the Xavier player's knee. I hope that young lady is ok, as does Nika. She had too many floor burns to count. She actually made a basket! It was a thing of beauty, finishing off a layup with her left hand. She had 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals. Just what Geno wants from her.

Aaliyah Edwards had a quiet but efficient game. She had 6 points on 3-3 shooting. She added 3 rebounds and 2 assists, but I'm sure Geno was not happy with her two turnovers. They were the unforced kind that makes Geno crazy.

Evina Westbrook went back to her quiet ways, scoring only 5 points on 2-6 shooting and 1-3 on threes. I don't know, she just didn't look comfortable out there for much of the game. She did add 4 assists, but I'm sure Geno wants more from her.

Amari DeBerry scored!! Ok, only 2 points. But she also blocked 4 shots. She is going to be a contributor, but maybe not until next season.

PIath Gabriel looked like she deserves earlier minutes. She is really fluid looking on the court and is money when she gets the ball in the post. I love how she runs. She was 4-5 from the field for 9 points and added 5 rebounds. The more I see her the more I like her.

Maybe the defense was the POG? They held Xavier to 26.6% shooting and 1-9 on threes. And they turned the Musketeers over 24 times. I love the 16 steals.

It just looks like this team is coming together on both defensely and offensively. Yes the opponents were not the best but you still have to perform and the Huskies did.

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UCONN VIDEOS

Game Replay

Game Highlights

Geno at his best - Injury Update

Geno Post Game Presser

Nika Muhl, Olivia Nelson Ododa, Caroline Ducharme

Post game presser

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GAMES

MOST SCORES HAVE CLICKABLE LINKS TO A GAME STORY

UPSETS IN RED

No. 7 Arizona 66 Oregon 68 OT
No. 9 Iowa State 74 Oklahoma State 60
No. 13 Texas West Virginia
No. 18 BYU 77 Loyola Marymount 37
No. 23 Oklahoma 100 TCU 71
No. 25 Kansas State 45 Texas Tech 64

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Straight from the Dog

UConn played great Saturday and several times they had a close up of Paige and Azzi on the bench next to each other smiling and laughing. Of course they were enjoying their teammate's performance, but I think they both know they will be back soon enough.

All I could think was how good this team will be when they do get back and get some games under their belt. Here is a sneak preview of them during warmups. It won't be long!!!

I'm guessing Fudd will be back in around a week. Paige sometime mid-February.

I hope you had a chance to watch the video of Geno talking about Paige and Azzi. Hysterical!!

And up next is Oregon. I'll have a more complete analysis of that game in Sunday's blog. The Ducks played No. 7 Arizona and used a big run in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime. Endyia Rodgers hit a jumper with .4 seconds left to give the Ducks the win. The Ducks have faced three teams that reached last year’s Final Four, and lost to Stanford and South Carolina before defeating Arizona. Oregon will complete its run against all four Final Four teams from a year ago when it hosts Connecticut on Monday. I'm sure they will be sky high heading into that game after this huge win for the Ducks.

Oregon was led by their big three, 6'5" Nyara Sabally with 20 points and 13 rebounds, point guard Te-Hina Paopao with 24 points and 6'7" Sedona Prince with 16 points. It should be an interesting match up with UConn.

Just a little more from the Orange Idiots.

"I am not sure I would want my daughter to play where their players are getting as many foot injuries as his players are getting. Must be a flaw in the S&C program. However, it could be that his players just get injuries at convenient times."

Injuries at convenient times? Seriously?

"I said it from beginning that Geno didn't want to play strong school, he faked Covid results just like he faked it to get recruits."

How does someone fake Covid results? And how does someone get players to go along with it? Sigh.....

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By PHIL

And then there were none

Hold your hand up if you predicted that Colorado would be the last undefeated team to fall from those ranks.

Just as I thought, there are no hands held up, not even Colorado fans.

If you happened to watch the game between Colorado and Stanford, you might’ve thought early on there was a chance they would survive a little longer, but it soon became evident that wasn’t going to be the case. By soon I mean first half, even though Colorado entered the fourth quarter tied. Even though Colorado was up by as much as 11 points early, they did it without any offense. They only had 28 points at halftime. While Stanford only had 24, you could tell they were going to turn it on at some point. Colorado admittedly had excellent defense, forcing 15 steals. But tenacious defense takes a toll, not to mention that it often leads to committing a lot of fouls. The only Colorado player with more than one three-pointer fouled out, playing only 19 minutes, while four other players had three or four fouls, which makes it difficult to play aggressive defense. Colorado ran out of gas, scoring only 11 points in the final quarter and Stanford finally put a few through the hoop and won by a relatively close margin but the result was not really in doubt.

I don’t know an easy way to figure out which teams are the last to fall from the unbeaten throughout history, so I’m going to take the lazy route and make up my analysis of history.

The unbeaten fall into two categories. The first is obvious, a truly dominant team. UConn has been that team many years, and virtually every team that ends the season undefeated is in that category.

The other category is largely populated by mid-majors or maybe even someone from a weaker conference. Princeton and Liberty come to mind. They haven’t typically been national powers, so their nonconference schedule is not littered with top 25 opponents. They had a particularly good player or two, someone who could well play for one of the top teams in the nation but chose to go to another team for a variety of reasons. They carry the team to undefeated status in the nonconference schedule. Then they happen to be in a conference where there are no outstanding other teams, and managed to run the table, at least until the NCAA tournament, when all of the top teams have managed to lose to someone.

That’s what makes Colorado a bit of an anomaly. They are a member of one of the power five conferences, yet not really a dominant team. Their undefeated record earned them a position in the top 25 but near the bottom of those ranks. Maybe we could get somebody from hoop stats to look it up, but I won’t be surprised if it is extremely rare for a power five team, not ranked in the top 10, to be the last undefeated to fall out of those ranks.

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