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GO UCONN!!!!!
Day: Sunday
Date: February 13th, 2022
Time: 2:30
Location: Al McGuire Center
Milwakee, Wisconsin
TV: Fox
Prior Meetings
MARQUETTE | UCONN LEADS 10-0 H: 4-0 | A: 6-0 | N: 0-0
02/25/06 #8 UConn 74, Marquette 59 Storrs, Conn.
02/03/07 #3 UConn 52, Marquette 48 Milwaukee, Wis.
02/20/08 #1 UConn 95, Marquette 63 Hartford, Conn.
02/07/09 #1 UConn 83, Marquette 49 Milwaukee, Wis.
01/13/10 #1 UConn 68, Marquette 43 Milwaukee, Wis.
12/09/10 #1 UConn 79, Marquette 47 Storrs, Conn.
02/25/12 #4 UConn 85, Marquette 45 Milwaukee, Wis.
01/12/13 #3 UConn 85, Marquette 51 Milwaukee, Wis.
02/05/13 #3 UConn 94, Marquette 37 Storrs, Conn.
02/05/21 #3 UConn 87, Marquette 58 Milwaukee, Wis.
The Golden Eagles are having a good season and are right on the NCAA tournament bubble. This is a huge game for them, but they don't need to pull off an upset for it to help. They can just play well and keep it closer than last years 29 point loss.
They did lose last years leading scorer Selena Lott and third leading scorer Cameron Taylor, but they return 3 starters and add a fabulous tranfer to the lineup.
Marquette's best big is No. 42 Lauren Van Kleunen. She is only 6'2" but is a wide shouldered young lady who knows how to use her body to carve out space in the post. She will take the intermediate jumper but of she gets the ball in the low post she knows how to finish. Her go to move is a little jump hook. Tough to stop. She leads the Golden Eagles in scoring at 14 PPG.
5'7" guard, Purdue transfer Karissa McLaughlin is the second leading scorer at 12.7 PPG. She is the only, and I mean ONLY three point threat on the team. But she is a good one at 44.6% and she takes around 6 per game. UConn will have to watch her coming off screens to get open.
5"11" Senior Jordan King is the other guard in the starting lineup. She leads the team in assists And she is the only other double digit scorere on the team at 11.5.
Lisa Karlen, a 6'2" sophomore forward brings some rebounding to the team and leads Marquette in blocks at 23. She is averaging 8.9 PPG.
The final starter is 6'1" junior Chloe Marotta. A solid shooter, she doesn't take many out of her range, which is right around the basket. She is a pretty good defender as well. And she is the leading rebounder on the team.
The bench give Marquette some solid minutes, but none of the four players that get minutes are going to come in and change the trajectory of the game. I would expect the starters to get more than their average minutes in this one.
Marquette averages over 41 rebounds per game but it is split evenly between all 5 starters with no player over 7.1 RPG. They average only around 3 blocks per game so they will have a tough time stopping UConn at the rim.
Defensively, they Golden Eagles play exclusively a man to man. That could be a disaster if they don't do a good job switching off the screens. They Huskies are getting better and better at that.
UConn will try to uptempo this game. They will run on almost every defensive rebound. And they have the horses to do that. But if the Huskies are shorthanded again they might be more selective when they run.
Marquette hasn't seen a defense as good as UConn's. They are coming off a tough overtime game against Villanova Friday night where their five starters all played 40+ minutes. Not much time to recover.
It's an interesting game. The first question is about who is available to play. Will Nelson-Ododa and/or Ducharme be available?
Even if they can't play, the talent difference is big.
Off the top of my head, I'd say UConn by 15+. Marquette is at home and will play inspired basketball.
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.@Homestead_Bball coach Rod Parker on McDonald’s All-American and UConn commit Ayanna Patterson (@ayannap34). pic.twitter.com/xCXYWiDqRu
— hank 🇰🇷 (@Brian_Haenchen) February 12, 2022
Ashlynn Shade's Noblesville defeated Ayanna Patterson's Homestead team for the second time this season. It wasn't close as the final was 61-40. They were the only losses for Homestead this season. Homestead's lack of guard play really was the differnce in this game. They had 8 straight turnovers to start the game, and before you knew it, it was 14-0 Noblesville. They were ahead by almost 30 at one point before the final 21 point margin.
Shade missed most of the second quarter with foul trouble but it didn't matter. She finished with 13 points, 13 boards and 5 assists. Patterson finished with 15 points before fouling out. She got a standing ovation from everyone in the place as she left the court. Ashlynn's team, in a weird Indiana thing plays the championship game the same day. Ahhh....to be young again. Noblesville played at 10 am this morning and will play at 8pm tonight.
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GAMES
MOST SCORES HAVE CLICKABLE LINKS TO A GAME STORY
UPSETS IN RED
No. 12 Oklahoma 63 No. 16 Texas 78
No. 22 Florida Gulf Coast 55 Stetson 58
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Straight from the Dog
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Ken Can!!!!
My friend Ken wrote this great post on a message board and said I could share it here. I'm sure you will all enjoy it!!
What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours.....
UConn's WCBB, more shorthanded than ever; comes ready to kick ar$e and plays a great game! Massey; my preferred metric, had UConn winning by 10 points and UConn bests DePaul by 24! As of today, Massey has UConn at #5 which would be a 2 seed! Of course, the NCAA uses NET as their most important metric, but UConn is # 8 there, still a likely 2 seed!
In both metrics, UConn moved up with their showing last night against a good DePaul team! Massey had UConn winning 83-73 and, not only did UConn hold DePaul to far less than 73, but they also beat the 10 point spread by 14 more points! Strong because they played very well defensively, strong because their offense was clicking and strong because they more than doubled the expected margin of victory!! You really can't improve much on that, but I know Geno and the coaching staff will push the team to be even better!!
Net Rankings
Massey Rankings
Now, go over to Doggy's blog (from 2/11) and listen to Coach Doug Bruno's post game presser because he's one of the best coaches around! The reporters asked him a few UConn questions and he flat out defended the 'down' season UConn WCBB is having, but not in a shameless kiss Geno's ar$e way! He references the injuries to key players and how UConn has weathered this unprecedented storm! He also said that uConn could well be THAT TEAM in March when they have all of their players healthy!! You won't find a better coach and prognosticator than Doug, but - more importantly - you have to look far and wide to find a coach with higher character than Doug!
Net Rankings
Massey Rankings
Now, go over to Doggy's blog (from 2/11) and listen to Coach Doug Bruno's post game presser because he's one of the best coaches around! The reporters asked him a few UConn questions and he flat out defended the 'down' season UConn WCBB is having, but not in a shameless kiss Geno's ar$e way! He references the injuries to key players and how UConn has weathered this unprecedented storm! He also said that uConn could well be THAT TEAM in March when they have all of their players healthy!! You won't find a better coach and prognosticator than Doug, but - more importantly - you have to look far and wide to find a coach with higher character than Doug!
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Remember when Paige hurt her knee late in the game and the Tennessee fans (and some UConn fans) were hammering Geno for keeping her in that late in a game where UConn had a 20 point lead?
Well, in their game against Missouri on Thursday night, Tennessee had a 25 point lead going into the fourth quarter. When one particular Tennessee fan complained that their freshman Karoline Striplin wasn't seeing time, this was the classic response.
You forgot (?) to mention that MIzzou closed it to 16 during the fourth quarter and ket it under 20 for most of the quarter. All of our starters were in until 90 seconds left. It wasn't a diss of Karo, looked like she wanted to give her starters a lot of court time, maybe to shake off the losing streak. So, exactly when in the fourth quarter should Kellie have taken a starter out to accomodate your desire to see Karo, Coach?
So, what if one of their starters got injured God forbid?
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I just love this video
Bounced back
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) February 12, 2022
👊 pic.twitter.com/3xBKRWEuDN
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1044
I confess I thought our streak of 1043 games without back-to-back losses was in jeopardy Friday evening. Who would have guessed that the same lineup that could not beat 57th -ranked Villanova could be so dominant over 37th ranked DePaul?
I almost feel sorry for Doug Bruno. He already knew that Paige wasn’t playing, but when he heard the news that neither Liv nor Caroline would be available, he must’ve been thinking that this is his best shot at beating UConn, very possibly for years to come. He knew how close he came when UConn was closer to full strength, so he must’ve been salivating at the thought of taking on a weakened Huskies team.
As I said to some of my friends, Villanova faced the starting lineup that, at best, played a few minutes as a unit in practice, possibly none at all, but they then had a couple days of practice playing as a unit. That’s certainly not the only factor — a renewed resolve by both Dorka and Aaliyah contributed, but I think practicing is a unit helped.
It’s satisfying to simply replay the game in one’s head, but it’s a time of year to think about the conditions for seeding and ranking. The win over DePaul by itself pushed UConn up from eighth place in the Massey rankings past Baylor and Iowa State. That win wasn’t enough to move them ahead of Arizona alone, but Arizona cooperated by following two in-state rival Arizona State. UConn is now in fifth place.
One take away is that there is a fair bit of separation between the first five teams. UConn no longer has any potential for upside, with four games against triple digit ranked teams plus the game against Marquette ranked 62, not to be taken lightly, but a win isn’t going to be enough to push them ahead of Louisville. Any movement up will require losses, probably multiple, from the teams ahead of them. Not likely.
The bigger story is that while Connecticut is ahead of Baylor, Arizona and Iowa State, the rankings are almost on top of each other. Connecticut and Baylor are closer than 0.01, and the other two are very close behind. When rankings are this close, the order can change even without a win or loss by these four teams. Baylor beat Morehead State earlier this season. An upset win by Morehead State is likely to be enough to move Baylor ahead of UConn.
If anyone is surprised that Connecticut is ahead of those three teams all of which have better records, the answer is that Connecticut has the third-best strength of schedule in the nation. We know some fans of other schools thank playing in the Big East is cupcake city, but the strength of schedule is better than say Tennessee, to pick an SEC team at random. Connecticut’s last five games will drop their strength of schedule to 27 but that will still be better than Baylor or Arizona , and not far behind I will states number 21.
It is mildly curious that the strength of schedule both Baylor and Arizona is going to worsen, despite them playing in the number one and number two overall conferences, but that’s an artifact of the scheduling — each of them have played the tougher teams in their conference and have some of the weaker ones left.
I don’t really anticipate the selection committee moving Connecticut all the way up to fifth, but if they are paying attention, they are the strongest of the two seeds so should not be moved down to a three seed.
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By David in Naples
Evina Westbrook now seems relegated to the bench, rather than starting. This is actually a great move by Geno that benefits the team and Evina.
It benefits the team because Evina can sub in for positions 1-4. She has the ball skills of a guard and the size to bang inside. Last night she was the first sub in and played 28 minutes. She scored 10 points on 5-9 shooting with 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals. Westbrook also had only 1 turnover.
Evina seems comfortable with this new role. There is much less pressure on her to lead in scoring, rebounds or assists. She is 3rd this season in points (197), 2nd in assists (73), 3rd in made baskets and 1st in made free throws. The perfect utility tool for Geno to sub in and let her figure out what the team needs her to do. She is far more effective playing 25 minutes than 40. And, she seems perfectly fine to play this new role. Her knee is also happy.
Other stats:
It benefits the team because Evina can sub in for positions 1-4. She has the ball skills of a guard and the size to bang inside. Last night she was the first sub in and played 28 minutes. She scored 10 points on 5-9 shooting with 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals. Westbrook also had only 1 turnover.
Evina seems comfortable with this new role. There is much less pressure on her to lead in scoring, rebounds or assists. She is 3rd this season in points (197), 2nd in assists (73), 3rd in made baskets and 1st in made free throws. The perfect utility tool for Geno to sub in and let her figure out what the team needs her to do. She is far more effective playing 25 minutes than 40. And, she seems perfectly fine to play this new role. Her knee is also happy.
Other stats:
1. UConn’s 84 points last night were the 3rd highest of the season, behind only 92 at Butler and 95 vs Arkansas to open the season.
2. DePaul was averaging 90 points per game prior to last night. They scored 60 points.
3. UConn has now gone 1,044 games without losing two in a row. No one on the team was born the last time that happened.
4. Every starter scored last night, had at least 4 rebounds and blocked a shot.
GO Huskies..!
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