Shocker: Huskies Trounce Wichita State
The Story: Playing without Geno Auriemma for the second consecutive game, the Huskies rolled to an easy 84-47 win last night in their first game at Wichita State. Napheesa Collier had a season-high 32 points with 12 rebounds, Katie Lou Samuelson scored 18 points and Crystal Dangerfield had 14 points and eight assists.
The victory not only sealed the Huskies’ sixth AAC regular-season title in as many seasons, but it was their 100th consecutive regular-season win in the conference.
NO GENO, NO PROBLEM: UConn (26-2, 14-0) announced a few hours before the game that Geno, who has been dealing with a stomach bug that also kept him from traveling to Tulsa on Saturday, would not join his team in Wichita. Thus, it was up to Chris Dailey to hold things together, as she has so capably throughout her career — a tidy 9-0 all-time in Geno’s place. When asked what she learned about the Huskies in his absence, she smiled and said that “coaching doesn’t matter.”
COLLIER CLIMBING: Collier, who made 13 of 15 shots, including one of two 3-pointers, moved past Kara Wolters and Diana Taurasi into eighth place all-time in UConn’s scoring charts with 2,169 points. If she scores 10 points in her next game, she’ll move ahead of Kerry Bascom, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Nykesha Sales into fifth. “I thought I was open a lot, so I shot it,” Collier told reporters afterward.
ELITE COMPANY: Samuelson had four rebounds, meaning she crossed the 600-rebound mark for her careeer. Only three other players have scored 2,000 points with 600 rebounds and 400 assists: Taurasi, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Wichita State held a 5-4 lead with 7:39 left in the first quarter and did not score again until more than nine minutes later, at which point the Huskies were up, 31-7. UConn was up 46-19 at the half and 70-36 after three quarters. The Huskies shot 57.7 percent, no doubt aided by Collier’s inability to miss, though they somehow managed only a 29-28 advantage on the boards. UConn had 23 assists on 30 baskets, Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Mikayla Coombs played 19 and 18 minutes, respectively, and Wichita State, led by 12 points from Carla Bremaud, trotted out 13 players.
WHAT DID CD SAY? “At this point of the season, it’s not about physical preparation, it’s about mental preparation, and their ability — whether it was Coach Auriemma here or myself — to be able to prepare and put the blinders on and be mentally prepared to play two games on the road in environments that aren’t easy to play in [is impressive].”
TOP-LINE FEVER: Given all the turnover among the elite teams this season (except for perhaps Baylor, which was a unanimous No. 1 in the Associated Press poll this week), it’s been an interesting year in women’s basketball. But with the Huskies unlikely to lose their final two regular-season games, or in the AAC tournament, they’ll head into the NCAA tournament on a 13-game winning streak, making it all but certain they’ll be a No. 1 seed yet again.
AN INTERESTED CROWD: Wichita State (11-16, 4-10) hoped to pack the Koch Arena for the Huskies’ first trip and did just that, setting an attendance record with 6,156 people in the building. The previous record was 5,262 fans for a game in 2006; the Shockers were averaging 1,969 people this season.
UP NEXT: The Huskies will be back at Gampel Pavilion for the final time this season when they face Houston (15-11, 9-4) on Saturday afternoon.
The Struggles of Youth
The Story: The men’s basketball team is playing for the future because it has no other choice. Young players in redshirt freshman Sidney Wilson and true freshman Brendan Adams have had their moments but some struggles, too.
PLAYING FOR THE FUTURE: The Huskies (12-13, 4-10) have relied upon a lot of young players in recent years and are hoping the youth movement late in the season, which is necessitated by injuries, pays off. Wilson has started three of the last four games and has scored more than 10 points in three of his last six games, including a career-high 16 points at Memphis. Adams has played more than 10 minutes in six games, though his production has not matched the increase in playing time.
HOW TO HARNESS WILSON’S GAME: At least once a game, Wilson makes a play that will make you stand up on press row and cheer (OK, maybe not). That’s the athletic potential of Wilson on display. Now for the bad: He can’t shoot or finish.
Wilson, who was just 1-of-6 against Cincinnati, is shooting 3-of-17 in his last two games. He is taking a lot of shots, many open, and is hitting only 34 percent, including an abysmal 24.1 percent from 3-point range (7-of-29). He is making just 37.8 percent (28-of-74) of his 2-pointers.
Tyler Polley shot 32 percent (24-of-75) last season as a freshman, and the last player to finish with a worse shooting percentage while taking at least 100 shots was Omar Calhoun, who made 30.5 percent (40-of-131) of his attempts while scoring 3.8 points per game in 2013-14. Other players who have struggled to make a shot in the last 15 seasons include Jerome Dyson, who shot 29.1 percent in 2009-10; Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, who shot 32 percent that same year; Craig Austrie, who shot 33.7 percent in 2006-07; and Rashad Anderson, who shot 35.9 percent in 2004-05. Players can get better as their career goes on, but man is it tough to watch missed shot after missed shot.
Wilson’s mid-range game should be shelved for now. Not only is it the least efficient shot in basketball, he isn’t good at it. Taking 15- to 20-footers isn’t the way for him to play.
ADAMS’ STRUGGLES ARE REAL: Adams is seeing an increase in playing time and even received his first start on Sunday, but he has shown little production. He is shooting 29.6 percent and 21.4 percent from 3-point range. He’s a physical and athletic combo guard, but the fact he has made just nine of the 42 3-pointers he has hoisted is criminal.
In the current five-game losing streak, Adams is 2-for-13 for six points, nine rebounds and five assists in 83 minutes. You need more production than that in those minutes, especially to be considered a starter.
BOTTOM LINE: The Huskies have forced these two players into playing time ahead of schedule. The key now is for Wilson and Adams to understand their limits and respond accordingly. That would mean no more mid-range shots from Wilson and more production from Adams outside of scoring.
Morning Reads
DISAPPOINTING DEFEAT: Despite being tied after two periods, the men’s hockey team lost 5-2 to No. 8 Providence last night. (UConnHuskies.com)
BRIGHT LIGHTS: Freshman second baseman Will Lucas threw a no-hitter for Fairfield American in the Little League World Series in 2012 and now has his sights on making an impact at UConn. (Daily Campus)
