Promise and Pain in Mora’s Debut
The Story: The football team showed a lot of promise in a 31-20 loss at Utah State on Saturday but lost quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson and top wide receiver Keelan Marion likely for the season with injuries.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Welcome Jim Mora to UConn football, where nothing is easy. The Huskies put forth a credible effort against the Aggies, a fringe top-25 team, by relying on freshman quarterback Zion Turner for much of the game. Roberson, after leading the Huskies on a touchdown, went down with a knee injury. Turner replaced him late in the first quarter found Marion for his first career touchdown pass. Marion broke a collarbone on the play, however, and the Huskies couldn’t hold a 14-0 lead as they gave up 24 second-quarter points. Roberson is done for the year and Marion has an outside shot at making it back toward the end of the season.
TURNER’S TEAM: The 6-foot-1 quarterback from national high school power St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida was up and down in his first game. He wasn’t accurate as he went 12-for-31 for 104 yards with two interceptions and one touchdown. Billed as a dual-threat quarterback with a strong arm, we didn’t see much of Turner’s ability to run.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS? UConn has two other quarterbacks in tow. Cale Millen played two snaps Saturday and is a former Oregon quarterback who transferred from Northern Arizona. Tyler Phommachanh is recovering after tearing an ACL last year. We don’t know where Phommachanh stands as far as his recovery. Could either supplant Turner? Turner seems to have won the backup job fair and square, but it was a shaky outing on Saturday against Utah State.
CARTER STARS: There is no question about who the running back is. Sophomore Nate Carter ran for 190 yards on 20 carries and showed he can be an explosive back behind a rebuilt offensive line. The Huskies rushed for 245 yards as a team and averaged 6.3 yards per rush.
DEFENSE NEEDS WORK: The Huskies are without a defensive coordinator but they do have talent with linebacker Jackson Mitchell picking up right where he left off a season ago as he had 16 tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery. The defense still allowed Utah State quarterback Logan Bonner to throw for 281 yards and three touchdowns. The Aggies ran up 542 yards on the Huskies’ defense.
WHAT DID MORA SAY? “We hate to lose. We didn’t come here to lose, so we don’t feel good about that and there’s a real disappointment in that locker room. These young men have been through a lot. They made a tremendous commitment to what we’re trying to do here. Every single one of them — they’re very great group of young men. They have a lot of heart. And it means it means the world to them to go out there and perform and win and so they’re disappointed, but we’re not discouraged.”
UP NEXT: UConn hosts CCSU on Saturday at Pratt and Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field.
Geno Looks Overseas for Backcourt Help
The Story: With Paige Bueckers expected to miss the entire season after tearing an ACL earlier this month, Geno Auriemma signed a point guard out of Portugal, Ines Bettancourt, to offer help in the backcourt.
WHO IS BETTANCOURT? A 5-foot-9 point guard from the Azores, Bettancourt was expecting to play this season at Northwest Florida, a junior college. She averaged 14.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists for Portugal in the FIBA U-18 Women’s European Championship in Greece earlier this month.
• The Daily was dormant for the summer — how dare we! — so we certainly hope this isn’t the first you’re hearing of Bueckers’ injury. But it left Nika Muhl as the Huskies’ only point guard, and Geno doesn’t have a willingness to move Azzi Fudd or Caroline Ducharme to that role full time.
• We shouldn’t expect much from Bettancourt this season, other than playing a few minutes a game. Muhl has more than proven her toughness and is no stranger to a heavy workload. But having just one point guard is no way to go through life.
• Bettancourt is the 12th player on scholarship for the Huskies this season and will be the fourth newcomer behind Fairfield graduate transfer Lou Lopez Senechal and freshmen Isuneh Brady and Ayanna Patterson.
• Imagine living in the Azores and waking up to this and this every day and then ending up in Storrs for the winter. But we digress.
WHAT DID GENO SAY? “Ines is a true point guard. She loves to distribute the ball and can make shots. She’s used to playing in the European style of ball movement, ball screens, lots of two-man game, three-man game. I think she’s a tough kid and a great competitor. I’m thrilled that we were able to find her.”
Morning Reads
• Former UConn DH Reggie Crawford hit his first career minor-league home run after he was a first-round draft pick of the Giants. (UConn Baseball on Twitter)
• The men’s soccer team picked up its first win of the season, and the first for coach Chris Gbandi, with a 2-0 victory over Holy Cross. (UConnHuskies.com)
• The women’s soccer team blanked UMass-Lowell 5-0 as Maddie Carroll had two goals for the Huskies. (UConnHuskies.com)
• The No. 15-ranked field hockey team edged Monmouth 2-1 on an overtime goal from Claire Jendewerth. (UConnHuskies.com)
