UConn-St. Joseph’s, Again, This Time It’s The Women
The #1 seeded UConn women will meet the #9 seed St. Joseph’s Hawks (23-9, at large bid) for a game to determine which team will advance to the Sweet 16 only five days after the UConn men dispatched the St. Joe’s men from the men’s tournament. Despite being the higher seed, the UConn men were predicted to lose to the Hawks; there’s no one making the same claims about the women.
Geno Auriemma has long roots back to Philly and to St. Joseph’s, specifically. Geno’s first job as a college assistant was for Jim Foster at St. Joe’s. He’s also a long-time friend of St. Joe’s current men’s coach Phil Martelli, having been an assistant for him at Bishop Kendrick High School. (The Courant’s Jeff Jacobs wrote about their friendship in a 1997 column). And one last link – there’s a Gardler working as an assistant for the Hawks, Katie Gardler, Meghan’s sister-in-law.
The Hawks are led in scoring by 5-6 senior guard Erin Shields (15.0 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.3 apg). She’s a three point threat (92-228, 40%) that can kill opponents from the free throw line (95%) as well. In the Hawks’ first round game against Georgia, it was Shields that dominated, scoring 18 points and nailing 4 of 6 threes. If UConn loses sight of her, there could be some nervous moments for the Huskies.
The third leading scorer for the Hawks is 6-0 junior guard Natasha Cloud (11.5 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 7.6 apg), a transfer from Maryland. A big guard who’s considered a strong defender, Cloud has an amazing 237 assists this season and a nose for the ball, in fact, she’s the team’s leading rebounder and team leader in free throw attempts. She holds a very fine 2.3:1 assist to turnover ratio. A December 2013 newspaper article outlined her love of setting up her teammates and passing them the ball; it will be important for the Huskies to stay in her face and make her play more quickly than she likes.
Sandwiched between the guards is 6-1 sophomore forward Sarah Fairbanks (12.7 ppg, 5.9 rpg), the second high scorer. Fairbanks is a young player that’s shown some very promising moments but she does have a tendency to foul, having the most personal fouls of any St. Joseph’s player (93) and having fouled out twice this season.
Fairbanks’ fellow frontcourt-mate, Ashley Robinson (6.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg) is the tallest player on the Hawk’s roster at 6-2. The redshirt junior has also fouled out twice this season. Neither Robinson nor Fairbanks are much of a threat to take a shot from the perimeter but senior forward Kelsey Berger will shoot from beyond the arc, making 33% of her attempts. But overall, St. Joe’s hasn’t taken many threes compared to UConn. As a team, the Hawks are 160-454 (35%) from the perimeter while UConn is 267-714 (37%). The Hawks allow only 29% of threes; UConn 26%.
In their first NCAA tournament game, against Georgia, the Hawks played only seven players: Shields, Cloud, Fairbanks, Robinson, Berger, 6-0 senior forward Ilze Gotfrida (8.3 ppg, 5.1 rpg), and 5-9 sophomore guard Ciara Andrews (9.3 ppg, 3.6 rpg) with Shields, Cloud, and Robinson playing almost the entire game. The defeat of Georgia was probably the Hawks’ best win with the second-best a 75-63 win over Dayton (St. Joe’s schedule).
Once again, the Huskies will be facing another guard oriented team that gets enough help from the frontcourt for a balanced attack and strong defensive effort. In this respect, the AAC has given the Huskies pretty good practice playing against teams with good guards and an energetic, full court style of play. St. Joe’s has a good defense, too, with a scoring defense of 63.6 only a tick behind Duke’s 63.5 point per game allowed. Of course, UConn leads the country in points allowed at 46.9 as well as the #1 FG% defense at 30.3.
The guards are very good for St. Joe’s but there just isn’t enough power up front for the Hawks to topple the Huskies. The Huskies’ length will cause problems for St. Joseph’s and the guards may have trouble penetrating. They may try to win the game with defense but there are just too many weapons for the Huskies. This being a second round NCAA tournament game, there may be more of a struggle with an unfamiliar team that has a couple of pretty good players but the Huskies should prevail.
St. Joseph’s Roster
St. Joseph’s Season Box Score
UConn Season Box Score
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