My contribution. (I wrote it, might as well post it). Didn't know if DD would be doing this game, thought it might be beneath him.
Teams
UCONN USF
Scoring/Opp
82.6/46.9 71.3/59.4
FG%/3pt
49.6%/37.7% 38.8%/34.2%
Def FG%
30.7%/28.9% 36.0%/28.5%
Reb
42.9/+11.7 45.0/+5.8
Assists
21.0 14.1
T/O
13.8/+6.0 16.6/+3.8
Steals/Blks
10.8/5.8 11.1/4.9
Starters (normal)
Andrea Smith - (5-8 G SR) 16.8 ppg / 5.2 rpg / 40.6% 3 pt
Andrell Smith - (5-8 G SR) 13.8 ppg /4.7 rpb / 34.1% 3 pt / 4.9 apg
Inga Orekhova – (6-2 G JR) 12.4 ppg /3.9 rpg / 34.2% 3 pt/ 2.8 apg
Alisia Jenkins – (6-1 F FR) 6.5 ppg / 6.3 rpg
Akila McDonald – (6-4 C JR) 3.8 ppg / 5.7 rpg
Bench (normal)
Courtney Williams - (5-8 G FR) 7.3 ppg / 3.5 rpg
Tiffany Conner – (5-9 F SR) 2.5 ppg / 3.1 rpg
Caitlin Rowe – (6-4 C SR) 3.2 ppg / 2.6 rpg
Wins -Louisville 73-62, Syracuse 68-66
Losses – Notre Dame 71-75 (OT), Creighton 74-91, Nova 49-52, St. John’s 59-65, Rutgers 56-68
USF was coming off 2 decent wins, Louisville and Syracuse but then gave C Viv her 300th win. The Bulls are a decent team, presently 7th place in Big East. 19-8 overall, 8-6 in conference. They can play well on occasion beating UL and Syracuse and taking ND into OT. But they are not on UCONN’s level. They certainly if taken lightly can cause problems. With ND looming on Monday, that’s certainly a possibility.
They have decent height. Although their bigs don’t score much. Most of their scoring come from the guards. UCONN has not always done a great job defending the perimeter (comparatively to their overall defending), so they will have to be on their toes tomorrow. USF likes to shoot a lot of 3’s. They have shot 517 as compared to UCONN’s 652. Orekhova has taken 190 3pt shots as compared to KML’s 169. So it’ll be raining 3’s tomorrow. The Smith sisters (twins) and Orekhova are their 3 pt shooters. Which according to the Dailey hypothesis means subs Williams and Conner will go off.
With USF taking a lot of 3’s, if we can get the long rebounds, UCONN should be able to get some fast break points.
UCONN will have to take care of the ball, that could give UCONN problems if anything does.
UCONN should be able to win this one fairly easy. However, travel to FL and then anticipation of the ND game on Monday could cause problems. As long as they take one game at a time and stay focused on the task at hand, UCONN will be fine.
Don’t think USF will slow the game down, so could be a decent scoring game.
I’ll go 86-62.