Blogs > Elm City to Eagleville

A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

St. John's rewind

As Geno Auriemma grabbed the microphone to give out prizes to the kids in the student section, he didn't hide his displeasure for the lack of the artistry in tonight's game.

It isn't often that UConn shoots barely over 30 percent but that was exactly what happened in the Huskies' 66-52 win over St. John's.

Here are some thoughts:

First, Tina Charles was immense with 25 points and 21 rebounds but she appeared to get tired. Something tells me you will see Charles playing more minutes from here on out because it was clear she wasn't accustomed to having to play the whole game. When Charles grabbed four rebounds in a span of 52 seconds she already had a career-high 21 rebounds. With more than 12 minutes to play, it seemed a certainty that she would make a run at the single-game team record of 25 rebounds. But she did not grab another rebound.

It was still quite an eventful night for Charles who became the 12th women's player inducted into the Huskies of Honor, became the first Husky in nine seasons to have a 20 point, 20 rebound effort, was one of eight women's basketball players recognized for attaining a 3.0 or better grade point average in either the fall or spring semestes and picked up her first technical foul at UConn after official Joseph Vaszily ruled she struck a St. John's player in the face.

A couple of surprising things. First, Auriemma is usually good at the sentimental thing (queue the Meghan Gardler start at Villanova) but he did not get seniors Kaili McLaren or Jacquie Fernandes in at all in their final games at Gampel Pavilion.

Even more stunning was that reigning Big East Freshman of the Year Da'Shena Stevens did not start and rather than being punished or any indiscretions, St. John's coach Kim Barnes Arico said it was because of matchups. Not sure I get that explanation. She wanted to get bigger but in doing so sat her leading scorer and rebounder? Well, St. John's did make things difficult for UConn so I guess it's hard to fault her too much for the move.

Speaking of Barnes Arico, I spoke to her for a bit about incoming freshman Keylantra Langley. The results of the interview will be a part of my notebook running in Sunday's edition of the Register including getting her take on how Langley is handling the absence of her former head coach Steve Schuler. Schuler said he was fired even though the Crusaders were 13-1 and ranked fifth in the Register's Top 10 poll.

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