Blogs > Elm City to Eagleville

A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Charles, Taurasi win individual titles

Former UConn stars Tina Charles and Diana Taurasi finished as the WNBA leaders in rebounding and scoring.

Charles won the rebounding crown for the second time in as many seasons as she finished with 374 rebounds, 24 fewer than the WNBA single-season record she had as a rookie in 2010. Sylvia Fowles was the only other player to average more than 10 rebounds a game although she finished with 27 fewer rebounds than Charles did.

The scoring race finished in almost a dead heat. Taurasi had 692 points in 32 games, an average of 21.625 points per game. Atlanta's Angel McCoughtry had 712 in 33 games which is an average of 21.575. Had McCoughtry scored two more points or Taurasi scored two fewer points, McCoughtry would have won the title. It was the fourth straight scoring title for Taurasi and fifth of her career.

Speaking of high-scoring former UConn players, seven of the top 20 scorers in the WNBA played at UConn as Charles finished fifth (17.6), Sue Bird 12th (14.7), Renee Montgomery tied for 13th (14.6), Asjha Jones 18th (13.3), Swin Cash 19th (13.3) and Maya Moore 20th (13.2).

Among incredible statistic is that all 11 UConn graduates in the WNBA are on playoff teams. Five play for the Sun (Charles, Jones, Montgomery, Kalana Greene and Jessica Moore) who finished tied with Indiana for the Eastern Conference title although the Fever earned the top seed based on winning the head-to-head series with the Sun. Seattle (Bird and Cash), Phoenix (Taurasi and Ketia Swanier) and Minnesota (Moore and Charde Houston) each have two former Huskies on their squad.

One last UConn/WNBA stat to throw out there - there has been a former Husky on the last five WNBA championship teams and since 2003, the 2005 Sacramento Monarchs are the only title-winning squad without a player from UConn on its roster.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A nice contrast between Geno and Bob Knight: many of Geno's former players have continued career success playing professional backetball; while (except for Isaih Thomas) few of Knight's have.

11:10 AM 

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