While it is dangerous to get too caught up in crunching numbers, the halftime box score of yesterday's UConn/Louisville game was proof of the type of balance UConn coach Geno Auriemma is looking for from his team.

Determined to not have his team become too 3-point happy, he has been stressing to them to importance to getting the ball inside either with driving or crisp passing and also get to the free-throw line.

Well, if you take away the two free-throw attempts due to the Jeff Walz technical foul since that had nothing to do with anything UConn accomplished, the Huskies hit the preferred landmarks of two 2-point attempts for every 3-pointer attempted and one free-throw try for every 3. In the opening 20 minutes UConn was 12 of 22 from inside the arc, 9 of 12 from foul line (not counting the FTs on the technical) and 3 of 11 from 3 (after opening 0 for 8).

"Coach always said we can't rely on one thing," UConn senior guard Bria Hartley said. "There are times when we are (playing) South Florida and we are hitting all of our 3s so that is all we wanted to do and there are games like this when you are not. He always tells us in practice to have a good combination of shots, driving or get it into the post, mid-range and different combination of things so it is hard for trams to defend."

As previously mentioned, UConn missed its first eight 3-pointers but countered that with some tremendous work in the high-low post offense as 24 of the 44 first-half points were scored in the paint.

"We've got to always be better at balancing at how we are getting our points," Auriemma said. "You saw that one stretch in the second half when we blew the game open and it was a couple layups over here, a couple of 3s over there, pull ups over there and it was a little bit of everything. That is what makes you a great team when people can't say 'let's take away Connecticut's 3s and we can beat them.' We don't want to be that kind of team. I thought we had a huge advantage in the lane and we tried to go to that spot as often as possible  knowing eventually that as the floor starts shrinks offensively, we are going to get a lot of opportunities to score 3s. We had two different kinds of offenses. We ran one in the first half to take advantage of some stuff and ran something completely different because of the adjustment that they made."

STEWART HONORED BY AAC

UConn sophomore forward Breanna Stewart was named the American Athletic Conference Player of the Week after averaging 22 points, 9 rebounds and 4.5 assists in wins over SMU and Louisville.