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A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

UConn dominates Register's top 10 sports stories of 2015

UConn just finished off a perfect 2015, winning all 38 games it played. The 1981 Louisiana Tech, 2002 and 2009 are the only women's Division I teams to accomplish that feat during the NCAA era.

Even before the Huskies rolled to a 107-45 win over Cincinnati in the American Athletic Conference opener last night, the Register posted its top 10 stories of 2015 and the Huskies' march to a 10th national title including the third in a row was the No. 1 story just ahead of former UConn star Scott Burrell taking over as the head men's basketball coach at Southern Connecticut State.

As for last night's game, I was not in attendance and covered the Yale/Central Connecticut State men's game but I can say that while Natalie Butler finishing with 11 points and eight rebounds along with two steals and two blocked shots in her first game at UConn deservedly garnered much of the attention, seeing that Saniya Chong followed up her Maryland performance by playing 22 minutes in the win was very encouraging. If Chong and Butler can be regular contributors it would pay tremendous dividends moving forward as the duo should play significant roles next season. Chong finished with 13 points, four rebounds, three assists (with no turnovers), one steal and a blocked shot. Having another ball handler and scoring threat from the perimeter to bring off the bench could prove incredibly important at some point this season.

MIXED RESULTS FOR UCONN SIGNEES
A pair of UConn incoming freshmen had their high school teams in championship games of holiday tournaments.

Kyla Irwin had 28 points and 12 rebounds (including the 1,000th of her career) to lead State College (Pa.) High School to a 60-28 win over North Schuykill in the title game of the Kiwanis Holiday Classic.

Here's a photo courtesy of her AAU program, Central PA Elite after Irwin's milestone.

Crystal Dangerfield's Blackman High School team ran into a tremendous Duncanville (TX) team in the championship game of the Sandra Meadows Classic.

Dangerfield had 20 points but Duncanville rolled to a 64-43 victory. Dangerfield had at least 20 points in each of the last four games in the tournament and averaged 22.8 points in the five games. Also, Dangerfield was named the Daily New Journal's Sportsperson of the Year.

UConn Class of 2017 recruiting target Jade Williams' Prestonwood Christian team also posted a 4-1 record in the prestigious event. The only loss came to Plano West, a team led by Baylor signee Natalie Chou. That loss sent Prestonwood Christian into the Silver Bracket. Three wins later including a 53-49 win over Harvard-Westlake gave Prestonwood Christian the title. Williams had 18 points in the Silver Bracket title game.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Joe said...

Butler looked rusty and a bit out of game shape, just as expected after such a long layoff. Now we know why Geno made an exception to his "no transfers" rule in her case!

I'm looking forward to watching her develop over the next 2-1/2 years under Chris Dailey's intense tutelage.

12:03 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was actually pleasantly surprised. She's agile, has a good mid-range jumper, and, thumb aside, a rebounder. It looks like the long wait may be worth it.

6:05 PM 

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