Katie Lou Samuelson's shiner served as living proof of the tussle her UConn women's basketball team just emerged from with the NCAA Division I women's basketball record road winning streak still intact - barely.
"I think it looks pretty," Samuelson said with a laugh.
The Huskies' leading scorer was talking about the bruise that made it difficult for her to keep her left eye open and not the frenetic 40 minutes that had just elapsed.
There were times when I had flashbacks to last season's loss to Mississippi State watching UConn struggle to get into a flow offensively. Napheesa Collier and Kia Nurse combined for just 10 field-goal attempts and misfired on half of them against Mississippi State. They also combined for two assists and four turnovers in 71 combined minutes. Last night in 76 minutes they were 5 of 10 from the field with one assist and five turnovers. The similarities don't end there
In the Final Four loss the Huskies lost the offensive rebounding battle 14-6 and it was 14-5 against the Longhorns. UConn was 7 of 15 from 3-point range vs. Mississippi State and 6 of 15 versus Texas. UConn gave up 21 more field goal attempts against the Bulldogs and 14 more against the Longhorns. There were just four steals and four fast-break points in the Final Four loss with two steals and two fast-break points last night.
The difference was that UConn found a way to win this game although a loss would not have been the worst thing to ever happen as it would have been put to good use by the UConn coaching staff.
"We always want to put ourselves in these situations and get this opportunity," Samuelson said. "It know it is rare that we do but we are glad we got that test because we also have a couple of more games that are really going to test us so we want to do that as many times as we can before we got into tournament play."
Samuelson deserved kudos for scoring 19 points, many after she took an elbow to her eye that resulted in the aforementioned black eye. However, down the stretch the leading roles were assumed by a couple of players who had little or no impact on last year's season-ending loss.
Crystal Dangerfield, then a freshman, didn't play for the final 5:26 of the fourth quarter and the entire overtime while Azura' Stevens was sitting out after transferring from Duke.
In the fourth quarter Stevens had eight points, two rebounds and a blocked shot. Dangerfield had a couple of assists and hit two foul shots with 8 seconds to play to give the Huskies the four-point lead.
Texas coach Karen Aston said that Stevens' play was the key to the victory while UConn's Geno Auriemma said proclaimed that, "she made so many big plays today. I would be here over the next half hour if I went over every play I think had a big impact. I do say to our team all the time that one particular play doesn't lose you a game but you make one play when you have to, it wins you the game."
UConn was down by eight with 2 minutes left in the first half when Dangerfield drilled a 3-pointer and after Nurse's fast-break layup pulled UConn within a point, Dangerfield stole the inbounds pass eventually leading to Williams setting up Collier for a layup just before the first half ended.
"We just made a couple of plays down the the stretch and did just enough to win the game," Auriemma said. "They are a really difficult team to play against especially here. We are undersized at so many positions and they just manhandled us in the first half. I felt we did a much better job in the second half, rebounded better and were more aggressive. I felt like we made just enough plays to win the game.
"I wish we had 15 of these (a season), I wish we had two of these a week. It would be a lot of fun for our players and would be a lot of fun for me too."
There will be a game at South Carolina, the defending national champions, on Feb. 1 and a home game against No. 2 Louisville on Feb. 12 but unless South Florida plays its way back into the top 25 poll, there won't be another ranked opponent on UConn's schedule until the NCAA tournament.
This was UConn's seventh straight true road win against a top 10 team in the Associated Press which is a program record but following the game both coaches were asked variations on the "is UConn vulnerable" question.
"I definitely don't feel like you are vulnerable when you can score at every position," Texas coach Karen Aston said.
Auriemma addressed an inquiry about whether this is a great UConn team.
"Great for what is going on in the country right now but great but our standards? Not quite, not yet. Maybe, maybe down the road but they've got a ways to go to catch up to some of the more recent teams."
Looking ahead to the NCAA tournament, a team with length in the post and the discipline on both ends of the court to prevent UConn from scoring with regularity in transition could pose the greatest threat. Certainly Collier and Williams will need to continue to work to become offensive options against taller front lines and these next couple of months will be key for another bench player or two to emerge.
As for Texas, I was anticipating big games from guards Ariel Atkins, Lashann Higgs and Brooke McCarty and they did not disappoint. I was not expecting Jatarie White and Audrey-Ann Caron-Goudreau to combine for 25 points, 17 rebounds and three blocked shots. They played against UConn while they were at South Carolina and Vanderbilt respectively and in three previous games versus UConn, they didn't come close to reaching those numbers.
"We've run into these guys in the past and they are way, way better than they were back then," Auriemma said. "They are good and they made shots and they made the shots we gave them. We said we want them to take those shots and they made them and that is what you are going to have to be able to do. We are not going to take everything away so credit to them, they made shots."
White finished with 18 points (on 8 of 12 shooting) and six rebounds in 28 minutes. She showed range on her jumper and came up with four offensive rebounds.
"I am comfortable with my teammates practicing with them and getting my reps up," said White, who had four points, one rebound, no blocked shots in 13 minutes in the two games against UConn when she played at South Carolina. "I think going out and getting those first couple of rebounds are important, not necessarily scoring but getting myself into the groove making sure I know that my teammates are going to knock down shots but if they don't being able to get in that position of getting the rebound."
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