One of the few luxuries this UConn does not have is depth. In the toughest games, the Huskies have relied on a seven-player rotation with Crystal Dangerfield and Natalie Butler seeing quality minutes off the bench.

Well, the number of options has been cut with the news that Dangerfield will miss the next couple of weeks to rest her foot. Dangerfield has been diagnosed with a stress reaction in her left foot. She will not practice or play in the next two weeks and will be reevaluated at that time.

Dangerfield leads all reserves with 322 minutes played and 86 points scored. UConn is not in danger of losing as the Huskies continue play in the American Athletic Conference but these next couple of weeks could have been valuable for Dangerfield as she continues to adapt to the college game and expectations placed on her by the UConn coaching staff.

I spoke to Dangerfield after Monday's practice mostly because she was squaring off against her former high school teammate Jazz Bond in last night's game but she also addressed what she was hoping to get accomplished moving forward.

"Right now it is not the physical part, it is about being able to come into practice and pay attention to the scout then going into the games and executing," Dangerfield said.

Time will tell if the time away sets Dangerfield back when she gets back on the court. At Monday's practice fellow freshman Molly Bent was seeing more time with the starters than at any practice I have attended. Now she's going to have a larger role moving forward.

Bent competes really hard but UConn coach Geno Auriemma said her issue comes when she tries to play too fast.
"(Bent) makes just enough shots to make you think she can help you and just enough plays and then she is 100 miles an hour and completely self destructs when she is out there," Auriemma said after Monday's practice. "Somewhere we have to find that middle ground where she can make a little bit of an impact and not get into that self destruct mode where and she is struggling to get anything done. If we can get her to slow down, that would help us a lot."

Bent has played in 13 of the 15 games and in a limited amount of work (9.8 minutes per game) she leads the team by making 60 percent of her 3-pointers and has a positive assist/turnover ratio.

Beginning on Saturday when UConn plays at SMU with a chance to set a new NCAA all-division basketball record with its 91st win in a row, Bent's minutes figure to increase.

"Things like this can happen at any time in the season so it is good that we are preparing for it," UConn junior forward Gabby Williams said.

The thing I noticed at Monday's practice is that Bent was reluctant to look at the basket. She is hardly the first freshman to have this issue but it is something she is going to have to work through because if she is out there with the starters, she will definitely be left open from the perimeter.

"Molly, she can do a lot," UConn senior guard Saniya Chong said. "She can put the ball in the basket, her shot is pretty good. She is very hesitant. Hey, I've been there and still go through that sometimes but she is learning. She has us and the coaches to help her out."

LIGHTING IT UP
Just as I did as UConn prepared to play its 10th game, I looked at how the offensive starts of Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier stack up heading into last night's game, the 15th of the season.

I have a binder that former UConn sports information director Randy Press put together that has every box score beginning in the 1997-98 season and going to the 2007-08 campaign. The game by game stats since 2008 are easy to locate on UConn's official site but occasionally you will see stats referring to the last 20 seasons and this is why. I hope that I have time to go through the box scores during the Kerry Bascom and Rebecca Lobo eras at UConn to provide more comprehensive updates as UConn plays its 20th game but in the meantime, here's some interesting stuff about Collier and Samuelson.

Dating back to the aforementioned 1997-98 season, here's a list of the most points scored by a UConn player through the first 15 games of a season.

359 Maya Moore 2010-11
304 Nykesha Sales 1997-98
301 Katie Lou Samuelson 2016-17
289 Napheesa Collier 2016-17 288 Diana Taurasi 2003-04
285 Maya Moore 2009-10
275 Maya Moore 2008-09
271 Breanna Stewart 2013-14
Here are the highest scoring tandems. Note: A duo would need to combine for 33 points per game to make this list and the only ones who did that from Auriemma's first season in 1985-86 to the 1996-97 campaign are Kerry Bascom/Wendy Davis in '88-89, Bascom/Davis in '90-91, Kara Wolters/Nykesha Sales in '95-96 and Wolters/Sales in '96-97

593 Maya Moore (359)/Tiffany Hayes (234) 2010-11
590 Katie Lou Samuelson (301)/Napheesa Collier (289) 2016-17
562 Maya Moore (359)/Bria Hartley (203)
549 Maya Moore (285)/Tina Charles (264) 2009-10
532 Maya Moore (275)/Tina Charles (257) 2008-09
512 Svetlana Abrosimova (269)/Shea Ralph (243) 1998-99
508 Nykesha Sales (304)/Svetlana Abrosimova (204) 1997-98
505 Katie Lou Samuelson (301)/Kia Nurse (204) 2016-17

Finally, the most 3-pointers during that span
50 Katie Lou Samuelson 2016-1745 Diana Taurasi 2001-02
43 Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis 2014-15
42 Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis 2012-13
42 Diana Taurasi 2003-04
41 Ann Strother 2005-06
40 Ann Strother 2004-05
39 Mel Thomas 2005-06
38 Renee Montgomery 2008-09
37 Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis 2011-12
36 Mel Thomas 2006-07
32 Bria Hartley 32 2010-11
32 Mel Thomas 32 2007-08
32 Kia Nurse 2016-17

3 HUSKIES ON WOODEN AWARD WATCH LIST
UConn's Collier, Samuelson and Kia Nurse were among 25 players named to Wooden Award midseason watch list.

It's a pretty strong list of players but still, not seeing Gabby Williams listed among the top 25 players is definitely questionable. For the sake of full disclosure, I'm on Wooden Award panel that came up with the top 25 players and I did put four UConn players on my ballot including Williams.

Over the last couple of seasons, the highlight of UConn's conference schedule have been the matchups with South Florida.

While the Bulls have never beaten the Huskies, they have made things somewhat interesting. The individual matchups featuring UConn's Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck and USF's Courtney Williams have been worth the price of admission.

The four of them were taken in the first round of the 2016 WNBA Draft but there is a new "game within the game" worthy of keeping an eye on in the form of former Blackman High School teammates Crystal Dangerfield and Jazz Bond.

Dangerfield leads off of UConn's reserves in minutes played (302) and points scored (81) while Bond is averaging 2.5 points and 7.6 minutes per game as a freshman at USF.

"I know she is doing well down there and to see a familiar face will be really nice," Dangerfield said after Monday's practice.

Blackman went 119-12 in their four seasons together winning a pair of Tennessee state titles but the on-court partnership started when Dangerfield and Bond were just seven years old.

"She is a steady person, she never got too emotional about things and (it was good) just to have somebody to talk to," Dangerfield said.

"It is weird, I know our high school coach is looking forward to it for sure but just knowing that we are living our dreams and just wanting the best for each other."

During Dangerfield's and Bond's sophomore and junior seasons the Lady Blaze lost a total of three games, one came to a Mater Dei team led by UConn's Katie Lou Samuelson and another to an Incarnate Word Academy squad featuring UConn's Napheesa Collier. So what were Dangerfield's best memories of sharing the court with Bond in high school?

"I think it was our second state championship, she played really big in that game (with six points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots in a 58-54 overtime win against Oakland)," Dangerfield said. "There were times where she was not a big (scorer) but our teammates needed her, she had a really big game. She had some key defensive rebounds, a few blocks and she hit a big shot."

BENT TO SEE EXPANDED ROLE?
When the media was allowed into watch the last part of today's practice the first thing I was struck by was how much more time freshman Molly Bent was seeing with the starters. Naturally, when we spoke to UConn coach Geno Auriemma after practice it was one of the first subjects I brought up.

"We need to find another guard, find somebody else that can give us some meaningful minutes," Auriemma said. "I don't want to be in the situation where Kia (Nurse) and Lou (Samuelson) are playing more minutes than I would like for them to play so between Saniya (Chong), Crystal and Molly, we have to get some good stuff out of those guys coming up."

Bent has played a total of 112 minutes while appearing in 12 of the Huskies' first 14 games. She did not play against Maryland but in the last three contests she appeared in, Bent averaged 15.3 minutes per game.

Other than South Florida, which moved up to No. 20 in the Associated Press poll, South Carolina is the only other ranked team the Huskies will face between now and the end of the regular season so it is the right time for players like Dangerfield and Bent to put the freshman jitters behind them and start trusting their instincts.

Time will tell what caliber of players that freshmen Molly Bent and Kyla Irwin will turn out to be but there is no questioning that when it comes to first-year players who "get it" these two would definitely qualify.

Bent and Irwin knew that UConn coach Geno Auriemma didn't win a record 11 national championships by letting his new batch of recruits kick back and learn things at their own rate. He sets certain expectations and it is up to them to meet them and not for him to set the bar lower.

With Bent being coached by her father as an eighth grader through her sophomore season at Barnstable (Mass.) High and Irwin's coach in both volleyball and basketball at State College (Pa.) High being her mother and Branford High School Hall of Famer Bethany (Collins) Irwin, they have a better idea of how coaches go about their business than most college freshmen.

"You can never really prepare too much for that," Bent said with a chuckle about Auriemma's rather blunt coaching style.."I know that everything he tells us is for our best interest so he wants to make us better players and a better team. What he says is right and what you are doing is wrong.

"He wants you to do well and it is up to me to make him trust me and have him trust me so much that he wants to put me in the game and is not just trying to get me minutes and stuff like that. When you
make a mistake and you can see the disappointment, you know you want to do better because you want to get in and want to make him proud and make your teammates trust you."

Those are lessons she learned at a young age from her father.

"It was just knowing that he had my best interest at heart," Bent said. "He was my dad off the court and my coach on the court. Being able to separate those two, I know anything they say on the court, it is not attacking your character, who you are; it is attacking how hard you are working, the decisions you are making and things like that."

Irwin said she couldn't remember the details leading to the first time Auriemma called her out in practice but said it likely had to be with something regarding her defense.

"It got real," Irwin said. "I had to turn something on inside, light a fire, get after it and prove to him that I can do it, I want to compete at this level. It lights a fire underneath you and I feel like that is his plan.

"I think (being coached by her mother) gave me a really solid background of knowledge, I know the game decently enough. I can see where he is coming from, I know he is not just yelling at me to yell at me. He is yelling at me to make me better and that is encouraging."

With fellow freshman Crystal Dangerfield unlikely to play tomorrow against Chattanooga, that could lead to more playing time for Bent and Irwin.

"I know when I get in I have to make the most of my minutes because it could change every game," Irwin said. "Just play as hard as I can, go after every ball, box out, do all the little things that will help my team win.

"You have to break old habits that aren't going to happen at this level, this high intensity level
and the coaches are here to remind you to do that. They are good at that, breaking those old bad
habits. It is best to listen to your coaches and do what they are asking you to do."

There are plenty of tickets available for tomorrow's game, the first of five games being played at the XL Center.

After sitting out a season due to NCAA transfer rules and then missing the first 10 games of the season after she injured her left thumb during the preseason, Natalie Butler finally made her debut at UConn.

Butler played 23 minutes in wins over Cincinnati and Tulsa. She was 7 of 11 from the field as she contributed 15 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. I wrote about Butler in my advance for today's Houston game which included part of my interview with assistant coach Marisa Moseley, who along with associate head coach Chris Dailey works with the post players at UConn. Here's more of what Moseley had to say about Butler.

"She has done a great job if you think about how difficult it is coming off a year and a half without playing and I was just happy for her to go out, be really confident, make her first basket and continue her momentum from there.

"Her mindset is really good right now, she is motivated to get better. She came here for the right reasons, she wants to get better. You come off the Big East Rookie of the Year and then you have to sit an entire year and then more with the injury so that was kind of ill-timed but I think it makes you even hungrier. She just has an incredible work ethic. She wants to get better and since she has gotten here, she has gotten better. She is a really unselfish player so sometimes she is looking to make plays for somebody else instead of going in there, burying somebody and get two points but every day we are chipping away from that and she is getting much better.

"She has great touch around the basket and she also had great touch outside. Generally at Connecticut our post players have to be able to hit a 15-footer and by their senior year we want them to be able to hit 3s consistent from 17 feet so to be able to have a big kid who can step out and can stretch the floor for us and be a good passer, we are going to continue to develop those skills."

I asked Moseley to discuss the difference between practicing during a redshirt season and during a season when you are a part of the playing rotation.

"You get a lot less reps offensively (as a redshirt) so you are more just working on defense and conditioning, trying to learn our system but we can't put you out there because that means you are taking away from somebody who actually can play. Now she can be on the Blue (starting) team, get those reps, she can feel comfortable playing with all different combinations of players so I think that makes a huge difference."

BENT IS GIVING BACK
I mentioned UConn incoming freshman Molly Bent's partnership with Special Olympics at Tabor Academy before but with the event set to start on Sunday, I thought I would include a link to a story on how and why Bent got involved.

ESPN TO TELEVISE SUNDAY'S UCONN/USF GAME
Since somebody asked me about this on a previous blog post, I thought I would pass on that Sunday's 5 p.m. game will be televised on ESPN. It is listed as a ESPN/ESPN2 game on both the UConn and South Florida websites and looking at the grid it was not included during the Sunday 5-7 p.m. slot on either station. However, I received a text back from UConn women's basketball sports information director Pat McKenna saying that the game is on ESPN. Currently on ESPN there is a five-hour block of the 2015 CrossFit Games so people who want to watch that would be advised to tune in from 2-5.

Also, on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m., SNY will debut the "UConn '95: Birth of a Dynasty" documentary. SNY held a screening of the show for the media before the Tulsa game and while I will have more on it as we get closer to the documentary's airing, I would strongly suggest checking it out.

Tabor Academy guard Molly Bent was considered to be an under the radar recruit as she was considering Ivy League schools and some mid-major schools. However, according to her AAU coach, she was pretty well known by the UConn coaching staff as Geno Auriemma saw her play three times before Bent committed to UConn.

"Molly is a high-motor kid," Rhode Island Breakers coach Jim Edgehill said. "She is a college conditioned athlete right now, she has great ball handling skills while she worked on to become a true point guard. Last year when she played with us with the Breakers she was more of a scoring guard. This year we talked to Molly about making everybody around her better and there are games where she made everybody on our team a lot better. She has hit the next level as a player, she has a great mid-range game, she can hit the 3 and is a great transition kid. She is a great defender, she pushes when you need it and is learning how to slow the game down when you need to slow it up. She rebounds well for a guard, she doesn't take any plays off.

"When Shea (Ralph) came to see me after one of the games in the Deep South she said that Geno doesn't have anybody like her at UConn and loves how hard (she plays) and what she can do on the court. Geno knows how many scorers he has and Molly can score but she can do everything else. She doesn't need to score but Geno loves her because she doesn't take one play off, it doesn't matter if she is playing the entire game or the fourth game of the weekend, she doesn't take a play off."

Bent often had scheduling conflicts between her club soccer and AAU basketball teams. She finally gave up club soccer and now she is starting to get seen by more and more top programs.

"Last year was the first year she was playing full-time (AAU) basketball," Edgehill said. "She is a high-level soccer kid so she was splitting between soccer and basketball. Last year was the first exposure tournament she ever played it. I understood that Molly could play at a high level, I understood it because of the kids we had on our team and who we play against but she is a kid who works on her game all the time. She is the first one in the gym, the last one out of the gym."

Edgehill said that Bent had an outstanding showing when the Breakers won the 17-and-under Signature bracket at the 2014 Deep South Classic including a strong performance for Bent matched up against Stanford commit Anna Wilson out of the powerhouse Boo Williams program.

"This year we went to the Deep South, we ended up playing team from Georgia, the Celtics, we ended up beating them by six," Edgehill said, "Molly played great, Geno and Shea were there, came next couple of games. The Kentucky coach (Matthew) Mitchell came up to me after one of the games in the Deep South and said 'she could play for us right now.'"