Huskies Plunder Pirates; Advance to BIG EAST Tournament Semifinal 

Boxscore(.pdf)

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PISCATAWAY, NJ (March 9) -- BIG EAST Conference Player of the Year Diana Taurasi (Chino, CA) notched 13 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the University of Connecticut women's basketball team past Seton Hall, 70-47, in front of 5,695 at the Louis Brown Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey. 

With the victory, Connecticut improves to a spotless 30-0 on the campaign and moves on to the semifinal round where it will face Virginia Tech Monday at 5:00 pm.  Seton Hall slips to 14-14 on the year. 

Seton Hall was able to compete with the Huskies early and found itself down only17-15 with 7:20 remaining in the first half.  However, UConn was able to mount a decisive 20-4 run for the remainder of the first half and headed into the locker room with a commanding 37-19 advantage.  The Huskies would not let up as Seton Hall would get no closer than 18 points for the rest of the contest.

UConn dominated inside, out rebounding the Pirates 45-27, including 35-20 on the defensive glass, and outscored Seton Hall 40-10 in the paint.  The Connecticut defense held Seton Hall to just 27.5% shooting (14-for-51) and converted 17 Pirate turnovers into 26 points. 

Barbara Turner (Cleveland, OH) was her usual solid self, scoring ten points and snatching seven rebounds and BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year, Ashley Battle (Pittsburgh, PA) had 11 points, five rebounds and five assists in the victory.

Ashley Bush and LeNedra Brown each scored 11 for the Pirates.