Taurasi Breaks School Record as Huskies Push Past Top-Ranked Tennessee

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KNOXVILLE, TN (February 5) – In an all-around team effort by the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team, four players scored in double-figures to lead the fourth-ranked Huskies past top-ranked Tennessee, 81-67, in non-conference action at a sold out Thompson-Boling Arena on Thursday evening.

Senior All-America Diana Taurasi had a game-high 18 points, plus added five rebounds and five assists in the win. With her three 3-pointers, Taurasi became UConn’s all-time leading three-point shooter. She now has 280 career 3-pointers over 128 games, pushing past Wendy Davis’ former UConn record total of 279 3-pointers over 127 games.

The win improved the Huskies to 17-2 overall. UConn has now won three straight games against No. 1 teams and is 4-3 all-time against top-ranked opponents. Tennessee drops to 18-2 on the season, snapping its 11-game win streak, with the other loss at the hands of Texas. The last time the Lady Vols were defeated twice in one season at home was during 2001-02, both losses against Texas and Connecticut.

Sophomore Ann Strother had another solid outing scoring 17 points and grabbing seven rebounds and Barbara Turner notched 16 points and was one rebound shy of recording a double-double. Ashley Battle added 11 points and had three key steals for the Huskies.

Shanna Zolman gave the Lady Vols a 9-8 lead, their second and last of the evening, on a pair of free throws in the first five minutes of the game. The Huskies then responded with an 8-0 run taking the 16-9 advantage on two consecutive shots by Ashley Battle.

Tennessee recovered tying the score at 21 apiece after Brittany Jackson hit a jumper followed by a three-point shot. In the next five minutes, Connecticut slowly pushed ahead only to have the Lady Vols tie the score at both 26 and 28 points. UConn then scored 13 of the next 18 points to end the half with a 41-33 edge and the largest lead for the Huskies.

The Lady Vols got as close as 67-63 with 6:28 remaining in the game after Tasha Butts made two free-throws, but Connecticut again surged ahead scoring the next five points to take the nine point advantage.

Connecticut was solid on the boards bringing down 17 offensive rebounds and scoring 20 second-chance points. UConn committed only eight turnovers to Tennessee’s 16 during the game. Despite the Lady Vols strong outing from the free-throw line shooting 18-for-21, Tennessee could not outlast the Huskies who shot 60-percent on 17-for-28 shots from the line.

Zolman and Tye’sha Fluker both had 14 points for the Lady Vols and Brittany Jackson and Syra Ely had 10 points apiece.

The Huskies play host to Miami on Sunday, February 8 at Gampel Pavilion. Game time is set for 2:00 pm and will be televised locally on CPTV.

GAME NOTES

• UConn is 91-33 versus Associated Press Top 25 teams.
• Connecticut is 45-21 against Associated Press Top 10 teams.
• The Huskies have now won three straight games against No. 1 teams and is 4-3 all-time against top-ranked opponents.
• UConn is 12-6 all-time against Tennessee.
• The Huskies have won the last five meetings against the Lady Vols and the last two in Knoxville.
• UConn has won 36 of its last 37 road games.
• The last time Diana Taurasi fouled out of a game was on March 30, 2001 in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament against Notre Dame.
• Diana Taurasi has only fouled out twice in her career at UConn.
• Diana Taurasi surpassed Wendy Davis’ UConn career record in 3-pointers. Taurasi now stands at 280 career 3-pointers in 128 games played.

POST GAME QUOTES

CONNECTICUT HEAD COACH GENO AURIEMMA
opening remarks
The feeling is so draining and unbelievably rewarding. To win against a team of this caliber in this atmosphere is great. These two teams bring the best out of each other and at the end of the night you leave all you have on the court. It’s an incredible feeling win or lose. I’m proud of the players. It wasn’t your typical Diana Taurasi pours in 25 and everyone else just goes along for the ride. Everyone had individual roles in the outcome of the game. I couldn’t be prouder of the team.

On the play of Barbara Turner
I know she really didn’t play well in the first half. She missed some free throws in the first half and was really upset about that. In the second half she told me she was going to make those shots. I’m glad these guys are up here with me because we have been waiting for Barbara, Ann Strother and Ashley Battle to showcase who they are and what they can do.

On the absence of Loree Moore
If I was the coach of Tennessee I would want to have Loree Moore on the court. I think she is their best on-the-ball defender and she has improved so much since she got her. They compensate well without her by playing more of their other guards. Now they really have so many different looks without her. They put more shooters on he floor, not to say she isn’t a shooter, but you have more to defend this way.

On this game compared to the Duke game
This game was different from the Duke game because I think we dominated the Duke game for 35 minutes. I don’t think we dominated this game for 35 minutes. There were stretches in this game where we played great. But, there were also stretches when they played great. This game went back and forth. There was a point with four minutes left when I turned to the team and said we weren’t going to give this one away. The team really played strong down the stretch.

On the physicality of the game
Both teams were really, really physical. I hope no one thinks the officiating had anything to do with the outcome of this game. I said yesterday I didn’t think it was going to make a difference. It was a hard game to officiate. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it. It was hard to get open shots. It was hard to get second shots and really hard to get rebounds. Anytime you out rebound Tennessee it is a good night. I think they are the best rebounding team in the country.

DIANA TAURASI
On playing in Knoxville
I think it is easy to get up to play when you walk into a place and there are 25,000 fans cheering against you. I don’t think we are not the most talented team. They bring more players off the bench and are bigger than us. We just brought the intangibles. If we don’t bring them, we don’t win.

TENNESSEE HEAD COACH PAT SUMMITT
Obviously, I believe that you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Connecticut deserves credit. They attacked on both ends of the court. Each player was aggressive. They were aggressive in their offense. That gave them an edge. In the first half, they pounded the glass and got the offensive rebounds. I was disappointed that we didn’t match their intensity. All five of their players played with intensity. At times, we would stand. We made our runs. (Barbara) Turner and (Ann) Strother made big plays. They had a lot of weapons on the floor. We were shooting blanks. They’ve got some big-time players that stepped up.

on playing without Loree Moore
We miss Loree Moore, but we are who we are now. We don’t have her. This wasn’t Loree Moore. We didn’t match their intensity. This is our team now. We didn’t match their intensity. They made big plays.

I’d give anything to have Loree healthy. Our other players didn’t compete as well as they should have. We should learn a lot of things.

(Ann) Strother played big for them. She played well in the championship game last season against us. By design, they went to her, and she answered for them. I thought Barbara Turner set the tone for them. They were tougher than us. We need five on the floor who will compete. We struggled to see five players committed to play the way you have to play against Connecticut. It’s a mindset. It was an intense, competitive game. We gave up too many possessions. How many possessions did we take off? They outhustled us and outworked us on the boards and executed better in the halfcourt.

I don’t think that it was that we weren’t motivated. We have to learn to play at that level. We’re not good enough practice players. That’s the coach’s problem. I can take care of that in practice. They were the better team. Possession by possession, they answered our runs.

Shyra (Ely) was rushing and playing too fast. When Shyra’s struggling, we’re struggling. She did a great job against Duke. We needed an anchor inside. Credit Connecticut’s interior defense. They were very physical. They came up big and gave us just one look.

We had 10 deflections at halftime. We didn’t get in the passing lanes and get our hands on the ball.

I’d like to go back to the court, but NCAA rules won’t allow us. We’ll start tomorrow.

SHYRA ELY
on her team’s play
We were not very aggressive tonight and we didn’t get to the ball when we needed.

on her team’s lack of aggressiveness
I can’t tell you why we were not aggressive tonight. We should perform better in one of the best games in women’s basketball. The game was disappointing for us, our coaching staff and all the Tennessee players who played before us. We are not happy with ourselves. This shouldn’t happen when you’re wearing an orange jersey.

SHANNA ZOLMAN
on the absence of Loree Moore
We’re always going to miss Loree Moore, but we know we’re not getting her back this season. We need to move on because you can’t replace Loree. What she does for our team, both physically and mentally, is important. We just have to prepare for each team we play and be ready to play for 40 minutes.

on playing without Loree Moore
Not having Loree in the lineup doesn’t really put more pressure on our team, it’s really just more of a challenge. We just all need to step up, because our intensity and aggressiveness wasn’t up to our ability tonight.

on Connecticut’s play
UConn had an answer for every run we put together tonight. We’ve got to credit them for that. Offensively and defensively, they played much better than us.

ASHLEY ROBINSON
on the UT-UConn series
Every time we play UConn, it seems like they rebound and play harder than us. They bring their A game and we bring our C game. We need to get more aggressive and fight for games like this. We’ve just got to take care of the little things.”

on her team’s play
We’re mad at ourselves. We wanted to play much better. It’s only February, though, and our team has so much to work on. We are going to work hard and fight hard to be the Tennessee team that everyone is used to.