Huskies Outplay Miami at Gampel, 83-65

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STORRS, CT (February 8, 2004) – Diana Taurasi scored 21 points to lead three teammates in double figures as third-ranked Connecticut defeated 20th-ranked Miami, 83-65, before the 80th consecutive sellout at Gampel Pavilion.

The win, UConn’s seventh in a row, improves the Husky mark on the season to 18-2, 8-1 in BIG EAST play. The Hurricanes slip to 16-4, 5-4 in the conference. It was the 18th consecutive time the Huskies have defeated Miami.

The Huskies were able to take a comfortable lead in the first half despite committing 19 turnovers in the initial twenty minutes. The Hurricanes, however, were unable to take advantage of the sloppy play by UConn, as they only scored eight points off of those 19 Husky miscues. Taurasi scored 15 points before intermission, connecting on five of six shots from the field, including a perfect three for three on 3-pointers. It was the seventh time this season Taurasi has scored at least 20 points. Her six steals set a career-mark.

UConn was able to stretch their lead to as many as 25, at 60-35, before head coach Geno Auriemma emptied his bench. The Huskies made 53% (30 of 57) of their field goal attempts, which helped offset their 33 turnovers, which were a season high

Joining Taurasi in double figures for the Huskies were Ashley Battle, who scored a career-high 18 points off of the bench, Ann Strother, who scored 17, and Jessica Moore who tallied 13. For Strother, it continued her strong play of late, which has seen her average 20.1 points over her last three contests. Moore added a game high 10 rebounds, which enabled her to notch the fourth double-double of her career.

The Huskies out rebounded Miami, 46-30, and did dish out 24 assists, paced by Barbara Turner’s five. UConn scored 42 points in the paint, and shot 75% (18 of 24) from the foul line.

Miami was paced by Chanivia Broussard and Tamara James, who scored 20 and 19 points, respectively.

The Huskies will return to action on Wednesday, February 11, when they travel to Syracuse, NY to face league foe Syracuse at the Manley Field House. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. and CPTV will televise the game locally.

Win extends UConn’s current winning streak to seven consecutive games and marked the Huskies’ third-straight win over a ranked opponent.

POST GAME NOTES

• Win extends UConn’s current winning streak to seven consecutive games and marked the Huskies’ third-straight win over a ranked opponent.
• With the victory UConn wins its 49th straight game at Gampel Pavilion.
• Game marked 80th consecutive sellout at Gampel Pavilion.
• UConn improves to 4-1 vs. ranked opponents this season.
• Victory extends UConn’s winning streak at home vs. BIG EAST opponents to 106 consecutive games.
• UConn improves to 190-4 at home since 1993-94.
• The Huskies have won 51 of their last 52 games vs. BIG EAST opponents in the regular season.
• Diana Taurasi posted double-figure points for the 32nd time in the last 33 games and for the 100th time in her career.
• UConn won despite committing a season-high 33 turnovers - its highest total dating back to 1994-95.
• Ann Strother recorded double-figure points for the 14th time this season – including each of the last three games and six of the last seven overall.
• Win marks UConn’s 18th straight over the Hurricanes.
• 18-point margin of victory marked the 15th time in its 18 wins that UConn won by at least 10 points.
• Ashley Battle posted a career-high 18 points while shooting 6-of-7 overall from the field.
• Jessica Moore posted her second double-double of the season and the fourth of her career with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
• Diana Taurasi finished with at least 20 points for the seventh time this season.

POST GAME QUOTES
UConn Coach Geno Auriemma
on game
For about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, we did some great things with the basketball. During that stretch in the second half we just made it look like it was really well orchestrated, you know? The cuts were perfect, the passes were just right. Why we’re not able to sustain that at this point in the season probably has something to do with Miami and their quickness. I think they may have caught us off guard a little bit. There were times when we just threw the ball right to them, and it’s hard to believe, but we did.

I’ll tell you what, practice was great, the shoot around this morning was unbelievably good, in the locker room before coming out was unbelievably good, and they were really keyed up to play well. The energy level was great, our defense was great in the first half, and it was great in the first 10 minutes of the second half. I think we’re in a little bit of a hurry to get it done, and hurry up and win. And it was good for us to see that that’s not us, you know? You can’t play quicker than a really quick team and that’s not what we do. That’s not our style, and that’s what we tried to do.

This morning when I got up, and when I came over here, I thought we’d play great today. There was no doubt in my mind that we’d play really well today based on what I saw in the last couple of days. And you know what; our defense was really great again. We rebounded the hell out of the ball, and we did some great stuff on offense. It wasn’t anything I didn’t expect. What I didn’t except was that we’d either cross their court and score, or cross their court and throw it away. I just have not been in that situation in a long time, not in February. But with this team, anything’s possible.

on Ashley Battle
I can’t explain what’s happening with AB, nor do I want to, nor do I want anyone to ask me, nor do I want to look into it, and I certainly don’t want to change anything. I just want AB to go along like she’s been going, and finish up the season like this. She’s on a real high right now, she’s feeling good about what’s she’s doing, she’s very confident in herself. It’s taken her a long time to get here, and hopefully she can hold onto it for the rest of this year, and next year.

on Jessica Moore
Jessica I think really needed a game like today because of how much she’s been struggling and how poorly things have worked out for her. But the other day she rebounded the ball so well and did so many good things defensively, and I’m glad that it carried over to today, and she was able to make a couple of shots. We’re not going anywhere without Jess obviously, so you can’t just say ‘Ok, we’ll throw her on the bench’; we need her.

on rebounding

Traditionally that’s not been one of our strong points, because our guys think we’re going to make every shot so we don’t offensive rebound that much.

Ann Strother’s come a long way in rebounding, and that helps and awful lot.”

on team
There’s a book I’ve been reading that talks about how we have a past but there’s no history. This team, I’m not sure understands the past or understands history. If you asked them what happened in the Duke game they’d say, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t remember.’ And next week if you said, ‘Well do you remember what happened in the Miami game?’ you’d get, ‘No I don’t remember.’ Things don’t carry over day to day. Today’s game was today’s game, and we won, so alright. After the Tennessee game it was like ‘Man, we really turned the corner. Did you see how mentally tough we were? We sure proved ourselves didn’t we: 21, 000 people, took all the hits from the crowd, the fans were brutal, the refs were this, blah blah, yeah man, we’re on our way now.’ Yeah, look at today. It’s not going to be like that this year. Its two steps forward and three steps back. It’s two steps forward, three steps back.

Diana Taurasi
On Ashley Battle
Ashley’s been playing really well lately. I think she’s finding a groove where she’s getting her shots, and she’s been able to be really effective lately.

On coming back in the game near the end
I mean, you’d think that the game would probably be over, and all of sudden you look up and it’s a 15-point lead with two minutes to go. So [Coach] threw us back in there to kind of close the game out.

On the kind of play in today’s game
We always end up kind of kicking ourselves in the butt somehow, or some way in every game, which I guess is good because you need something to complain about. Today, besides the turnovers which were a big part of the game and could have easily made the game out of hand and out of reach real early and kind of let them in it, but other than that I think the rebounding [was good] and when we completed passes we got the shots we wanted.

On the mood after a game like that
Obviously you don’t want to concentrate on the things we didn’t do well, but it just shows we have a long way to go when we have [only] eight turnovers at Tennessee and then quadruple that today.

On improved rebounding in recent games
I think it’s just a little bit of concentration on it, you know, we’ve been focusing on it in practice, and during the games we just need more people to do it, and I think we’ve been getting that.

On Miami’s defense
They make you play crazy. When we play teams like that we usually do a good job of settling things down like we did at Tennessee, and we didn’t do that today. They did a good job pressuring.

Ashley Battle
On what’s different about her game this year
I’m mature… I don’t let a bad play get to me. I just look at it as a learning experience. If I make a bad play, I look at ‘alright, what did I do to force myself to make that bad play, and what can I do not to let that happen again.’ I’m still learning and still growing, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning and growing.

On Geno Auriemma saying he’s willing to take the bizarre plays she makes once in a while
Yeah, he told me that too. He was like, ‘you know what, I know you’re going to make stupid plays. You’ve been doing it ever since you’ve been here. But if you make 10 great plays and four dumb plays…’ So I was like, alright, well I’m just going to go out there and do what I do.

Ann Strother
On her recent performances
I think that over the ups and downs we’ve had this season, I’ve kind of just thought about what I need to do to put my part out there and make sure I do whatever I can do to help our team. I think over the past couple weeks I’ve been going out with the mindset that if I miss the last shot, whatever, it’s done, it’s gone, next possession. And then I think just overall aggressiveness.

On the team’s play today
I think we were looking to push the ball up a lot, we were looking to get our fast break going, and in doing that we had a lot of turnovers. We did make some dumb decisions, but overall I think we did a lot of good things do. Rebounding, defense, and we had some great plays on offense too. I don’t think [there was panic there]. Overall, we kept our confidence.

Miami Head Coach Ferne Labati
Obviously we’re disappointed. We came up here and had high expectations of turning things around after our loss to Notre Dame and Rutgers…the beginning of the game we were patient and did a lot of good things…then what happened is we weren’t patient, we didn’t run our offense, and we ended up taking quick shots and bad shots….and then we got Connecticut to turn the ball over and we didn’t capitalize on it and turned the ball over ourselves…we really didn’t benefit on the turnovers. In the second half we were just trying to chip away and chip away, trying to cut the lead, but we didn’t capitalize on any of the mistakes Connecticut made. They controlled the boards from the get go…from the first minute and throughout the game…that was a major factor. They are very good on both the defensive and offensive boards, they just hustle, hustle, hustle. They are a great team.

We did not play with the patience that’s necessary to play with the team of the caliber of Connecticut.

On where it puts the team in reference to the Big East
We just have to play better. If we don’t play better we are going to get our butts kicked every time we come out in the Big East…the motivation is extremely high at this point for success of all the teams in the Big East.

Connecticut is a great team; you really have to be smart when you play teams like this.

On playing against Taurasi
They have so many great players. We were trying to keep the ball out of her hands and if she caught it, be there on the catch.

On last six minutes and keeping in their starters while UConn puts in their bench
Twenty can turn into thirty and thirty can turn into forty within a matter of seconds…we would like to go to the NCAA tournament…it’s a matter of respect for Connecticut in the sense that we are trying to fight for our life in point differential…it doesn’t matter at Connecticut whether you are one of the starting five or coming off the bench, you’re capable of scoring.