All 12 Huskies Score in UConn's Rout of Pittsburgh

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HARTFORD, CT (February 17, 2004) – Ashley Battle scored 15 points to lead three teammates in double figures as top-ranked Connecticut used a near-perfect first half to take a 35-point lead at intermission on their way to an easy 97-42 victory over Pittsburgh before the usual sellout crowd of 16,294 at the Hartford Civic Center, Tuesday evening.

The win, the Huskies’ tenth straight, improves their record to 21-2, 11-1 in the BIG EAST. The Panthers drop to 6-17, 2-11 in the conference. It was the 17th consecutive victory over the Panthers by the Huskies.

The game marked the 27th consecutive sellout at the Civic Center and UConn now has won 54 of their last 55 regular season games against league opponents in Hartford.

The Huskies made seven of their first nine shots on their way to a quick 17-9 lead just 4:25 into the contest. The first three UConn baskets were three-pointers by Ann Strother (two) and one by Diana Taurasi. Pittsburgh got within four on consecutive hoops, but UConn scored the next 11 points on their way to a 39-8 run to end the half, enjoying a 56-21 advantage on their way to the locker room. Freshman Liz Sherwood scored 10 of her career-high 14 points in the first half in just four productive minutes. The 56 points scored by UConn in the opening stanza were the most in a half since scoring 56 in each half against Pittsburgh on January 2, 2002.

Battle paced the UConn attack by connecting on seven of eight field goal attempts. Sherwood connected on six of seven shots. Taurasi chipped in with 11 points, while Barbara Turner added 10. The Huskies 97 points represented their highest total since amassing 97 against Georgetown on February 26, 2003.

UConn was dialed in from long-range throughout the game, making 12 of 20 from long distance. Their 12 successes were a season-high, and is tied for fourth all-time in the program’s history. They were greedy on the defensive end, snagging a season-high 18 steals in forcing 24 Pittsburgh turnovers. UConn converted those 24 miscues into 38 points off turnovers.

It was a total team effort for UConn as all 12 Huskies that saw game action entered the scoring column. Strother finished with nine points, while Wilnett Crockett scored eight points off of the bench, and nabbed a game-high seven rebounds. Taurasi dished out a game-high eight assists as UConn totaled 26 assists on 37 made field goals. UConn shot a sizzling 60% (37 of 62) from the field and scored 50 points in the paint.

Katie Histed and Jennifer Brown led Pittsburgh with 12 points apiece.

The Huskies return to the hardwood on Saturday, February 21, when they travel to Chestnut Hill, MA to play league rival Boston College. Tip-off is set for 12:00 noon, and the game will be televised locally by NESN.

POST GAME NOTES

• Ann Strother made the 100th 3-pointer of her career at the 19:24 mark of the 1st half.
• UConn improves to 41-5 all-time at the Hartford Civic Center and has won 39 of its last 40 games overall at the facility.
• UConn has won 54 of its last 55 regular season games vs. BIG EAST opponents.
• Win extends UConn’s home-court winning streak vs. BIG EAST opponents to 107 games.
• Win extends UConn’s home-court winning streak vs. unranked opponents to 156 games.
• 56 first-half points were the most points scored by UConn in a half since it posted 56 in both the 1st and 2nd halves vs. Pittsburgh on January 2, 2002.
• Win marked UConn’s 17th straight over Pittsburgh.
• Win improves UConn to 191-4 at home since 1993-94.
• Game marked the 27th consecutive sellout at the Hartford Civic Center.
• Win marks UConn’s 10th straight - which represents its longest winning streak of the season.
• 12 three-pointers mark UConn’s highest single-game total this season - tied for third-highest single-game total in the program’s history.
• 18 steals marked the most by UConn in a game this season.
• 97 points were most scored since UConn posted 97 vs. Georgetown (2/26/03).

POST GAME QUOTES
UConn head coach Geno Auriemma
on game
One of the things that I talked to the players about was that I don’t think that anybody thought that we weren’t going to win today. But if you’re just going out there to win a game and then you don’t care how you play, then you pass up an opportunity to prepare for down the road. So regardless of the talent level that Pittsburgh had, we played in such a way that we made ourselves feel good about it. We were happy with the way we played.

We feel like we accomplished something today and we can move forward to this weekend, because the opposite could have been true. We could have come out here and played lousy, stunk the joint up, shot terribly, not rebounded well or played defense well, and go home and say, ‘We played down to the level of the team we played against.’ We didn’t do that.

on maturity of team
If you’re going to be immature about it, then you let things slip, and we haven’t done that in a few weeks now and that’s a really good sign. People weren’t as tentative as they were before, and there’s more of, ‘This is what I want to do;’ that’s probably why there’s more plays being made, more assists, and more of everything. We’re just doing more things, as opposed to being unsure of what to do, so therefore doing nothing. We’re getting a pretty good balance, you know?” D (Diana Taurasi) hasn’t had to play well, or shoot well I should say. I thought she played great tonight. She didn’t have to take many shots or make a lot of shots, and we rest her as much as we can right now and the same with Barbara (Turner). And to be able to play like that without those two getting thirty minutes, that’s a good sign.

on bench players
I think Ashley has been doing improving a lot, and certainly in these kind of games I think she can do a lot, especially against this kind of team where there’s not that big of a difference between her and their guards. Liz (Sherwood) has been spending a lot of time extra doing some things and it paid off today. Again, that’s something that’s not a habit yet, but it’s just starting. She’s been better in practice and that’s a good sign.

on Liz Sherwood
I think she’s going to be a factor this weekend; they have two big kids. We said going into tonight, I said, ‘I would love for you to play well on Tuesday so you’re going to feel like you’re going to help us on Saturday,’ and she’ll certainly be a big help on Saturday against Boston College. Liz is Liz, and I guess we’ll never know how much that surgery has set her back. Hopefully she’ll come along little by little and be a big factor for us in the playoffs.

on team
You don’t know when the bumps in the road are going to come, and you don’t know when the real high points are going to be, but we’re playing some really good basketball right now, and it seems like the league is shaping up where the next couple of weeks are going to decide everything. It’s a good time to be playing the way we’re playing.

Liz Sherwood
On the strong passing
Yeah, the passing was really good tonight, and I was just the beneficiary of it a lot.

On this type of play being what she envisioned at UConn
Yeah, it’s always a post players dream to just turn and score, and that’s pretty much what I did, so it was great.

On being able to muscle their way under the basket
Well in the beginning the game was close for a couple minutes, so, they’re not bad, we just played really well. We probably had some advantages [under the basket].

On the reserves getting a lot of minutes
The scoring was really spread out tonight, and that’s always good, because it gave some people a chance to rest that probably needed it.

Ashley Battle
On the ball movement tonight
We moved the ball really well, which led to a lot of open shots.

On whether the game was a mismatch
I don’t know if it was that easy, but all of us just seemed to be in the right place at the right time. It goes to show you how hard we practice… we work on a lot of rotations, and it really paid off tonight.

On what the team gets out of a game like this
It’s another step in the right direction. We gained the same things that we gained from the last game, knowing we can come out here and dominate on the boards and try to make things happen defensively.

On whether tonight’s game was a win that felt like a win
Tonight was definitely a [real] win. We dominated the boards, and we dominated defensively and offensively and in all aspects of the game. We really played strong tonight.

On it being impressive how the team has turned things around since January
Definitely, definitely. We’re cruising right now. We’re playing really good basketball, and we keep this up, the sky’s the limit.

Pittsburgh head coach Agnus Berenato
I would like just to say thank you, and I am sorry it wasn’t competitive and later down the road, I hope it will be. I think UConn has a great team and are very capable of winning the national championship and I think Geno Auriemma has done a tremendous job. I felt that in the beginning for the first five or six minutes we competed, but then I think we weren’t able to get anything accomplished. I think that we were over-matched, and that UConn is quicker, faster and has better athletes and we are just trying to build a program. We won in a couple of areas, small areas and I felt that we might not win a single game this year but come down to wins and losses in other ways, and tonight I felt that we did come away with some victories. Tonight was an awesome atmosphere, and I would like to thank the state of Connecticut for embracing women’s basketball and it was just an awesome opportunity for my team to play in front of a sell-out.

On winning the ‘little victories’
We won a jump ball, which was a very huge victory for us because we set up in a defensive jump ball, and winning the jump ball allowed us to be the first to score. Our team tonight was able to stay together as a family, and that has been something that I have been trying to get them to do. Playing in an environment like this, it is very easy for a team to break, and playing a team like UConn, we know we can’t compete, but I felt that we didn’t give up. I told the team to look around to look at the environment that we were playing in and this is the type of environment that I am trying to build at Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh assistant coach Shea Ralph
On scouting UConn
It is very tough to scout UConn, and under #3 Diana Taurasi I wrote ‘best player in the country.’ I tried to get across our players to enjoy the experience, and I knew that we were going to play hard. I think that the best part of this experience is for them to see how to win a basketball game.

When you try to build a program, a game like this is monumental, and this is a great opportunity for our players, and hopefully we are able to come away with this game with a positive spin. In order to get better, you need to play the best.

On coaching
The toughest thing for me is the losing, and there is a lot to learn. I always told myself that I would never coach because I always wanted to play. Coaching has shown me a completely different side of the game, and there is so much to learn, and there is so much that goes into coaching and there is always something to do. The best part about coaching is that I am always going to love it because it will always challenge me and that is something that I need in my life.

On watching UConn
It was great to watch them play and see them play well, and I know that they have struggled in a couple of game and people aren’t use to this team struggling because they have built such a tradition of excellence.

It was exactly has how I remember. I remembered the offense that they ran. The team is playing very well and right now is the time to peak, and they have gone through their ups and downs and these are the ups and downs that they were expected to do last year and they are really playing great basketball right now.