UConn Rolls Over West Virginia in Home Finale

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STORRS, CT (March 2, 2004) – Junior center Jessica Moore scored 20 points to lead five teammates in double figures as the fourth-ranked University of Connecticut routed West Virginia, 100-72 on Senior Night, before the 81st straight sellout at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion on Tuesday evening.

The win improves the Huskies’ record to 24-3, 14-2 in the BIG EAST Conference. The Mountaineers slip to 19-9, 10-6 in league play.

Senior All-America Diana Taurasi, playing for the final time at Gampel Pavilion, scored 17 points and dished out 10 assists in concluding her illustrious UConn career. She amassed 12 points and nine assists in the first half, including several highlight reel passes. She capped the half with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, the Huskies’ eighth of the half. UConn led 56-36 at intermission, after shooting 56% (22 of 39). The 56 points at the half tied the Huskies’ season-high in an opening half, equaling their total against Pittsburgh. Senior point guard Maria Conlon, also playing her final game at Gampel, scored all 12 of her points in the opening stanza, connecting on four of five 3-point attempts, which tied career-best.

Moore was solid all night for UConn, connecting on nine of 12 field goal attempts and yanking down nine rebounds, but she had plenty of company in the scoring column. Ann Strother scored 15 points, while Barbara Turner and Willnett Crockett each scored 14. For Crockett, the 14 points matched her career-best. The contest marked the first game this season that Turner and Strother had come off of the bench. Turner also yanked down a game-high 12 rebounds, which were one off of her career-high. With six Huskies reaching double figures, UConn reached a feat it had not done since achieving it against Seton Hall on February 6, 2002. Senior forward Morgan Valley also was honored before the game, which saw the three seniors improve their record at UConn to an amazing 132-7.

UConn out-rebounded West Virginia 52-30, and finished the contest shooting 58% (39 of 67). West Virginia finished shooting 37% (25 of 67).

The win marked the 51st straight success for the Huskies in the friendly confines of Gampel Pavilion, and was UConn’s 158th straight at home against unranked opponents.

The Huskies now enter the 2004 BIG EAST Tournament as the top seed, and have earned a first round bye. UConn will play their quarterfinal game at the Hartford Civic Center on Sunday, March 7 against the winner of Saturday’s Georgetown-Virginia Tech contest. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. and the contest will be televised by CPTV.

POST GAME NOTES

• Win marks UConn’s 51st straight at Gampel Pavilion
• Game was the 81st consecutive sellout at Gampel Pavilion
• Win extended UConn’s winning streak at home vs. unranked opponents to 158 games
• Win improves UConn to a perfect 7-0 at Gampel Pavilion this season and represents its fifth consecutive undefeated season at the facility
• With tonight’s victory, UConn improves to 193-4 at home since 1993-94
• Following tonight’s win, UConn’s 2004 Senior Class boasts a record of 132-7 during the career in Storrs
• Tonight marked the first time in 32 games that UConn opened with a different starting lineup as Morgan Valley and Ashley Battle opened the contest in place of Barbara Turner and Ann Strother
• Tonight’s win marked UConn’s 109th straight win at home when facing a BIG EAST Conference opponent
• 56 points in first half ties UConn’s highest point total in a half this season- also scored 56 in first half vs. Pittsburgh (2/17/04).
• Diana Taurasi’s 10 assists tie a season-high.
• Conlon’s four 3-pointers ties a career-high .
• Six Huskies scored in double-figure points for the first time since February 6th, 2002 vs. Seaton Hall.
• Game marked UConn’s first game with 100 points or more since it tallied 109 vs. Pepperdine on 12/20/02.

POST GAME QUOTES
UConn head coach Geno Auriemma
on Villanova game
Because we played that way on February 28th, as a coach you think, ‘This is how we’re going to play now for the next 15 games or 10 games, and that’s how coaches think.’ If you’re not careful, you start to let your players start to analyze, ‘How does this happen? Why did it happen? How do we keep it from happening again?’ Like D (Diana Taurasi) said, ‘We lost the game.’ We’re going to go to practice and fix it, and we’re going to play well on Tuesday night. I thought tonight for the most part it went according to the plan. The script was for Maria to make a lot of three’s because it’s senior night and she’s supposed to do that, and for D to make that half court bomb. Morgan would do the things that Morgan does. It was one of those senior nights where all the seniors got to enjoy pretty much the things that they’ve always enjoyed doing for the four years that they’ve been here.

on what was said to each senior during the senior night ceremony
Well Morgan was crying. And Morgan’s mother Margie was crying and Jay (her father) wore sunglasses because he was crying. And I said, ‘Congratulations’ and they looked at me and went, ‘Yeah, who would have ever thought this would happen?’ I think they were pretty proud of her, and it was pretty emotional for Morgan

For Maria’s parents, it was more of, ‘How about that, huh? I guess we fooled them all, you know?’ And I just said to Maria, ‘Congratulations’ and I think she deserves a lot of congratulations. Someone other than her may have given up.

With D, I said to Lily, ‘Aren’t you glad you sent her here now, after all the suffering that you made me go through?’ and me and Mario shared a few words in Italian that I probably can’t repeat. With D it was very short and very sweet and very simple. I just told her I loved her and she told me that she loved me.

on Diana Taurasi
I don’t know that any kid has ever had to carry around what D (Diana Taurasi) has had to carry around. You haven’t seen her smile, and you haven’t seen her enjoy the game of basketball like she did when she was a freshman.

There’s not an award that that kid isn’t nominated for, and there’s not an award that everybody doesn’t think, ‘She should win,’ and if she doesn’t win people are going to say, ‘Well, what happened?’ And she’s got to be the pack mule to carry these guys to another national championship. I think that’s a lot to ask someone that’s her age. Not that it’s unfair, it’s just a lot, and sometimes it gets heavy. The load gets a little heavy, and I think it has been for the last month or so. It’s been real heavy. Today, the load didn’t seem as heavy.

D (Diana Taurasi) has not surpassed any of my expectations as a player. As a matter of fact, I thought she’d be a little better than this right now. She has become a better defender that I ever thought she’d be. She’s become a much better vocal leader and a much better teammate than I ever thought she’d be. I thought she’d be good but I didn’t think she’d be at this level. So nothing that she’s done has surprised me, because my expectations of her were probably unrealistic, which is good because she’s met them, and I kind of like that.

It’s been like raising one of my daughters. Early on, it’s incredibly difficult. In the middle, it’s incredibly easy, and as they get a little bit older, it gets incredibly difficult again. So, I think she’s done the same things. Her freshman year was very difficult, because she didn’t understand that there were any limitations. And I would say that between her sophomore and junior years she was about the perfect player you could have in all aspects, especially last year. This year has been very difficult because things just haven’t gone the way she’s wanted them to go. She is so driven to be so good, that it’s been very frustrating for her, and because it’s been so frustrating for her it’s been very frustrating for me in trying to help her fix it.

Ashley Battle
On Senior Night being emotionally tough
Yeah… I’m not really one to cry. I hardly ever cry. It was just really emotional because three of our best friends are not going to be with us anymore, and it’s sad. I’m going to miss those guys. I can’t believe it… they’re actually going into the real world? Watch out!

On Geno starting the five who came in together four years ago
It means a lot, because ever since we were freshmen we’ve been calling each other the ‘fam,’ and it’s just something that’s stuck with us throughout our four-year stay here. We’ll always be a family no matter where we are. We may never have all five of us in the same place ever again, but we’ll always know we can count on each other for anything.

On it being important to take care of business after the loss to Villanova
Definitely. We had to come out here and make a stand and put our foot down.

Jessica Moore
On the importance of this last home game
It was really, really important to play well because it is our last game, and we wanted to come in and have a really great game, and especially coming off the Villanova loss we really needed to come and establish ourselves and have a good game going into the BIG EAST Tournament.

On the game being what the team hoped for
Yeah it was. We had a couple of rough spots, but I think overall we played really, really well.

On the offense being something the team was focusing on
I think that we really wanted to work on getting the ball inside, and then working our way outside, and just having a whole entire balance of play, and I think we really got that done today.

On the injury to her lip against Villanova
You know, that whole entire thing… I’ve never bitten through my lip before, and I’ve never had anything be wrong with me, and I really kind of panicked when it happened. When they told me I was going to have stitches… I wasn’t doing too well. I was able to go back in a little bit though. I’m glad the swelling has gone down though. If you guys saw me a couple days ago, I looked like Bubba Gump from Forrest Gump.

Morgan Valley
On the emotional night
It’s something you can’t really think ahead of. You know it’s going to be sad, but you have no clue about the emotions. I’ve been here for four years, and its gone by so fast I can’t believe it.

On what Diana and Maria mean to her
Those two, and then Jess and AB, we’ve been here for four years together and we’ve become really close, and we do everything together. Those two especially, because we graduate together, they just mean everything. We’re the glue, and I’m going to miss them a lot. Maria is a funny person, and a person that is really smart and caring. Basketball-wise, she’s just solid, and she’s everything that no one expected her to be. That shows a lot of her character. [Diana] is the best player to ever play the game, and is just one crazy kid.

Diana Taurasi
To go out there and start the five people you came in with, and end with the five people… I think that was special, it really was. I think we played the way we wanted to play, and there’s no better night to do that than senior night… and coming off a loss where you could easily just come in and walk through things. But we came out with a certain juice and a certain fire. From here on out there can’t be any lulls or slumps… there’s always going to be a mistake in the game, and now we have to figure out ways to win no matter what.

On having her parents there
That was special. It was the first game they’ve been at Gampel, and took look over and see them in the stands and for them to watch the whole team play I think was special for everyone.

Barbara Turner
On being prepared for the post-season tournament and how they learned from last year
I think this year we feel a lot better about going into the tournament. I think last year, we were a team that hadn’t played in that many games together. We didn’t know what to expect, and we now have a different approach going into the tournament. We are looking forward to stepping up to these new challenges.

On being nervous playing and going into the post-season tournaments
When you are a freshman, you are never nervous. I was rarely ever nervous, except in the Final Four, which was the first time all year that I was actually nervous. When you are a freshman, you basically just go out there and play. You get more nervous as you get more experience.

Ann Strother
On being more affective in this year’s post-season tournament
You can’t say for sure that every game that you play is going to be great, because that is what is going to happen. There is always somebody who steps up and has a great game and there are going to be games when it isn’t your day. I think the mentality going into the tournament is a lot different this year then it was last year, because we know what teams are going to throw at us.

Maria Conlon
On Senior Night living up to what was expected
I think even a little more. All day I was worried about what emotions I was going to show because I’m not going to cry and not be able to show what I really felt. It was hard all day for me, not knowing how I was going to feel when I walked out there more so then the actual game. Once it happened, you don’t know how many emotions you are going to show and it was a real emotional night for me.

On the night being scripted the way that they wanted it to be
For the seniors, it could have been scripted any way tonight and it would have been really special for us. And it was special to start the game with Morgan and Ashley and everybody played pretty well tonight and we did give up a lot of points on defense because they shoot a lot of threes and that is something that we need to work on.