University of Connecticut Athletics
Women's Basketball Soars Over Hawks 72-47
12/1/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
HARTFORD, CT (December 1, 2005) - Senior Barbara Turner (Cleveland, Ohio) notched the seventh double-double of her career and freshman Kalana Greene (St. Stephen, S.C.) matched her career-high with 14 points as No. 8/6 Connecticut overcame 17 turnovers to defeat in-state rival Hartford, 72-47, before a crowd of 12,871 at the Hartford Civic Center Thursday evening.
The win was UConn’s sixth straight to open the season, while the Hawks slip to 4-1.
The Huskies used two big scoring runs to break open a close game in the first half. With the contest tied at eight with
Turner finished the contest with 14 points and yanked down a game-high 12 rebounds. Her 14 points inched her past former teammate Jessica Moore into 23rd place on the all-time UConn scoring list with 1,226 points. Greene, seeing additional action due to Nicole Wolff (
The Huskies return to the hardwood on Monday, December 5, when they play host to
Game Notes
ü Tonight’s game marked UConn’s 63rd all-time at the Hartford Civic Center and the Huskies boast a record of 55-8 in those contests.
ü With tonight’s win, UConn opened the season with six straight wins for the ninth time in the last 10 seasons.
ü UConn improves to 45-22 all-time and 20-0 since Geno Auriemma became head coach in games versus in-state opponents.
ü UConn improves to 152-3 since Jan. 1999 vs. non-ranked opponents.
ü UConn extended its home-court winning streak vs. non-ranked foes to 174 consecutive games.
ü UConn improves to 138-53 all-time in the month of December.
ü UConn improves to 7-0 in the all-time series vs. the University of Hartford.
ü Barbara Turner’s 14 points moved her past Jessica Moore into 23rd place on the UConn career scoring list with her current total of 1,226 points.
ü Barbara Turner’s 14 points and 12 rebounds marked her first double-double of the season and the seventh of her career.
ü Kalana Greene’s 14 points tied her career-high.
Post Game Quotes
University of Connecticut
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What did you think of tonight’s game?
“I thought it was a typical Hartford-Connecticut game. They play like Jen played, and nothing is going to be easy. Everything is going to be a struggle. There is no surprise in that. It is just a shame the way the game was called. Neither team could figure out what was a foul and what wasn’t a foul. That was tough, but I thought we had spurts that looked like we knew what we were doing.”
On Kalana Greene:
“I have been getting on Kalana in practice in a good nature way. We work on individual stuff in practice for about 40 minutes before every practice. She is down there working on her stuff, and I told her she has more moves than anybody has ever seen. Tonight she finally showed some of them. She is as good along the baseline as anyone we’ve ever had.”
On Barbara Turner:
“Obviously Hartford’s game plan was to not let Ann and Mel get free. They played those two really hard. They made it tough for us to generate any kind of movement, so we ended up trying to isolate Barbara. That is a tough match up for them to try to guard her. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to the free throw line a little more often. Barbara got 12 points, and I thought we did a good job defensively on their big guys who are their two leading scorers.”
On Hartford’s performance:
“Her (Jennifer Rizzotti) team takes on her personality. They don’t back down, and they keep coming after you. Every time you go in the lane you get a little bit of a nudge. They do make it like it’s a little bit of a scrum. I wouldn’t expect anything less from Jen. That’s just the way the game is going to be played.”
On North Carolina:
“I think Monday night is going to be a real treat. We will probably see some things Monday night that we have never seen and may never see. It will be completely different. It is going to be an interesting week. We are going to go against a team that probably needs a five second shot clock to a team Thursday night against a team that uses 29 seconds of the shot clock. This week is going to test us in a lot of different ways. Hopefully we will be healthy. It is a mental thing at this time of year, too, as much as it’s physical. Playing a team like Carolina gets your attention. I have to believe that practice Saturday and Sunday is going to be really, really good. These guys seem to know who the really good teams are.”
Will Charde Houston practice:
“I don’t know. If she can go she’ll go. We will find out more tomorrow and see how she feels. It has not gotten any worse from what I can tell. I haven’t heard anything that makes me worry that it is going to be one of those real long-lasting things, but I don’t want it to become one of those things. I would rather take precaution and sit her out now than a month from now and wish we would have done it. We will see what happens.”
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Did this game test your patience?
“Yea. They’re a tough team. They play really aggressively. They get after it. They rebound well. Anytime you play a team like that, it’s a mental game. You have to be in it mentally every single play and make sure you do every little thing right.”
Every time you went on a run the game seemed to stop. Was that frustrating for you?
“It is frustrating. I think we all left this game with not a great feeling about how we played. We all know that we can play better than that. It felt like we had some runs then a foul or turn over would happen or they would get offensive rebounds, something that would stop the momentum of the play so it was frustrating.”
On the first half vs. the second half
“I think we pushed through and we came out to do what we needed to do. There’s still a lot that we needed to work on and go back to practice the next couple of days and get some stuff done.”
Do you expect anything different on Monday?
“I think we all really look forward to playing teams like that. North Carolina’s going to be a really athletic, aggressive, trapping and pressure type of team. I think we’re going to have to do something at practice in the next couple of days to prepare for them.”
What is going to be the key for Monday?
“Just being on the attack from the beginning. Trying to jump on them early. Be really, really aggressive like we were at time today. If we can do those things, think we’ll be okay. We know that we have to concentrate more. Any little mistake, we know that they’re going to capitalize from it. That’s the mind set that we have to have and that starts in practice tomorrow.”
Did tonight test your patience?
“It did. It was a knock around kind of game. We knew that coming in but we just stayed on the attack and continued to follow through.”
On the whistles
“We had to stop fouling. The whistles were blowing for a reason. We know the rules and we know that we can’t keep hand checking but we just have to stop doing it. There’s no excuse. The officiating doesn’t control it; we do.”
How physical was it in the post?
“It was really physical and I knew that. I just tried to keep playing through it and keep playing hard. I think that’s what everybody did and that’s why we were able to come out and win.”
Was it hard to get in the flow with the way the game was called?
“Games will be called like that. We can’t expect the referees to be on our side or call it fair every night. We just have to play through it; we just need to start doing that.”
How did Barbara’s performance tonight help the team?
“On offense and defense she gives you a lot of energy and she’s a senior on the court with Ann. She basically puts everybody in control, helps you out, helps out the underclassmen, and shows you where to go on the floor. She’s a leader on the floor. Without her on the floor, without her in the game or on the bench, it would be hard because right now we need a lot of leadership and she’s been bringing it.”
Does this game tell you anything about what Monday will be like?
“It’s going to be a different opponent, but our play shouldn’t change on the opposition. We should play harder than tonight and I think if we play hard Monday night we can come out with a win just as easily as any other night.”
Would you agree that you aren’t a player that gets down on herself after a bad play?
“I think that’s my problem too. If I make a mistake on offense I might come down and make an over aggressive play on defense and get a foul, which I need to learn how to not do."
Have you heard about (Ivory)Latta {North Carolina} or seen her play?
“I’ve seen her play a few times in USA basketball and of course I’ve seen a lot of games she’s played on TV… I know as well as the world knows that she’s a very good point guard. She takes a lot of shots so I have to try to make sure that the shots she takes aren’t the shots she wants to take. I need to try to disrupt her flow of the game basically so that in turn it can disrupt the flow of the team because how the point guard plays affects how the whole team plays. If I start off playing her tough, then maybe our team will start out tough.”
What do you think will be the most challenging aspect of Monday’s game, offense or defense?
“Offense is a big key right now because we haven’t been executing well on our offensive end so I think this next game we’re going to go in focused and wanting to run exactly what we need to run. I think they’re both a major deal in this game. Offense is major and defense is major because they are a good offensive team. She’s (Latta) a big offensive threat and in turn we want to do the same thing they’re doing to us, so it’s big both ways.
Has it gotten harder as the season is progressing?
“It gets harder just because in the beginning you’re fresh; you’re mentally fresh as well as physically fresh so in the beginning it was a lot easier. Now, its not that you’re physically tired its that when you play a lot of games and you’re practicing a lot your body is going to wear down a little bit so that means you have to be more mentally tough if you don’t have it physically.”
University of Hartford
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On the Game
I am very pleased with the team tonight; but there are things I am disappointed with as well. There were some really good stretches where we competed, but when you miss eight free-throws and several open shots in the first half it’s tough to go in the locker room. I would have liked to see us be a little bit more competitive in the first half. There’s a lot we can learn from the game and the more games we can play like this the better we are going to get.
How did you feel about the team offense?
I was pretty pleased with the offense, but there were four or five turnovers that I wish we could take back. I feel like we penetrated their defense, our post players were aggressive going to the hole as well. I think that there’s a lot of positive aspects that we can take out of the game, at least offensively. If we do the same things as we did tonight against other teams we’re going to be very successful.
Do you want to continue playing teams like UConn?
Yes, it’s a win-win for us because we get challenged at this level. If we all challenge ourselves and keep playing teams in the top 25 then it’s going to be tough for us to be tested at our level. It gives the players a chance to play in front of a great crowd and to challenge them selves. Hopefully we can continue it.
What does this game show you?
There were some things that we should have done, but we weren’t really expecting to come in and get a win. We thought it was going to be a lot harder to handle the press and I think we handled it pretty well.
What did you think of the freshmen players’ performance in the game?
They played very well with the crowd. Games like this get us all ready for the rest of our season. Our game was a little sloppy and could have been better.
