University of Connecticut Athletics
Women's Basketball Handles Colgate 81-37
11/16/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Charles finished the night with 18 points and 17 rebounds while Hunter chipped in 12 points and 10 boards to the Husky cause. Charles’ double-double in her second career game is the earliest that a Husky has scored a double-double into her career since Ann Strother had 11 points and 11 rebounds in her collegiate debut, Nov. 22, 2002 against Wright State.
UConn came out of the gates quickly with Charles scoring just 10 seconds into the game. The Huskies would run their lead to 10-4 at 16:43 when Charde Houston (San Diego, Calif.) put back a Renee Montgomery (St. Albans, W. Va.) miss and forced the Raiders to call a 30-second timeout.
The pace of the game slowed significantly after that with neither team hitting another basket until Charles put back a fifth attempt at 14:01 to put UConn up 16-4. The Huskies would hold a 16-7 edge at the 12-minute television timeout as, while struggling on offense, shooting just 7-of-20, UConn’s defense made an impact forcing eight Raider turnovers and holding Colgate to 3-of-11 shooting early.
Montgomey hit a 15-foot jumper on UConn’s first possession out of the break and UConn’s trapping defense forced Colgate into a backcourt violation. Hunter sank a pair of free throws off of that possession to put UConn up 20-7 at 11:05. A Mel Thomas (Cincinnati, Ohio) three-pointer would extend that lead to 16 points at 23-7. After Katie Garman hit a three-pointer, UConn would go on a 14-0 run keyed by a pair of Thomas threes to go up 37-10.
UConn’s lead hit the 30-point plateau on a Montgomery jumper with 1:01 left in the half that put the Huskies on top 47-17. Two Charles free throws capped the opening stanza’s scoring and sent the teams to their respective locker rooms with UConn on top, 49-17.
Charles led UConn at the break with 15 points by which time she already had a double-double with 11 rebounds. Thomas added 11 points for UConn as well. The Raiders had a pair of players with six points each but were done in by 17 turnovers, matching their 17 points.
Melanie Cargle scored the second half’s first five points for the Raiders but UConn would answer by scoring the next five, four of which came from Houston. After a TV timeout, Montgomery made sure that the run continued with a pair of driving layups that put UConn on top 58-22. As Colgate continued to miss shots, Houston scored at 14:40 to extend the Husky run to 11 before a timeout was called by Colgate. The run would extend to 13 before it was snapped by Elise Bronzo. A deft inside move by Thomas ensured that UConn’s offensive outburst would continue as she put UConn back up by 40 points, 64-24, on the ensuing possession. The Thomas bucket started a 11-0 UConn run that made the score 71-24 after a combined 24-2 run dating back to the opening moments of the second half. In all, Colgate hit just one field goal over an 11:38 span in the middle of the half.
Cargle scored seven points shortly after the end of the run, cutting UConn’s edge to 77-32 with just over four minutes to play. The junior would led Colgate with 18 points on the night. After emptying their respective benches, the two sides would trade baskets for the remainder of the contest, one which finished with UConn prevailing 81-37.
The Huskies return to action stateside on Tuesday, Nov. 28 when they play host to Boston University at 7:30 p.m. at Gampel Pavilion. In the interim, the team will spend the Thanksgiving Break week touring Italy and playing exhibition games there.
SCOREBOARD 1st 2nd Final Colgate 17 20 37 UConn 49 32 81
Game Notes
ü UConn improves to 3-0 all-time vs. Colgate
ü UConn improves to 24-3 all-time vs. Patriot League opponents
ü UConn has now won 67 of its last 70 games at Gampel Pavilion and improves to 220-17 all-time at the facility
ü UConn extends its winning streak vs. unranked team at home to 187 consecutive games
ü Following tonight’s win, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma has 591 career wins – nine shy of becoming the 13th coach in NCAA Division I history to reach 600 career wins
ü Freshman Tina Charles tallied 15 points and 11 rebounds in the first half – notching her first career double-double in just the opening 20 minutes of her second career game
ü UConn’s defense limited Colgate to 17 first-half points - the fewest the Huskies have allowed in an opening half since allowing 16 vs. West Virginia on March 7, 2006
ü UConn defense limited Colgate to 17 first-half points and forced 17 first-half turnovers
ü Mel Thomas’ 15 points marked her 26th game in double-figure points and her second this season
ü Renee Montgomery’s 12 points marked her 17th game in double-figure points and her second this season
ü Tina Charles double-double tonight in her second career game marked the earliest a UConn player has posted a double-double in their career since Ann Strother tallied 11 points and 11 rebounds in her first career game on November 22, 2002 vs. Wright State
ü Brittany Hunter’s 12 points and 10 rebounds marked the first double-double of her UConn career
ü Tina Charles17 rebounds marked the most by a UConn player in a single game since Asjha Jones pulled down 18 vs. Oklahoma on December 22, 2001
ü 37 points by Colgate was the fewest by a UConn opponent since Syracuse scored 36 on February 22, 2006
ü Colgate’s .209 field goal percentage marked the lowest by a UConn opponent since Providence shot .173 from the field on February 5, 2005
Post Game Quotes
University of Connecticut
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Head Coach
On Tina Charles:
“She tries hard and you can’t fault her for that. She gets a lot of opportunities. I hate to think how many points she will start making when she stops making mistakes. I thought she did well for playing in only her second game. She was good. I don’t think she had to rebound for much. It’s only her second college game. To expect her to play like that every night is a little unrealistic. It’s a good game for her early in the season. She’s determined to be a really good player. Her goal is to get a double-double every night. Tonight she made that goal.”
On the team defense:
”I think our defense has been a little better than I expected it to be at times. I think some of that was due to the fact that we have some pretty long players who can do something out there. This team plays hard on the defensive end. They enjoy creating some offensive off of our defense. I though if we had kept our foot on the gas we could have scored a hundred and thirty points, but that’s not the point of the game. One area that’s really improved since last season is our ability to create some easy shots.”
On Brittany Hunter:
“For the little bit of time that she had, she made the most of it. I’d like to see her really build on that if she can. I’d like to see her playing in short spurts but get some things done while she’s out there. Brittany is pretty talented but you just don’t get a chance to see it. There aren’t too many people more athletic than Brittany Hunter. If we get those kind of numbers from her every night if the 15-20 minutes that she’ll play per game that could be the biggest difference in the world to us.”
What’s the point of playing a team like Colgate?
“I don’t know what the point is. You have to fill the schedule some how. We have so many number of home games we need to fill so you have to get teams that are ok with making the commitment of just coming here to play. You roll the dice and hope for the best. Today was a mismatch from a talent standpoint but that may be the case with a lot of teams we play. I’m not one to think that you have to play certain teams from a certain conference; we’re going to get enough of that in the BIG EAST and from our non-conference games. Unfortunately there’s going to be games like this. It’s mostly because we’re really good and when we play like we did tonight we’re going to be hard to beat.”
Freshman Kaili
Is there a reason that you didn’t play that much tonight?
“Yes, that was my fault. My enthusiasm level was nowhere near where it needed to be when we were shooting around, so I got punished for it.
On Tina
“She did really well. She missed a couple chip shots, but she fought for it and was able to put it in. She did really well.”
What did you take from today’s game?
“We were able to learn by it. We got back on track on offense and ran through it through all the way. We gave different players opportunities to do different things during the game and it really helped us out a lot.”
Junior Brittany
On the freshmen
“There are a lot of people watching the WBCA and McDonald’s games, but normally in high school you don’t see that many people. Playing in Hartford is really intimidating, most people don’t know that. I think once we get four or five games in will get used to it. I think they will steadily improve themselves, relax and play better.”
On the team’s defensive performance
“The team defense was great. I think we really tried to work on that. Coach wasn’t really sure we could handle a zone. We have so many big people; we aren’t really sure who can step out and get to the three-point shooters. So I think we did a really good job. Last year Coach was really worried about us not getting out their fast enough, but now we are so energized. Everyone keeps everyone up all the time that defense is not a problem.”
Freshman Tina
What do you think of your performance tonight?
“I just tried to let the game come to me. I didn’t force anything. The first game I was kind of jittery being in front of everybody.”
You had a double-double in the first half; do you expect that of yourself?
“Yes, I do. I have high expectations for myself. Coming into UConn and talking to Coach a lot over the summer he said there was high expectations for me. I am not trying to rush anything, I am still young but I have great leadership out on the court. “
Sophomore Renee
How much easier is it knowing you and Mel don’t have to carry the load every night?
“It’s good. I think we knew that would be the case coming out of pre-season. We would just play pick-up games to 11 and they would be over in 5 minutes. We were like wow, we knew we could score. I think that’s going to help us because someone isn’t going to be on every night and we can’t depend on one person to hit all their shots every night. The fact that we have multiple scorers is going to make it easy on the team.”
What was the difference in Tina from Monday to tonight?
“I think it was all mental. Today she came in knowing she didn’t have a good game on Monday and she wanted to prove to herself and us that she can do it and that she’s ready to do it. I think it was just a mental aspect of the game.
Colgate University
Head Coach Kristin Hughes
Can you talk about the speed of UConn’s point guards relative to your own?
“It’s like the next level. If it’s a track meet, I don’t want to see the final heet of the 100-meter dash. They have unbelievable quickness, and combined with that is their body control. Sometimes kids can be quick, but they can’t control their movements. The guards for UConn have both, and that’s a pretty tough match up.”
How did UConn’s inside game cause problems for you tonight?
“We tried to front in the post and I think that physically, the UConn post players were quite a bit stronger than ours. I thought we got pushed around a little bit and we lost position as a result. We had to give up one thing or the other. If we were going to give up defensive positioning, we were maybe going to get the rebounding positioning. If we gave that up then we lost the box out. We knew going in that we were going to have to choose our poison, so if it worked more times than not, I thought we did it.”
