The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Glorious Gabby
Williams impresses, leads Huskies to 13th straight Elite 8 berth
ALBANY, N.Y. — The words of praise might have warmed the soul of UConn All-American Gabby Williams but that didn’t stop her from having a little bit of a fun at her own expense.
After Williams posted her fifth career game in the NCAA tournament with at least 10 points, five rebounds and five assists in top seeded UConn’s 72-59 win over No. 5 Duke before a crowd of 10,658 at Times Union Center, veteran Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie compared her to UConn legend Maya Moore “without the outside shooting as much.”
A few minutes later Williams was asked to comment on McCallie’s kind words and without batting an eyelash, playfully responded, “Maya Moore without the outside shot. So just throw that in there. Make sure you know.”
Although Williams did not make her first 3-pointer of the season, and remains 310 3-pointers behind the total that UConn’s all-time leading scorer registered in her collegiate career, she did make a pair of timely jump shots to help UConn advance to the Elite Eight for the 13th season in a row. The Huskies will meet defending national champion South Carolina in Monday’s Albany regional final (7 p.m., ESPN).
Williams’ first shot of the game was a jumper to cap an early 7-0 run resulting in a timeout being called by McCallie. With time running down in the first half, Williams ended an 8-0 run with another jump shot as the Huskies took a 20-point lead into the locker room at halftime.
“I don’t know her personally, but she seems just fabulous,” McCallie said. “She seems low maintenance, wonderful to coach, always goes hard. I think I’m going to echo (ESPN
basketball analyst) Jay Bilas. Jay Bilas loves her, talks about her all the time, about just a wonderful player in women’s basketball. I’m going to go with him and be on that club, the Gabby Williams fan club, because I think not only is she so consistent, but she just doesn’t bat an eye to anything. She competes at an Olympic level of focus, and obviously I’m sure she’s learned a great deal from Geno (Auriemma) and his staff. She’s a very special player. They just don’t come around very much, and she’s the closest thing to Maya Moore to me without the outside shooting as much, but still with that body type and the way she’s consistent. She’s very clever and very good, and she was a big problem for us.”
Other than during those two stretches, it was a solid but hardly spectacular first half of offensive basketball for the top scoring team in NCAA Division I women’s basketball.
“At the beginning of the game we got off to a quick start and it was almost like we didn’t expect them to fight back like this isn’t the Sweet 16,” said Williams, who finished with 15 points, seven rebounds, six assists, two steals and two blocked shots. “I think we were trying to win the game a little too quickly and all at once. At the end of the second quarter we started taking it one possession at a time and building our momentum so that was a good way to go into halftime.”
Duke (24-9) got back within 13 points as Erin Mathias capped an 11-2 run with a layup with 5:09 left in the third quarter. However, Duke missed its final eight shots of the quarter enabling the Huskies to take a 51-31 lead into the final quarter.
Napheesa Collier had 16 points and 11 rebounds as she became the seventh UConn player with at least four double-doubles in NCAA tournament play. Katie Lou Samuelson had 15 points, Kia Nurse added 10 while Azura’ Stevens, who played at Duke as a freshman and sophomore, had eight points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots for UConn (35-0), which will meet the reigning national champions in the regionals for just the second time and first since Tennessee topped the Huskies in the Elite Eight in 1997 en route to winning the second of three consecutive national titles.
Leaonna Odom had 22 points, eight rebounds and four assists to lead Duke.
South Carolina advanced with 79-63 win over Buffalo. A’ja Wilson and Alexis Jennings had 20 points each for the Gamecocks.