The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Dangerfield, Huskies set to face Syracuse
First-year guards have been big contributors for Huskies, Orange
STORRS >> Perhaps precocious Syracuse freshman Gabby Cooper was feeling the pressure of being the lone freshman starter in Saturday’s NCAA tournament opener or maybe the weight of being the top reserve guard for four-time defending national champion would send Crystal Dangerfield’s blood pressure soaring a little bit.
However, if there were any feelings of anxiety, they were not evident as the freshmen phenoms played starring roles to set up Monday night’s national-championship game rematch between the Orange and Huskies (6:30 p.m., ESPN2).
Dangerfield had an assist 43 seconds after checking into the game in the first quarter. Cooper did not wait that long, connecting on the first of her school record eight 3-pointers.
So what exactly is the big deal being asked to fill the void left by players who were among the most influential to play at their respective programs?
“I knew from the jump I could come in, make shots and spread the floor out, give lanes for P (Alexis Peterson) and Brit (Sykes),” said Cooper, who had 24 points and four steals in a 20-point win over Iowa State
in the opening round.
Cooper scored in double figures in each of her first two games with the Orange, but she had only 43 points over her next five games. Her best shooting game during the regular season came against perennial national championship contender Notre Dame. Cooper has started every game taking over the position held by Brianna Butler.
“Q (Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman) knows the kids that can play for him,” said Syracuse assistant coach Tammi Reiss, who is Cooper’s position coach. “A Chi-town kid from a tough area, Mac Irvin Fire is the AAU club and he breeds that. You have to have the swagger and confidence to step on the floor especially when you are stepping on the floor shooting 12-15 3-point shots with two really good guards with you. She is tough as nails.”
Cooper hit five 3-pointers in the first quarter to pretty much end any suspense in the game against Iowa State.
“That is my role on the team, come in and hit shots,” Cooper said. “It was a good day and tomorrow I want to come back and do it again.”
Cooper knows something about the UConn fan base. Tickets in the Syracuse fan section were not available when her mother purchased seats for the 2016 national title game.
“For the UConn (game), she went to buy the tickets, I have a two-year-old niece and she started to act up as she was in the middle of buying tickets,” Cooper said. “When she came back to buy tickets, all the seats by the Orange were sold out so we actually sat in the middle of the UConn section right behind the UConn bench. It was kind of weird because everywhere you look everybody has on Navy (blue) and everybody has UConn gear. My trainer from back home, he trained Morgan Tuck so he was there, my family and it was all WNBA players who played for UConn, they were right behind us. It was kind of weird. We had our Orange and blue on.”
Cooper’s development has been aided by working with Reiss, who helped Virginia reach the 1991 national title game. Dangerfield has benefitted from being mentored by assistant coach Shea Ralph, a star on the Huskies’ 2000 national championship team.
“She has really taken me under her wing,” said Dangerfield, who had 16 points and six assists in her first NCAA tournament game. “I hear her voice more than his sometimes and it is just little things that she knows I can do but I am not doing it as hard as I could be. It is every day even on our off days and she knows what I can do better.
Getting tips on defense, she gives me goals and that is one of them and hopefully steals and just being aggressive on the offensive end making plays.”
Dangerfield torched Baylor for 19 points in her second collegiate game which only raised the expectation level that Ralph had for her latest prodigy.
“I am the only person on the staff who has played for these two (UConn coach Geno Auriemma and associate head coach Chris Dailey),’ Ralph said. ”I understand that struggle as a freshman. Crystal, she came in, won every award you could win in high school, was the best player in her state, probably the best point guard in the country, really didn’t have to try to completely dominate every game she played in. Now you get here and you can’t do anything right. You are not working hard enough and you are not playing because you are not working hard enough. We are telling her all this stuff she needs to get better at and in her mind, ‘I feel like I have never played before.’ A lot of times you see them take a couple of steps back and you see them give up, but Crystal hasn’t done that. She’s been put through the ringer and there is a lot of attention on the team this year from a lot of different angles and for her to have grown especially over the last couple of weeks the way she has, her mentality is changing. She is a great teammate, she has embraced her role. I think the sky is the limit, she is just getting started.”
ESPN analyst and former UConn star Rebecca Lobo has said more than once on the air that Dangerfield might be the best passer UConn has brought in. Ralph isn’t quite to make that statement, but she has been blown away by some of Dangerfield’s passes.
“Some of passes she makes, I am on the bench saying, ‘wow,’” Ralph said. “That doesn’t happen a lot, but Crystal sees things that when I am watching the game, I don’t see. It says a lot that she is willing to take those risks. You see her make plays with the ball where she makes a risky play and it has to be perfect and every time it is perfect. She makes it look really easy. It is not easy.”
Dangerfield had a threegame stretch late in the season when she averaged 12.3 points and 6.3 assists per game setting the stage for her impressive NCAA debut. It is an environment Dangerfield has wanted to be a part of since she was in attendance at the Southeastern Conference women’s tournament held in Nashville, about a 30-40 minute drive from her Murfreesboro, Tennessee home, three times between 200812.
“They’ve had it in Nashville a lot of years so my parents took me. The excitement builds in the arena and I am excited to be a part of it,” Dangerfield said.
So what does she remember from being the SEC’s best teams fight it out for the title?
“Just the attention to detail, how much fight each team has because if you don’t play to your ability, it could be your last game of the season,” Dangerfield said.