New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Bringing the ‘wow’ factor
UConn point guard Dangerfield provides offensive spark
STORRS — Crystal Dangerfield sprinted on the fast break, ball in hand, intent on getting to the basket. She was flanked on her right by Christyn Williams. Trailing a couple steps behind was Katie Lou Samuelson. A defender stood a few feet in front.
All along, Dangerfield’s teammates wondered what she would do next.
“You never know what she’s going to do,” Mikayla Coombs said. “Coming down on a fast break, it’s like you’re just holding your breath. Is it about to be a behind-the-back pass? Is she going in between the legs? We just talk about it all the time.”
In this instance, Dangerfield opts for the highlightreel play, a pinpoint behind-the-back pass to Samuelson that leads to an open layup in a runaway 97-79 win over then-No. 11 South Carolina in Hartford.
“Crystal’s always trying to make a ‘wow’ pass,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “She’s always trying to make a ‘wow’ play. I’m ok with it as long as it works. You can try anything you want, I don’t care what you do. It better work.”
Added Samuelson: “Crystal brings out those moments to kind of get the crowd going. … You can see Crystal’s personality come out in the stuff she does.”
Dangerfield is the defacto quarterback of UConn’s offense, an athletic and nimble guard who plays with a stroke of fearlessness and has a flair for the dramatic.
“If it’s a fast break or something,” Dangerfield said, “I’ll give the fans what they want to see. But, it’s really just wanting to get the job done.”
Just don’t call her flashy. “I don’t like to say flashiness,” her mother, Davonna, said. “I do think she is a little more creative, and that’s due in part to her size. Also, she’s heavily guarded a lot of the time, so she has to think outside of the box on ways to get the job done.
“She likes to pass. She likes to score, but she really prides herself on being able to pass the ball.”
Passing is something the 5-foot-5 junior out of Murfreesboro, Tenn., is doing at a record rate for the No. 2 team in the country. She’s averaging 6.1 assists through 33 games, which is more than Sue Bird (5.9), Jill Brumbaugh (5.8), Jennifer Rizzotti (5.8), Moriah Jefferson (5.5), Renee Montgomery (5.1) or any other player in this legendary program ever averaged over a full season.
“There’s a sense of calm about her now,” UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said. “That number (6.1) only happens when you have a sense of and you have an idea of who needs the ball and when. You’re not giving Olivia (NelsonOdoda) the ball in places where she can’t have success or Megan (Walker) the ball where she can’t.
“I just think that’s her maturity, it’s her decisionmaking. She’s in a really good place.”
Dangerfield is in midst of the best season of her career, averaging career-highs in not only assists, but also points (13.7) and rebounds (3.5). She’s one of five finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, which is given annually to the best point guard in the country.
With that said, numbers alone can’t tell the full story of Dangerfield’s evolution into a game-changing talent. Dangerfield has shown an ability to stay on the floor after spending a large portion of last season hobbled by shin splints.
“Crystal’s grown so much from her freshman year to now, that it’s, you can’t even put it into words if you knew her as a freshman,” Dailey said of the former top-5 recruit, who averaged just 24 minutes as a freshman and 28.7 as a sophomore. “As a freshman, she probably didn’t make it through an entire practice, probably not one day. Now, she doesn’t want to leave the court, and we can’t have her leave the court. We try to rest her.
“She just has a much better understanding what it takes to compete at this level and what it takes to run a program, a team.”
Added Samuelson: “She’s really become that dependent person that we all can kind of count on when things go wrong.”
Samuelson, the team’s second-leading scorer (18.9 points) and best 3-point shooter, missed the American Athletic Conference Tournament with a back injury, yet the Huskies (31-2) remained in good hands. Thanks in large part to Dangerfield and the iron-proof Napheesa Collier, a candidate for national player of the year, the Huskies won three games in three days to all but lock up a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
LEADING THE WAY
Auriemma is a perfectionist, constantly striving to squeeze every drop of talent out of his players. Sticking to that mindset, he wishes Dangerfield would be more instinctive at times and make even more plays.
“She’s come a long way,” Auriemma said last month following a 109-74 victory over Temple. “She’s a little too cautious at times. But, little by little, she’s starting to open up a little bit more. … Things are going to happen that you’re just going to have to live with sometimes, but I trust her.”
At the moment, Dangerfield finds herself as part of UConn’s Big Three, which includes battle-tested seniors in Collier and Samuelson. But, next year, Dangerfield will be thrust into an even larger role as the Huskies’ unquestioned veteran leader.
Can she handle it? “She’s learning how to spend more time getting to know more of the players, and I think that’s really going to come in handy next year because two players like Pheesa and Lou and Gabby (Williams) and Kia (Nurse) that she’s used to having around … it’s kind of going to be on her. That’s a lot to handle.
“I think she’s going to get even more freedom to do more things. I’m sure there will be a lot of things we’ll have to work through. But, that’s what happens. She’s going to have her hands full. She’s going to have her hands full, let’s put it that way.”
Dangerfield has placed the onus on herself to be a better leader. Naturally soft-spoken, she has made a conscious effort to be more vocal around her teammates.
“She’s grown a lot,” Samuelson said. “People that saw her freshman year and see her now, it’s a completely different person. She’s completely different the way she approaches and walks into practice.”
Completely different, yet easygoing and still carrying a flair for the dramatic.
“She’s just a kid out there playing basketball trying to live her dream,” Davonna said. “There’s nothing more I can add to that.”