WOMEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY
NO. 4 UCONN AT UCF
When: Sunday, 2 p.m.
Where: CFE Arena, Orlando, Fla.
Records: UCF (20-4, 9-2 AAC); UConn (22-2, 10-0 AAC) TV: SNY/ESPN3
Radio: UConn/IMG Sports Network — 97.9 ESPN-Hartford, WINE 940 AM-Brookfield, WGCH 1490 AM-Greenwich, WICC 600 AM-Bridgeport, WAVZ 1300 AM-New Haven, WXLM 980 AM-New London, WATR 1320 AM-Waterbury, WILI 1400 AMWillimantic
KEEP AN EYE ON
1 Deficiencies on defense: Geno Auriemma believes there are a few weaknesses that his team can mask as they head toward March. Apparently, defense isn’t one of them.
“We’re not going to get better defensively,” the UConn coach said Friday following practice at the Werth Center. “We’ve been at it since October and it’s not going to improve. It is what it is. … There’s some things that we may be able to hide, and we may be able to camouflage a little bit, but there’s some things that we’re just not going to fix.”
The good news is, the Huskies may not need to play lockdown defense for 40 minutes to win in the NCAA tournament.
“You don’t have to be a great defensive team, you just have to be good when you have to be good,” Auriemma continued. “We weren’t great defensively against South Carolina (last Monday), but we were pretty good in the third quarter.
“I think we have it in us to be really good for a short period of time.”
During that third quarter — which Auriemma believes was his team’s best this season — the Gamecocks missed 10 of 14 field goals and were outscored 29-12. The Huskies pulled away to win comfortably, 97-79.
“I said that before the season started, we can’t guard anybody,” Auriemma said. “We have to make a lot of shots. Against really good teams, we have to make a lot of shots.”
1 Slowing it down: With age comes experience. And with experience comes lessons learned.
Katie Lou Samuelson, a senior with 115 starts under her belt, has focused on slowing down her thought process on the court of late.
“I’ve been working on how to read people better because a lot of times I go against players that are quicker than me,” Samuelson said. “For me, I’ve got to be able to use their quickness against them.”
The 6-foot-3 guard seems to have rediscovered her shooting stroke. She’s averaging 26.3 points on 25-of-39 from the floor (8-of-14 from 3) over the last three games.
“Young players rush around. Players who get a little bit older, they slow down,” Auriemma said. “We spent the last couple weeks, she and I, just trying to get her to be patient. She’s in a hurry sometimes to make a play. I’m trying to show her the benefits of patience. … You can’t out-quick somebody quicker than you. You can’t out-run somebody faster than you. You have to get them to stop.”
1 Rankings and rankings: Though the Knights, in midst of their third straight 20-win season, are unranked in the Associated Press poll, they are rated rather favorably in the RPI: 15.
UConn has three wins against teams in the current RPI top-15, including a 93-57 victory over UCF in Hartford on Jan. 27.