Collier, Dickson latest stars to hail from St. Louis area

STORRS » When debating the top areas for girls basketball becomes a topic of conversation, the St. Louis region is often overlooked.

However, the Gateway to the West connections will be hard to miss when the topranked UConn women’s basketball team goes after its NCAA basketball record 97th consecutive win when Tulsa comes to Gampel Pavilion on Sunday (1 p.m., SNY).

Napheesa Collier, the Huskies’ second leading scorer and rebounder, has lived about 30 minutes outside of St. Louis since her family relocated from Jefferson City, Missouri, while Tulsa hot-shot freshman guard Shug Dickson is a native of St. Louis.

The last time the topranked UConn women’s basketball team squared off against Tulsa, the scouting report on Shug Dickson was somewhat incomplete.

The freshman guard from St. Louis hit five 3-pointers and scored 21 points for the host Golden Hurricane, the most for any freshman against the Huskies in a conference game since Rutgers’ Tyler Scaife had 22 on Jan. 19, 2014.

Collier might have been the only Husky not surprised to see Dickson get rolling offensively.

“Obviously I knew her from St. Louis and she is pretty good,” Collier said. “I think she did really well, she had five 3s and that is really impressive especially for a freshman.”

How impressive have Dickson and Collier been in recent play? Heading into Saturday’s games, the only American Athletic Conference players with more points than the 115 scored by Dickson are UConn’s Katie Lou Samuelson and Kolby Morgan from Tulane. Collier is right behind with 112 points during that span.

While Dickson has been playing her best basketball recently, Collier has been producing since the season began. Her scoring average has soared from 6.8 points as a freshman to 19.1 as a sophomore. It is the eighth highest jump among active Division I women’s basketball players. Some of the credit for her success can be traced back to her development as a player when she was starring at the high school and AAU level.

“I think getting exposure, getting on AAU programs helps a lot,” Collier said. “I think getting on teams young and being in these situations early because I was in sixth grade and going to the nationals so (she got used to) being in high pressure situations.”

Collier is far from satisfied, however.

“Last game I tried to be a little less hesitant than in the past couple of games so that is something I need to work on,” Collier said. “I am kind of late on my passes, hesitating to shoot or making any kind of play.”

Dickson is the first Tulsa freshman dating back to the 1996-97 season to have three consecutive 20-point games. She has scored at least 20 points on five occasions this season.

Dickson has scored in double figures in each of the last seven games with five games of at least 20 points as she has seen her scoring average jump from 5.7 to 9.6 points per game. The highlight during that run came against the Huskies. Tulsa had 13 3-pointers in the game, the most the Huskies have given up this season with Dickson draining five of them.

“She is probably taking a lot of people by surprise in the sense that is not the scouting report,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “It is hard to get a scouting report sometimes on freshmen because you haven’t seen them play enough but ever since our game they have scored a lot of points. They have an interesting style of play and she is kind of fearless, just kind of plays and her style of play fits in perfectly, they usually play without a big guy so they are able to spread the floor.”