Huskies soar to easy win
Defense leads the way while Collier scores 22, Samuelson 21
STORRS — The blueprint was familiar.
Force a wave of turnovers with a suffocating pressure defense. Create high-percentage shots. Get big performances by the Big 3.
It spelled another convincing victory in American Athletic Conference play for UConn.
The third-ranked Huskies overwhelmed SMU 79-39 Wednesday night before a crowd of 9,402 at Gampel Pavilion.
“We were trying to get ourselves some easy buckets if we can,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said, “and trying to get the game going a little quicker. (We’re) trying to create as many possessions as we can.”
The Huskies (17-1, 6-0 AAC) befuddled SMU with a modified version of their full-court press. They coaxed the Mustangs into 16 first-half turnovers and 24 for the game.
“We pressed differently today than we had been,” guard Katie Lou Samuelson said. “It’s something small. We pressed with just adding a person on the ball. It changes the whole rotation of everything once you add that in.”
Slightly different defense. Strikingly similar results.
Napheesa Collier paced the Huskies with 22 points, eight rebounds, six blocks and four assists, while Samuelson finished with 21 points and five assists.
“We were extremely active,” Collier said. “It was a lot of fun for us to play that way. We had a lot of energy. That’s how we want to play with pressure.”
This, like most of the other 106 victories in AAC play, was over within minutes. The Huskies used a quick 11-0 run to jump in front 24-10 after one quarter. The lead would balloon to 30 at halftime.
“That pressing kind of gets us mismatches a lot,” Samuelson said. “It gets people in positions that they don’t necessarily want to be in. When we set up, they have the game plan, they clearly scouted us, they clearly know every offense we run because that’s what teams do to prepare to play against us.
“But when we’re in transition, we don’t necessarily run anything. You can’t guard when you don’t know what’s happening. You can’t guard when we don’t even know what’s going to happen.”
The Mustangs — playing with seven freshmen, the second-most
in the country behind Wichita State and FAU — were miles behind the Huskies in the open court. Crystal Dangerfield (eight points, eight assists) quarterbacked the Huskies to 21 fast-break points.
“We were joking around in the locker room that whenever Crystal gets in the lane, I can be on the opposite end of the court and there’s a chance it’s coming to me. I have to be ready,” Samuelson said. “You just never know who it’s going to go to. Phee always says if (Dangerfield’s) not looking at you, you’re getting the ball.”
Altogether, it was another dominant night for the Huskies, another sign of progress for the 11-time national champions, who would like to build more consistency heading into next week’s showdown with another top-5 opponent — Louisville.
“This was our best game so far defensively,” said freshman Christyn Williams, who had 12 points. “We got a lot of steals, a lot of deflections, a lot of stops. That’s really what we’ve been working on in practice.”
Alicia Froling led the Mustangs with 13 points and 13 rebounds.
UConn will return to the court Sunday when it hosts UCF for a 4 p.m. tipoff at the XL Center in Hartford. Achievements in the classroom: All UConn athletes who had earned a 3.0 GPA or higher over the last two semesters were honored during the game. Among them were seven of the 10 players on Auriemma’s team.
“The academic part of what we do is incredibly important to our program,” Auriemma said. “Our players know it, they take great pride in it. We take great pride in it. They’re the kind of kids we recruit.
“They expect to do well academically. They challenge themselves.” Familiar name: Johnasia Cash, a cousin of former UConn star Swin Cash, collected 12 points and 12 rebounds for SMU.
Auriemma said he saw some similarities in the way they played.
“She’s got a little bit of Swin in her,” he said. “She does. She’s got a little attitude. Swin was, I think, the one that had the most ever on our team, probably.
“I said to the coaches on the bench, ‘This kid’s going to be a problem. She’s going to beat people up. She’s fearless.’ That’s exactly how Swin was.”