Unstoppable UConn women slam dunk Louisville 75-36

HARTFORD – Considerate folks that they are, UConn fans wanted to spare the Louisville faithful another night of nail-biting endings when the women met Tuesday night in a re-match of the 2008 Big East Tournament championship game - won by the Huskies.

In this year’s title game, the Huskies quickly passed their six-point winning margin of a year ago, jumping to a 9-0 lead and, like the Energizer bunny, they just kept going and going, piling up a 26-point halftime bulge en route to a 75-36 victory over Louisville, ranked fifth in the nation.

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said he did not expect such an easy win.

“I could not have envisioned anything like this. I was surprised and I think every other coach on the staff was just as surprised,” said Auriemma after he had guided his team to its second consecutive Big East Tournament championship and 15th overall.

Unbeatable defense

For the third time in three tournament games at the XL Center in Hartford, UConn shut down the opponent’s leading scorer, this time senior forward Angel McCoughtry, who was held to nine points.

“What I’m really proudest of, is that in all the big games we’ve played this year, these kids have really been committed to the defensive end,” Auriemma said.

On Sunday, the Huskies shut out Jazmine Sepulveda, no small feat, since the South Florida senior had just one day earlier tied a tournament record with eight three-pointers in the Bulls’ second-round win over Cincinnati.

Then on Monday night, for the second straight game, UConn held the opponent’s hot scorer scoreless, shutting out Villanova’s Laura Kurz, who had scored 21 points to lead the Wildcats’ upset against Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.

In the championship game, Angel McCoughtry managed to break the shutout skein, but still couldn’t hit double digits in the “points scored” column.

Dream team

Louisville may have had an Angel, but Auriemma is orchestrating an angelic choir this year, a team playing on a higher plane.

Having won their first two tournament games by 37 and 30 points respectively, on Tuesday the top-ranked Huskies continued their torrid tourney pace, thereby sparing Cardinal fans the crunch-time angst they’d been forced to endure in Louisville’s first two tourney games - when the team needed double overtime to get to the semi-finals, and then managed to pull out a win in their next game after trailing with 73 seconds to play.

Thus far this campaign, Auriemma’s troops have marched through the competition with a scorched earth policy that rivals Sherman’s visit to Georgia: the 33-0 Huskies have won by 30 or more points 19 times (including a mid-January visit to then-second-ranked North Carolina) and their smallest score differential has been 10 (Notre Dame and Rutgers). That doesn’t include 28-point victories over Oklahoma, currently ranked third in the nation, and Louisville, six weeks ago.

Moore named tournament’s Otstanding Player

Factoring in the steadying influence of senior leader Renee Montgomery - and the continued scoring prowess of two-time Big East Player of the Year Maya Moore, who was named the tournament’s Outstanding Player – Auriemma says the key to finishing the season undefeated is for the team’s junior center to keep on dominating in the paint.

“I keep saying to myself over and over and over again every day, ‘If Tina Charles continues playing under the boards like she has been, we can win the rest of our games,” Auriemma said after his team had disposed of Villanova, 72-42, in their semifinal game Monday night.

Against the Wildcats, Charles had seven rebounds and 16 points, only one behind Moore for the team lead.

Almost as though to make her coach a prophet, Charles came back with a monster game against Louisville, snagging 15 rebounds and scoring 21 - once again second to Moore, who scored 28.

Charles was named to the All-Tournament Team, along with fellow junior Kalana Greene, Pittsburgh’s Shavonte Zellous and a pair of Louisville players, McCoughtry and Candyce Bingham.

High praise for Hayes from coach

While those women were being recognized for their offensive contributions in the tournament, Auriemma was also toasting the efforts of some low-scoring members of the championship team, most notably guard Tiffany Hayes who only had two points in the Villanova game, but nonetheless drew high praise from her coach for her defensive effort.

Hayes shut down Kurz, holding the Villanova three-point whiz scoreless Monday night without any help from her friends.

Auriemma told the freshman she wouldn’t be getting any double-team help on Kurz who was thus deprived from making a quick assist to a teammate left suddenly unguarded.

“I just told Tiffany, ‘this is on you,’ ” Auriemma said. “You give her a defensive challenge and she gets fired up for it,” he said.

An understatement, if you ask Kurz about Hayes’ suffocating D.

“I couldn’t even breathe,” said the senior forward.

Winning strategy

While the Husky defense was churning on all cylinders, so was the offense against Villanova, carrying out Auriemma’s desire to keep the defensive pressure on the slow and deliberate long-ball offense employed by the Wildcats by making them keep pace with a high-scoring offense.

To that end, Montgomery poured in an even dozen and Kalana Greene chipped in with 11, a little less than her season-high 20 points which paced UConn’s 79-42 win over South Florida in Sunday’s quarterfinal game.

Moore tallied “only” 11 points against USF, which had Auriemma offering the sensational sophomore some sage advice about trying to do things on offense that could detract from her scoring output: “I don’t want her to think about being Maya Moore, I just want her to be Maya Moore, because Maya Moore is what makes us a great team. The other players make us a good team, but she makes us a great team,” Auriemma said.

A sentiment shared by Louisville head coach Jeff Walz, who praised Moore for “her ability to dominate a game, [which] is just unique. There aren’t many players in the country as talented as her and the scary thing is she’s only a sophomore,” Walz said.

Next game at Gampel

Connecticut now gets a long layoff to prepare for the NCAA Tournament opener at Gampel Pavilion on the afternoon of March 22, with the Huskies guaranteed to play their first two games in Storrs. The second-round game is set for March 24 at 7 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com or by calling 860-525-4500. Single-session tickets are priced at $22 for adults and $15 for youth and senior citizens. Strips good for all three games in Storrs are also available.

Posted March 10, 2009