Guru’s WBB Report: UConn and Freshman Paige Bueckers Off to A Smashing Start While Rider Falls Again to Manhattan

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The outcome was predictable long before No. 3 Connecticut finally got to take the floor at home in the Huskies’ Gampel Pavilion on the Storrs campus Saturday afternoon against UMass Lowell in a game cobbled together after both teams’ schedules were disrupted off testing results for the coronavirus from the initial start of the overall NCAA season on the day before Thanksgiving.

But with celebrated No. 1 recruit Paige Bueckers, the next big thing in the celebrated UConn program set to make her collegiate debut, an air of anticipation existed among the few local media and limited family members of the home team allowed in the arena.

And as one might say if it was an election night broadcast, with less than two percent of the total points of the game to hit the scoreboard counted off an 11-0 run at the outset, the victory desk quickly declared the outcome for the Huskies well in advanced of the 40 minutes completed to put the 79-23 result into the long-running collection of 25 season-opening triumphs dating back to the mid-1990s when the last one was dropped in 1995.

The River Hawks, whose coach Tom Garrett is married to UConn assistant and former star Shea Ralph, fell to 0-2.

UMass Lowell had just lost playing a game due to the virus and according to the Hartford Courant, off an off-handed conversation Ralph had with an administrator, when she returned home, “He was watching a basketball game. I sat on the couch and said, ‘Do you want to play us? They wanted me to ask you.’ 

“He said, `Sure. We could do that.’ It was literally a two-sentence conversation at home.” 

As for Bueckers, said her coach Hall of Famer Geno Auriemma after his 1,092nd career victory launching his 36th season was in the books, “I think Paige was Paige.

“Paige did all the things that Paige does. She scored some points. She rebounded the ball. She stole the ball. She passed the ball. She had a feel for our offense. Her first game as a collegiate player, I think she played great.”

Numerically speaking, Bueckers’ totals were a game-high 17 points, nine rebounds, five assists, five steals, and committing only three turnovers.

According to Her Hoop Stats, the site which tracks these things in the women’s game, Bueckers was just the third freshman to record such a line in five seasons and the first in her very first game.

“It was really fun,” she said. “We’ve been waiting to play basketball for nine months and just for it to be our first college game as well, it was just really exciting to get out there. No fans, it didn’t really matter. Our whole team just wanted to play basketball.

“Before the game I was really nervous, in warmups I was nervous, before the tip I was nervous, but once you start playing basketball, it was just like any other game,”

There likely was a nationwide audience on a day the women’s schedules did not have wide appeal since the broadcast on the SNY local package was also available for those who have the FOXNOW apps to use on phones, tablets, and laptops.

To be fair, yeah, don’t get too gaga, considering the opposition compared to what UConn normally faces on the front end of the season.

“I think it’s going to take a few games before we know what we have,” said Auriemma. “I don’t know if we are going to be one of those elite defensive teams. But we might down the road. But who that one player is to take the other team’s best player, we don’t know that yet.”

The game featured former Huskies star Napheesa Collier of the WNBA Minnesota Lynx via video announcing the starting lineup.

At the end of last season, the doubt that existed on whether UConn could keep its Women’s Final Four appearance streak alive became moot when the NCAA tournament was cancelled less than a week after the Huskies captured their seventh straight and final American Athletic Conference title completing a perfect record in both regular and postseason play in the league.

This season the Huskies return to the Big East Conference that got revamped following the exit of the university with the football group of the old conference and the athletic programs such as Notre Dame and Louisville that dashed to the Atlantic Coast Conference, while Rutgers shipped off to the Big Ten.

In the recently re-jiggered schedule, Connecticut’s first Big East game will now be Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. at Seton Hall’s Walsh Gym in South Orange, N.J., televised again on SNY but available on the FOXNOW apps.

“We practiced for four months, and I learned more about my team today than I did in those four months,” Auriemma said. “And after Tuesday’s game, I’ll know twice as much as I did in those four months. So for me, these are all learning experiences, finding out about my team.”

What he did find out was he has enhanced upper class leadership with the return to the floor of Tennessee transfer Evina Westbrook, who played for the first time in two seasons after missing the previous due to an injury while eligible in Knoxville and last season when the NCAA did not grant a waiver to allow her immediate eligibility.

“I thought Evina had a really good day, considering she hasn’t played in two years,” Auriemma said.

The new Husky had five points, two steals and four assists.

We knew were going to make mistakes, little mistakes that we shouldn’t be making,” Westbrook said. “But now we have a better understanding as individuals and as a team of what we need to really focus on in practice.”

The forced new ambience with cutout pictures of fans as has been the case in many sports arenas arenas around the country since the total total shutdown last March and return of pro sports in the early summer in baseball, basketball and hockey ahead of the NFL had Auriemma taken aback.

“This is the weirdest thing ever, man,” he said. “I looked over in the end zone, and we had more dog posters at our game than we had human beings.”

Auriemma is currently behind the late Pat Summitt, the Tennessee Hall of Famer, at 1,098, and Stanford Hall of Famer Tara VanDerveer, who can tie Summitt for total Division I Women’s Basketball coaching victories by beating host California across the bay in a PAC-12 game tipping 10 p.m. in the East on Sunday night. 

The Cardinal then have a non-conference game with Pacific on Tuesday.

Manhattan Sweep Keeps Rider Winless: In the only Division I local women’s game, which was played Saturday night, the Broncs fell again at home to Manhattan, this time 50-38, in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game at Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J.

It was the second straight night Rider (0-6, 0-2 MAAC) fell at home to the Jaspers (2-1, 2-0), coached by former Villanova assistant Heather Vullin, whose squad was made the favorite in preseason voting by her colleagues.

Under a new format in the MAAC to cope with avoiding the coronavirus, teams are playing their home-and-away games, alternating with the sane opponents in back-to-back arrangements.

Rider, which swept Manhattan last year on the way to the top seed in the MAAC tourney, which was cancelled last March in Atlantic City after the quarterfinals, fell to the Jaspers 56-51 on Friday night.

 Next Friday and  Saturday, the Broncs will travel to Iona in suburban New York City in New Rochelle for a pair of games.

In this one, scoring was a problem for the home team, which did not have any player reach double figures.

Manhattan fought off the Broncs’ effort from the first three quarters to take control in the final period.

“It was another tough loss,” said Rider’s veteran coach Lynn Milligan. “We played three quarters good enough to win. I don’t think the fourth quarter was indicative how we played the first three. We had some breakdowns defensively in that fourth quarter and unfortunately, it cost us.”

Courtney Warley had a double double for the visitors with 14 points and 13 rebounds, while Dee Dee Davis scored 11.

Rider’s Amanda Mobley and Lenaejha Evans each shared team highs with eight points, while Makayla Firebaugh, Victoria Toomey, and Ralphaela Toussaint each scored seven points.

Looking Ahead - Drexel and Villanova Tangle While Saint Joseph’s Finally Plays: A year ago Drexel hosted Villanova in the Dragons’ Daskalakis Athletic Center when then home team coach Denise Dillon went against her former coach Harry Perretta on his way to retirement at the end of a 42-year career all spent on the Main Line.

In an exciting game, Drexel won at the finish in the last play in overtime.

The rematch is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the Wildcats’ Finneran Pavilion in a new set of emotions surrounding the game.

Dillon, as many forecast, has gone home to her alma mater succeeding Perretta and has Villanova off to a terrific 5-0 start, with Rider, Temple, and La Salle on the victims’ list as well as Quinnipiac and Big East rival Saint John’s. The key has been sophomore Maddy Siegrist, filling the stats with double doubles and already earning two Big Five and Big East players of the week, while the return of Brianna Herlihy has also helped.

The new ‘Nova coach also brought along former Saint Joseph’s star Michelle Baker from her previous staff.

Down at Drexel, Amy Mallon, who was Dillon’s top assistant for their 17 seasons, moved up as head coach and her staff includes former Villanova star Laura Kurz from Perretta’s group.

The Dragons are also off to an unbeaten start at 2-0 and in the wake of Bailey Greenberg’s graduation, Hanna Nihill has become the top scorer in both wins.

Meanwhile, on Hawk Hill after being knocked out by coronavirus testing off the original start, Saint Joseph’s will be hosting area Division II power Lincoln at 2 p.m. as the home team finally gets its season under way.

Those are the only two local games on the books, while Rutgers, off its 2-0 start, including Friday’s Big Ten opening win at Wisconsin, on Monday at 2 p.m. has a big one in hosting No. 14 Maryland in its Big Ten home opener in Piscataway, N.J.

Nationally, Sunday, besides the game mentioned earlier involving top-ranked Stanford, a national rivalry continues with No. 23 Texas hosting Tennessee, a team new Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer faced many times when he went against the Lady Vols in the Southeastern Conference wars guiding Mississippi State.

Two ranked teams in the PAC-12 face each other in the Border Wars game when Oregon State in Corvallis hosts Oregon.

On Tuesday, Saint Joseph’s comes right back by hosting Monmouth at 2 p.m.

On Wednesday, Drexel is at La Salle at 7, Villanova is at Providence in the Big East, and DePaul nationally hosts Kentucky.

And that’s the report.