Guru’s WBB Report: Connecticut Wins First Battle of Big East Ranked Teams

By Mel Greenberg @womhopsguru

DePaul women’s basketball coach Doug Bruno could be heard barking out plays in the final seconds of his No. 18 Blue Demon’s 75-52 loss to No. 4 Connecticut Tuesday night on the road in the Huskies’ nearly empty Gampel Pavilion, the campus arena in Storrs.

Afterwards, he was quick to concede the opponent he continued to schedule during the recently concluded seven years in which UConn produced a perfect record in regular  and postseason play in the American Athletic Conference.

“UConn’s got another great basketball team,, they’re just a different kind of great basketball team,” Bruno said. “Paige (freshman Paige Bueckers) is a special player, and they’re just going to get better as the season goes along. I thought our players competed but they just didn’t execute well enough offensively and we couldn’t make enough stops.”

With UConn departed during that interim, DePaul filled the void at the Big East championship level along with bids from Marquette, whom the Demons (5-3, 2-1 Big East) will visit Sunday,.

“We’re just not big enough,” Bruno  spoke to the inside domination from Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who had a  double double, of 16 points and 14 rebounds and reserve Aaliyah Edwards, who had missed the Nova game with an injury but returned with 11 points..

Paige, a contender for national freshman of the year, had 4-6 three pointers on the way to 18 points with five assists, though Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma said afterwards to the TV people she was more like a freshman against DePaul.

“Her stats will say one thing, but she will tell you this was not one of her better nights,” he said afterwards in the postgame zoom software media press conference.

Auriemma is still coaxing her to take more shots, off her proclivity to want to pass first.

Chrystin Williams had 14 points, including another in a long list of Huskies in program history with her 1,000th. Tennessee transfer Evina Westbrook scored 10 for the Huskies (6-0, 5-0 Big East).

Just one DePaul player scored in double figures, freshman. Darrione Rogers, who had a double double of 20 points and 10 rebounds..

Going into the game, as high scoring as Bruno’s offense is averarging in the 80s, the anticipation was for a track meet featuring a festival of three-point shots.

Instead, it became a battle of defenses, with Auriemma saying there had been improvement from last week’s win at Villanova, which the Wildcats contested the first 15 minutes.

The Blue Demons did likewise with several comebacks and at the outset of the third quarter, DePaaul moved within six and then the moving blue and white defensive roof fell in.

This game was originally going to be played later, but got moved into the slot Tuesday in the ongoing  schedule reshuffle, like other conferences, due to positive testing and caution protocols from COVID-19.

The bigger news announced earlier in the day was the rematch on Jan. 31 in DePaul’s Wintrust Arena, which had housed the Big East women’s tourney in recent seasons, would become the first women’s basketball game to air on the main FOX network. The FOX families of broadcast outlets are the principal  TV  partner of the Big East. 

“I’m  sure there will be more,”  said Auriemma, whose program has its own bulk of TV games allowed to be retained from its previous deal with SNY-TV. 

ESPN is the principal partner of The American, though UConn will show up on that network in some national intersectional games.

Meanwhile, Auriemma is now at career triumph 1,197, one-short of tying the late legendary Hall of Fame Tennessee coach Pat Summitt for second.

“The amazing thing is he’s winning 90 percent of his games and that’s going back to the Big East before the refiguration,” Bruno said.

Earlier this month, Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer eclipsed the mark and now holds the record at 1,101 and gotten most of the luster because if not this year, perhaps next, Auriemma and VanDerveer will likely to be going through a stretch of trading back and forth until someone decides before the other to step down in the future.

“I was counting on the walls how many multi-all-Americans we’ve had here,” Auriemma said. “Seventeen. When you have that, things like this are going to happen.”

On one hand, if not for VanDerveer or if Summitt had not had to step down and ultimate succumb in her battle with Alzheimer’s disease, the whole scene around the mark would  be different given the  glory days wars of the Tennessee-UConn rivalry, which, barring cancellation caused by the coronavirus, will be resumed for the second straight year, this time in Knoxville on Jan. 21, following the Huskies’ win last year when the two powerhouses played for the first time since 2007.

But then again, if Summit were still alive, none of this would be up for discussion because she would be still practicing winning distancing on both Auriemma and VanDerveer.

Ironically, though, and appropriately, to reach the tie in his next game, Auriemma’s squad gets to play inherently a Final Four measuring contest when UConn visits No. 7 Baylor next Thursday in Waco, Texas.

Forget the Bears’ ranking number, they’re still.a Final Four contender and UConn is only going to get this game and the South Carolina game in February tor measuring at the highest level, thanks to the virus dislodging several other prominent games from the schedule.

Looking Ahead: Two games of intrigue to start the New Year this weekend went by the boards Tuesday afternoon when a positive test in the Tennessee program caused a postponement to a future date between the Lady Vols and No. 13 Kentucky.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Coast Conference thought it had a scheduling problem solved when North Carolina got knocked out of a game caused by problems on Syracuse, while the Duke decision to suspend its season, left Louisville open and so a game was set between UNC and the Cardinals for this weekend until traveling issues knocked that one out of the box.

Temple came up with a positive test so the Owls’ visit to Tulane in New Orleans Wednesday was put off and on the last weekend  of the new month in the New Year when Temple will play back-to-back games on Jan. 30 and Jan . 31 at Tulane.

Penn State, which has been idle, will host No. 14 Maryland at noon Thursday in a Big Ten clash on the conference network up in State College, while the suddenly high-scoring Rutgers machine will play Big Ten rival Iowa in Iowa City at 3 p.m.

There’s  a huge  PAC-12 game Friday with No. 1 Stanford visiting No. 6 Arizona, while La Salle will be hosting Rhode Island in an Atlantic 10 opener. We’ll get back to you on whether Saint Joseph’s quarantine is over to host Massachusetts Ffriday in its Atlantic 10 opener he same day.

On Saturday, Villanova, in its first game since its first loss, which was the UConn game last week, will host Georgetown at 1 p.m. As mentioned previously,  Rider now hosts Fairfield in its third weekend of back-to-back MAAC games at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in Alumni Gym instead of in Friday and Saturday nights in Lawrenceville, N.J. 

If not 24 hours from now, your Guru will return with a New Year’s final off the two local Big Ten games and other action.

And that’s the report.