Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis or “Baby Jesus” as UConn Huskies women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma refers to her, didn’t exactly light the scoreboard up with points on Saturday night. But she did other things that helped the team win.
There was no worry of it happening two games in a row though as KML had 23 points to lead the Huskies to a relatively easy 78-38 win over the Dayton Flyers in front of 6,486 at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, CT in the World Vision Classic.
The Huskies (6-0) won all three of their games in the World Vision Classic to be the defacto champions. The Flyers fall to 3-3 on the season and finished the tournament at 2-1.
KML, who pulled down six rebounds, was one of five Huskies in double figures on the afternoon. Bria Hartley and Stefanie Dolson both had 11 points with Hartley adding six rebounds and Dolson had a game-high seven rebounds. Tiffany Hayes had 10 points, three assists and four steals while Kelly Faris had 10 points, four assists and five steals.
This time around, Laura Englen wasn’t the only Husky not to score. Those “honors” went to Michala Johnson.
De’Sarae Chambers paced the Flyers with eight points as did Cassie Sant, who came off the bench to score eight points. Olivia Applewhite added seven points. Casey Nance, daughter of former NBA player Larry Nance, led Dayton with six rebounds.
Everyone thought that this would be the toughest game the Huskies would play over the three days. Instead, this was one was pretty much over early on.
UConn opened up the game with a 17-3 run and didn’t allow Dayton’s first basket until 14:23 when Applewhite knocked down a jumper. They would just continue the onslaught throughout the half working their lead up to 47-16 at the half behind KML who had 19 first half points, including five three-pointers.
It was more of the same in the second half as the Huskies continued to work their offense while letting up a little on defense. Part of the reason they built that big lead in the first half was their unrelenting pressure on the defensive end of the court.
Overall a good weekend of the basketball from the Huskies. It’s still early in the season and now Geno will have some time to work on the correctable mistakes the Huskies have made offensively. Right now, there isn’t too much wrong defensively, if anything at all.
The Huskies will be back in action on Wednesday night when they’ll host the Towson Tigers at the XL Center in Hartford, CT. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast locally here in Connecticut on CPTV.
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Notes and musings:
Dayton Flyers @ UConn Huskies 11-27-11 box score
Here are the postgame quotes from UConn head coach Geno Auriemma and Dayton head coach Jim Jabir.
This was the 89th straight win at home for UConn and that is the most in NCAA history across all divisions.
The starters for the Huskies were Bria Hartley, Caroline Doty, Tiffany Hayes, Kelly Faris and Stefanie Dolson.
UConn shot 51% (25-49) from the floor while Dayton shot 27.5% (14-51).
The Huskies had 15 assists on their 25 made baskets.
UConn was 7-of-14 (50%) on three pointers with Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis going 6-of-8. The Flyers were just 3-of-23 (13%) from downtown.
The Huskies were 21-of-27 (77.8%) from the charity stripe.
UConn won the battle of the glass, outrebounding Dayton 39-26.
The Huskies outscored the Flyers 34-18 in the paint and 12-9 on second chance points.
Both teams had four points on the fast break.
UConn had 22 points off of 23 Dayton turnovers. The Flyers had three points off of 17 Huskies turnovers.
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Photo credit: Brad Horrigan – Hartford Courant (No. 3 in gallery)
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