UCONN Women Roll Over Colgate

Thursday night behind double-doubles from Tina Charles and Brittany Hunter, the UCONN Lady Huskies easily took care of the Colgate Raiders 81-37. Tina Charles had 18 pts and 17 rebounds while Brittany Hunter added 12 pts and 10 rebounds. The Huskies move 2-0 on the young season and will now embark on a 7 day 6 night trip to Italy.

Tonight was my first real look at the Huskies. I will honestly say things are clicking on all cylinders for them right now. It didn’t really matter who they had on the floor because it seemed like most of their shots were going down. Colgate was tremendously overmatched in this one as well as they could not compete with the Huskies speed and height. It was also nice to see other players besides Mel Thomas and Renee Montgomery have to lead the Huskies offense although Thomas had 15 pts and Montgomery added 12 to the cause.
Notes and Observations:

• Tonight’s starters were Thomas, Montgomery, Greene, Charles and Houston.
• Tina Charles actually had a double-double in the first half with 15 pts and 11 rebounds before finishing with 18 and 17 respectively.
• It was nice to see Brittany Hunter have a great game. She has been bothered by a troublesome right knee but that was not evident tonight. She was able to run the floor like normal and was able to jump for rebounds. It will be interesting to see if her knee swelled up after the game tonight and how it will react on the long flight over to Italy.
• Kaili McClaren was benched for most of the game because she did not have the enthusiasm that is expected during the pregame warm-ups. I am sure you won’t see this happen again from any of the Lady Huskies again.
• Although Charde Houston finished with 10 pts, she didn’t show the stuff she had in the first game. She was limited to 8 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble again.
• The Huskies defense held the Raiders to 20.9% shooting for the game. From what I saw the Huskies defense was very active tonight. They did spend most of the game in a zone.
• They also held one of Colgate’s best players, Caitlin Gillard, to just one point.
• Free throw shooting is still a concern for the Huskies as they shot just 57.1% for the game. This number will need to improve drastically before the Big East part of the schedule starts up.
• 20 pts from the bench is a drastic improvement over last game and this trend should continue as the season goes forward.
• All of the Huskies players saw action in the game.
• Coach Geno Auriemma is now 9 wins away from 600 in his career.

After a 7 day 6 night exhibition tour in Italy, the Lady Huskies will return to action on November 28th vs Boston University at 7:30 PM at Gampel Pavillion.