Whenever you play a ranked team in women’s college basketball, you expect the game to be fairly close. That wasn’t the case on Monday night.
Bria Hartley led six Huskies in double figures with 17 points as the UConn Huskies went on to a very easy 86-35 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels in front of 9,221 and nationally televised audience on ESPN2 at Gampel Pavilion on campus in Storrs, CT.
With the win, the Huskies improve to 15-2 while the Tar Heels fall to 12-5. The 51 point loss for the Tar Heels was the worst in the history of their program.
Besides her 17 points, Hartley paced the Huskies with eight assists. Despite shooting 5-of-16 from the floor (3-of-13 from three, reigning Big East Freshman of the Week Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis had 15 points and six rebounds. Tiffany Hayes added 13 points and seven rebounds while Caroline Doty and Stefanie Dolson both chipped in with 10 points.
One game after being benched for her lack of effort in practice, Kia Stokes responded with her best game of the season. She had 11 points and 11 rebounds in 14 minutes of action. Kelly Faris also had a nice all around game with eight points, seven rebounds and five assists.
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt paced the Tar Heels with nine points and eight rebounds. Krista Gross added eight points and six rebounds while Laura Broomfield had six points and eight rebounds.
Besides the score being 0-0, the closest the Tar Heels got in this was when they trailed 6-4. The Huskies put this one out of reach early using a 15-0 run to open up a 20 point lead at 26-6.
UConn would use another 15-0 run to push their lead to 35 points at 49-14 before the team exchanged baskets before half giving the Huskies a 51-16 lead.
The only question that remained in the second half was how much the starters would play.
They did see some action early in the half as the Huskies continued their dominance building the lead to 50 points at 71-21 in the first eight and half minutes. From there, the bench took over for UConn allowing them to get some valuable minutes.
Those minutes proved to be good ones for Stokes who showed what she can do. Now she needs to carry over her great effort into practice and into the next game.
That next game will come on Thursday night when former Husky player and coach Jamelle Elliott brings her Cincinnati Bearcats squad to Gampel Pavilion. Tip is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the game will be broadcast locally on CPTV.
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Notes and musings:
North Carolina Tar Heels @ UConn Huskies 1.16.12 box score
Here are the postgame quotes from UConn head coach Geno Auriemma and North Carolina head coach Sylvia Hatchell. There are player quotes as well.
Today was Kelly Faris’ 21st birthday.
UConn has won their last five games against the Tar Heels by an average of 32 points. They now lead the series 7-5.
This was UConn’s 95th straight home win.
The starters for the Huskies were the usual five suspects of Bria Hartley, Caroline Doty, Tiffany Hayes, Kelly Faris and Stefanie Dolson.
The Huskies shot 48.6% (34-70) from the floor. The Tar Heels shot 23.2% (13-56).
UConn had 26 assists on their 34 made baskets.
The Huskies were 8-of-29 (27.6%) from beyond the arc while UNC was 1-of-9 (11.1%).
UConn was 10-of-13 (76.9%) from the charity stripe.
The Huskies won the battle of the boards, outrebounding the Tar Heels 48-36.
UConn outscored the Tar Heels 42-14 in the paint and 22-9 on the fast break.
The Huskies had 30 points off of 26 UNC turnovers. The Tar Heels had 14 points off of 17 UConn turnovers.
UConn had 19 second chance points to just eight for UNC.
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Photo credit: John Woike – Hartford Courant (No. 9, 10 in gallery)
