After 11 days off the Huskies are back in action against Oklahoma on the road. Photo by Judah Shingleton/The Daily Campus
After taking a short hiatus from games because of finals week, the UConn women’s basketball will be back on the court Wednesday night against Oklahoma.
The (3-6) Sooners are coming off an 87-76 loss to No.20/17 DePaul on Dec. 9th.
The last time the Huskies took to the court was Dec. 8th when they defeated Seton Hall 99-61. Senior Katie Lou Samuelson racked up a double-double in that game with 26 points and 16 rebounds. Samuelson is now second in program history for career three-pointers with 320. She sits behind Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis who amassed 398 in her career.
The game against Oklahoma will mark the return of sophomore Megan Walker who missed two games for the Huskies due to strep throat.
Walker spoke to the Hartford Courant’s Kelli Stacy about returning back to practice after missing time on the court.
“It’s hard,” Walker said. “You feel like you’ve been out forever, but [it’s] just pushing through and trying to get your conditioning back. That’s the main thing, really, is conditioning. You’ve been sitting around 10 days or seven days, so it’s just trying to get your legs back.”
During Walker’s absence, 6-foot-2 junior Kyla Irwin was placed in the starting lineup for the first time in her career.
In a video posted by The UConn Blog, Samuelson detailed the ease in which Irwin meshed into the starting lineup.
“You know, you worry that when someone’s down or a starter’s down you’re going to have to change things or you’re going to have to figure out stuff,” Samuelson said. “Nothing changed, we did the same exact thing but added Kyla in there and she didn’t let up at all for us.”
Oklahoma is a very young team with their top six scorers in their first or second year of Division 1 basketball. Four out of those six are freshman.
Freshman Taylor Robertson ranks second nationally among Division 1 freshman with 18.4 points-per-game so far this season. Robertson has also hit 37 treys so far this season which is the second most 3’s hit by a single-player in the country this season.
Freshman Madi Williams was ranked the No. 24 overall recruit by ESPN HoopGurlz for the 2018 class. Williams is one of two Big 12 players to average a double-double so far this season with 13.9 points per game and 10.0 rebounds per game.
The Sooners are coached by Sherri Coale who is in her 23rd season at the helm of the program. Coale has led her team to six Big 12 Regular Season Championships and 19 straight NCAA tournament appearances.
The Huskies’ game against Oklahoma will begin at 8:30 p.m. and be broadcast on Fox Sports 1.
Mariana Dominguez is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at mariana.dominguez@uconn.edu.