Coach Geno Auriemma and his squad lost a tough one to a good Louisville team on Thursday night (File Photo/The Daily Campus)
Last season the UConn women’s basketball team went on a 19-point run against Louisville to secure a 69-58 win against the Cardinals.
This season, the story was very different.
Before the game the Huskies knew they needed to keep Louisville’s Asia Durr under control.
“She’s so good at reading the defense, and you know some players have kind of go-to moves they want to do, or go certain ways with the ball, and then you can kind of figure out ‘you can force them here and we’ll be fine and she has the ability to score in every different way,” Katie Lou Samuelson said before the game.
In the first quarter the Huskies game-plan worked. Crystal Dangerfield was charged with the task of face-guarding Durr and held her scoreless for the first quarter. The game was close with seven lead changes in the first half alone.
Before the game, both Coach Auriemma and UConn players acknowledged that lesser known players were going to have to step up if the Huskies were to have a chance of winning. The stars such as Samuelson were guarded closely and it was up to Megan Walker and Christyn Williams to hit shots.
Once Durr started heating up though the Huskies began to slip. Williams struggled with her shot throughout the game and while Walker gathered 12 rebounds she wasn’t much of an offensive presence.
A lone bright star for the game was senior Napheesa Collier, reaching the 1,000 rebounds mark in her UConn career.
By the fourth quarter Louisville had amassed a sizeable lead but the game still seemed manageable for the Huskies.
UConn was unable to pull through however and lost 69-78 to the Cardinals.
“We’re human,” Auriemma told Hartford Courant reporter Kelli Stacy after the game. “We kinda suck this year. We need to get better.”
This is the second loss for UConn this season. Both of their losses have been out of conference with their first loss coming against No. 1 Baylor.
Next up, the No. 3 Huskies will return to conference play against Cincinnati on Saturday.
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“We kinda suck this year. We need to get better”
Mariana Dominguez is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at mariana.dominguez@uconn.edu.
