The Huskies defeat ranked South Carolina 97-79 on their home court at XL Center. Napheesa Collier led the team to their victory with 31 points and 16 rebounds. (Photo by Charlotte Lao/The Daily Campus)
The UConn women’s basketball team will take on UCF for the second time this season on Sunday afternoon in Orlando.
The last time the two teams met, the Huskies defeated the Knights 93-57. That loss was the Knights’ first conference loss. On Wednesday night, UCF endured a tough 61-59 loss against Tulane. With 21 seconds left the Knights tied up the game but Tulane sunk a pair of free throws to seal the victory.
The Huskies are coming off a 97-78 defeat of No. 11 South Carolina on Monday night. Earlier in the week, senior Katie Lou Samuelson was named a top 10 candidate for the Meyers Drysdale Award, which honors the top shooting guard in the country. Other notable names in the top 10 list are Louisville’s Asia Durr and Notre Dames’ Arike Ogunbowale.
Earlier in the season Samuelson became one of just a few UConn players to reach the 2,000-point milestone. Head Coach Geno Auriemma commented on how far Samuelson has come as a player.
“(Samuelson) came here with a reputation as a shooter and we were determined to try and make her into a well-rounded basketball player,” Geno Auriemma said after she achieved the milestone. “So, I’m not surprised that she has scored 2,000 points because she’s always had the ability to make shots. She is making them from a lot more different places now than she did early in her career.”
A player to watch on UCF will be junior guard Kay Kay Wright who has had 11 20-point performances so far this season. In UCF’s last go-around against UConn Wright scored eight points and dished out four assists.
The Knights are coached by Katie Abrahamson-Henderson who was named the squad’s leader in 2016.
The game against UCF will be on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Orlando and will be broadcast on SNY and ESPN3.
Mariana Dominguez is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at mariana.dominguez@uconn.edu.
