Tuesday, February 4

Tag: Connecticut Huskies

Inside the UConn defensive strategy that stopped Purdue and won a national title
11Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

Inside the UConn defensive strategy that stopped Purdue and won a national title

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Connecticut assistant coach Luke Murray went to sophomore center Donovan Clingan sometime in the middle of this season with a declaration. UConn was going to face Purdue in the national championship, and he’d better get familiar with Zach Edey. Murray and Clingan discussed how they would play the hypothetical matchup, and Clingan said he wanted to play him one-on-one and let the rest of the Huskies win the game.Murray had the scout for Monday night’s title game, and the coaches decided to stick to Clingan’s request. He would play Edey one-on-one in the post, and Clingan would wall up and force Edey to make tough 2s while his teammates stayed attached on the perimeter and took away 3s. In the pick-and-roll, the Huskies would play two-on-two against Purdue point guard Brad...
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UConn survives test, returns to national title game by warding off Alabama in Final Four
7Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

UConn survives test, returns to national title game by warding off Alabama in Final Four

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Tristen Netwon waited for the ball screen up top, then hit cutting big man Donovan Clingan down the lane for an emphatic dunk. The Connecticut bench exploded.Although it took longer than usual, the Huskies pulled away from Alabama on Saturday night to post an 86-72 win at State Farm Stadium. UConn advances to face Purdue in Monday night’s national championship game, giving the Huskies a chance to become the first school to repeat as men’s basketball national champs since Florida in 2006 and 2007.The final step will not be easy. The Boilermakers beat NC State 63-50 in Saturday night’s first national semifinals matchup, a contest in which they did not trail.The title game will feature a battle of big men — 7-foot-4 Zach Edey of Purdue and 7-foot-2 Clingan. It also will sho...
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Iowa-UConn Final Four matchup breaks record for most-watched women’s college basketball game
7Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

Iowa-UConn Final Four matchup breaks record for most-watched women’s college basketball game

Another Iowa women’s basketball game, another new record for the sport when it comes to viewership.Iowa’s 71-69 win over UConn on Friday night in Cleveland set a new record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history. The game was viewed by 14.2 million people and peaked at 17 million viewers. Chad Leistikow of the Des Moines Register was the first to report the news.This game tops the previous all-time viewership record, which was set on Monday when Iowa’s win over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million viewers. To put this in perspective. This game tops… • Every World Series game last year.• Every NBA Finals game last year.• Every Daytona 500 since 2013.• Every Masters final round viewership since 2013.• All but five CFB games in 2023. https://t.c...
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Iowa vs. South Carolina gives us the ending we wanted and the finale this season deserves
7Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

Iowa vs. South Carolina gives us the ending we wanted and the finale this season deserves

CLEVELAND — Just when you thought this women’s basketball season couldn’t give any more, just when you thought it had drained itself of record on-court performances, all-time viewership numbers and compelling grudge matches, it is giving us an opportunity to witness all three in one game, pitting Iowa against South Carolina in the national championship showdown most fans and every ABC executive wanted.It had to end this way, right? Great player versus great team. The quest for the perfect ending versus the pursuit of the perfect season. An opportunity for South Carolina to avenge its only loss of the last two seasons. A way to cap a memorable season with a potentially unforgettable finale.If the Iowa-LSU regional final drew an average of 12.3 million viewers on a Monday night on cable, it...
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NCAA Men’s Final Four scouting report: Coaches break down UConn, Bama, NC State and Purdue
6Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

NCAA Men’s Final Four scouting report: Coaches break down UConn, Bama, NC State and Purdue

The Athletic has live coverage of NC State vs. Purdue in the Final Four. All season it has felt like we were trending toward an epic national championship showdown between Connecticut and Purdue. Each team is one win away from making that happen, but tricky matchups await them in Glendale, Ariz. There’s NC State and DJ Burns Jr. and the live-and-thrive by the 3 Alabama Crimson Tide.To help break down the matchups, The Athletic reached out to coaches who have faced these teams, asking them to take a break from the transfer portal to provide some analysis, (One coach told me I was the only person who wasn’t a transfer he had and would talk to on Tuesday. I’m honored.) For each team, at least four coaches — a mix of assistants and head coaches — were interviewed to provide an in-depth scout....
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They might be giants: Edey, Clingan and Burns a (very) Big 3 at men’s Final Four
6Apr By adminNo Comments
Sports

They might be giants: Edey, Clingan and Burns a (very) Big 3 at men’s Final Four

GLENDALE, Ariz. — There’s a Japanese word for movies involving giant monsters: kaiju. Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra. You know, the kind of city-destroying mega-beasts entire armies struggle to contain. Audiences love the cartoonish carnage. And the only thing better than one kaiju is multiple kaiju, preferably fighting each other. “Godzilla x Kong” is the No. 1 movie at the box office right now.If you like that one, you’ll love the sequel. But this new entry in the genre isn’t science fiction. These titans are all too real. The 2024 Final Four features three bracket-annihilating kaiju: Purdue’s 7-foot-4, 300-pound Zach Edey, aka “Big Maple;” Connecticut’s 7-foot-2, 280-pound Donovan Clingan, aka “Cling Kong;” and NC State’s 6-foot-9, 300-ish-pound DJ Burns Jr., aka “Beast Boy.”“I think ever...
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WNBA 2024 mock draft: Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Cameron Brink headline
12Dec By adminNo Comments
Sports

WNBA 2024 mock draft: Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Cameron Brink headline

The 2024 WNBA Draft order is set. Indiana won the draft lottery Sunday, giving the Fever the first pick in what could be one of the deepest drafts in league history. Could is the operative word, as every draft-eligible senior in this class has the opportunity to return to college for a fifth season due to the COVID-19 bonus year given to every player who suited up in 2020-21.Indiana is the fourth team in the last decade to earn consecutive No. 1 picks after Seattle had the top selections in 2015 and 2016, Las Vegas had a three-year stretch of picking first from 2017-2019, and New York won the lottery in 2020 and 2021. The Storm won two titles with the duo of Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart, and the Aces have done the same with the trio of Kelsey Plum, A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young. The Fev...
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For UConn to thrive, Paige Bueckers needs to be more like Caitlin Clark
8Dec By adminNo Comments
Sports

For UConn to thrive, Paige Bueckers needs to be more like Caitlin Clark

Since high school, Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark’s basketball stories have been intertwined.The two top guards in the 2020 recruiting class — Bueckers the No. 1 overall player, Clark the No. 4 — both hailed from the Midwest, playing on rival EYBL teams and then together in Team USA’s youth program. Both were excellent 3-point shooters, lethal from the wings and left baseline, with the ability to hit the free-throw pullups and finish at the hoop. But they also had their unique flairs — for Clark, it was her range; for Bueckers, it was off-balance runners perfectly kissed off the glass.For college, they chose alternate paths. Clark opted to stay home and play for Iowa, a program that had been to the Elite Eight four times in program history, but just once in Clark’s lifetime. Bueckers, a...
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Ranking 133 college football teams after Week 13: Conference title clashes will tell all
28Nov By adminNo Comments
Sports

Ranking 133 college football teams after Week 13: Conference title clashes will tell all

The 2023 season comes down to conference championship weekend. We could have the simplest and most impressive College Football Playoff field in the 10-year history of the event, we could have complete chaos or we could have something in between, with a little bit of last-minute drama.Michigan’s win against Ohio State moves the Wolverines up to No. 2 in this week’s rankings and leaves four undefeated Power 5 teams entering the weekend. If Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State win, it’s an easy selection. But the SEC, Pac-12 and ACC games could be very competitive and see undefeated teams lose, giving the committee its hardest decisions since 2014.Oregon still likely has the strongest case among one-loss teams. The Ducks were the top-ranked one-loss team by the committee last week...
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Women’s college basketball power rankings: South Carolina returns to a familiar spot
22Nov By adminNo Comments
Sports

Women’s college basketball power rankings: South Carolina returns to a familiar spot

If the hope was that two weeks of basketball would have given a clearer picture of the hierarchy in women’s college basketball this season, that has not been the case. In fact, most of my conversations since Nov. 6 have featured some variation of, “Wait, is Team X good?”Aside from South Carolina at the top — stop me if you’ve heard that before — every other projected contender has taken its lumps. While the Gamecocks roll through their opposition, most teams around the country need some time to figure out new rosters and systems. Growing pains were expected, like LSU and Virginia Tech integrating new transfers, or Maryland and Indiana dealing with the graduations of WNBA first-round picks.Nevertheless, on the whole, the quality of play around the country has been better than expected. But...
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