By BILL LEVY Click here to see other photos of the game
On paper, it appeared that the No. 3 ranked University of Connecticut’s game against the winless College of Charleston in the first round of the women’s bracket at the Gulf Coast Showcase may be somewhat of a mismatch. As the game played out, it certainly appeared that way in the Huskies 85-24 win over the Cougars on Friday night at Germain Arena before a Huskies’ partisan crowd. With the win, UCONN will play Vanderbilt, a 71-54 winner over the University of Minnesota tonight at 8:30 while the Cougars play the Gophers at 2:30.
Implementing a full court press at the start of the game, UCONN created numerous Cougars’ turnovers, which gave them very good scoring chances, as they raced out to a 16-5 lead five minutes into the game. The lead went to 50-13 at halftime, at which point it was very evident that the Huskies had the game in control.
Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis led the Huskies with 21 points while Morgan Tuck had 15 and Kia Nurse added 11. Breanna Stewart, who coming into the game was tied with Lewis is the team’s top scorer averaging 21 points a game, had eight.
“It is good when you win, and you score a lot of points,” UCONN coach Geno Auriemma said, “but your leading scorer does not have a good game.”
Though the Huskies committed 23 turnovers for the game while the College of Charleston had 24, the Huskies out-rebounded the Cougars 59-30 and also shot 53.3% for the game (33-62) while the College of Charleston shot 16.4% (10-61).
“I don’t like turnovers, especially dumb turnovers like we had today,” Auriemma said. “When you play quickly, sometimes bad turnovers happen. If you are afraid of making a turnover, you may be afraid to make a pass when someone is wide open.”
For the Cougars, Erin Hall was the leading scorer with 11 points.
UCONN’s Briana Pulido, a 5’7” guard from Miami and Gulliver Prep, is the lone player from Florida in the women’s field. She recorded one rebound in three minutes of play for the Huskies last night.
Uconn 3-1 and Charleston 0-5