\u201cMy time was great (in Southwest Florida),\u201d he said. \u201cI always enjoy coming down here (to Florida). We had a great hotel. I was able to get some golf in. It was great weather that seemed to warm up every day. He said “I see why people like coming down here.” “There was also some pretty good competition too.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It also didn\u2019t hurt that the Huskies (5-1) captured the championship of the tournament by virtue of their 89-53 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Green\u00a0on Sunday\u00a0night in front of 3,217.\u00a0For the tournament, UCONN outscored their three opponents (College of Charleston, Vanderbilt and Green Bay) by a combined score of 265-129.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEvery game someone has done something they didn\u2019t know they could do,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cWe are leaving here as a better team.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n One player who found out what she could do was Huskies freshman guard Kia Nurse, who had 43 points and 14 assists over the three days and was selected as the tournament MVP. Those numbers included her 16 points and three assists in the championship game.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe worked hard as a team and moved the ball around,\u201d the Hamilton, Ontario native said about the clinching game.<\/span><\/p>\n It was Green Bay (5-2) however who jumped out to an early 9-3 lead which was highlighted by two 3-pointers for the Phoenix from Tesha Buck and Mehryn Kraker.<\/span><\/p>\n After UCONN went on a 10-0 run of their own to go ahead 13-9, Green-Bay got a bucket each from Megan Lukan and Kraker to tie the game at 13. UCONN then scored the next four points to go up 17-13, but again, Green bay was able to tie the score at 17. After Moriah Jefferson gave UCONN a 19-17 lead with her field goal, Kraker countered with a 3-pointer to put Green Bay up 20-19 with just over eight minutes left in the half. It would be the last lead of the game for the Phoenix. UCONN then built leads of 24-20 and 26-23. Though Green Bay did tie the score at 26 on Moriah Monke\u2019s 3-pointer, the Huskies closed the half on a 13-2 run to go ahead 39-28, and take control of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey (Green Bay) will not quit,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cYou really need to knock them out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n UCONN delivered that punch by outscoring Green Bay\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>14-2, with five straight points coming from Breanna Stewart, at the start of the second half to take a commanding 53-30 lead.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith their style of play, we figured they may miss some shots,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cI think their legs may have given out and you saw that at the end of the first half and in the second half.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Joining Nurse on the All-Tournament was the Phoenix\u2019s Kraker and Lukan along with UCONN\u2019s freshman forward Morgan Tuck and senior guard\/forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur young kids grew up and our older guys showed leadership,\u201d Auriemma said.<\/span><\/p>\n Some trips will have that effect.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By BILL LEVY \u00a0Click here to see other photo’s of the game\u00a0 It is safe to count University of Connecticut women\u2019s basketball coach Geno Auriemma as one of the thousands… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[171,173,172,170],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/uconn-1-232x300.jpg\" "\\"uconn")
It is safe to count University of Connecticut women\u2019s basketball coach Geno Auriemma as one of the thousands of visitors from out of town who enjoyed their visit to Southwest Florida during the Thanksgiving holidays. Auriemma, who has guided the Huskies to nine National Championships, was in town as number 3 ranked UCONN participated in the eight-team Gulf Coast Showcase at Germain Arena\u00a0on Friday,\u00a0Saturday\u00a0and Sunday\u00a0nights.<\/span><\/p>\n