Game 4: Gophers Host UConn (11-19-23)


If the Gophers can stay with-in 10-15 points for the majority of the game, and show poise and keep competing no matter what happens, I will be pretty dang impressed! An Upset would be awesome! The adrenaline should be running high, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately, I'll be working with no chance to watch. :( Hopefully I can check live stats occasionally.
 


Big game!

Discussion at the UConn fan site:


 






From this summer, Amaya Battle vs Paige Bueckers:



From a few years ago, Mara Braun vs Bueckers:



A year ago, Braun talks about the Bueckers matchup:



Battle just had a 20 point game with 9 assists:

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Coming to a city near you. The big show. On national TV Sunday vs Minnesota Gophers in Minnesota.


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SH thanks for posting that Hopkins Wayzata game! Bueckers and Braun were going at it. Fun game!
Hopefully, we can hang with UConn. Battle played really well game 3...she will be fired up to beat Paige as will Braun and the other girls.
Should be fun!
 

Seems quite unlikely Azzi would play, waiting for swelling to go down to do MRI
Injuries suck. Too many people getting hurt. Azzi has missed enough games. I know she plays for UConn and we play them but still...
Hopefully, no more Gophers get hurt this year.
 

Big game!

Discussion at the UConn fan site:


About 40 UConn people most all suggesting the Gophers lose by 40 plus. Call me homer but I don't think that happens.
 



Odds to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship top 10 teams.

UConn is #1.


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To me it's South Carolina #1 and UConn #2 in a virtual tie. Maybe LSU with all that talent but currently embroiled in online spats. Also, the way Stanford stomped Indiana was eye-opening. Iowa will go as Clark goes, probably to the top but who can say?

UCLA is the next Big Ten top four power coming up -- and maybe USC too. UCLA will arrive there late this season or next.
 

Odds to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship top 10 teams.

UConn is #1.


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To me it's South Carolina #1 and UConn #2 in a virtual tie. Maybe LSU with all that talent but currently embroiled in online spats. Also, the way Stanford stomped Indiana was eye-opening. Iowa will go as Clark goes, probably to the top but who can say?

UCLA is the next Big Ten top four power coming up -- and maybe USC too. UCLA will arrive there late this season or next.
South Carolina should be the favorite, LSU total shitshow with all the clashing attitudes
 


UConn’s Paige Bueckers Shows She’s Back, and Maybe Better Than Ever​

The Huskies star turned in a dominant two-way effort in Thursday’s blowout of Maryland, reminding the college basketball world exactly what she’s capable of on a nightly basis.


Paige Bueckers back now the best player, not Caitlin Clark? Probably:



Bueckers and Minnesota:



Paige💕

Proverbs 3:5-6​

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This is a pivotal game for Gophers center Sophie Hart. I am not going to pull any punches here. She's a junior and has accomplished nothing in college basketball. This after being the #64 prospect per ESPN HoopGurls.

UConn was a significant opponent for Hart last season too when she played for North Carolina State. She played but 1 minute in that game, relegated to 3rd string center. After that dissed game she entered the transfer portal.

In the last Gophers game, against NDSU, Hart missed short range / layup shots. She did run well for her size and showed effort. She's a traditional center style where she needs to turn and put that ball in or the two-trick pony now has no act.

When UConn lost to North Carolina State two games ago it embarrassed and furiously ignited UConn. I would say Hart is looking at that same kind of pressure to show she is the top player we always knew she is.
 
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She's a junior and has accomplished nothing in college basketball. This after being the #64 prospect per ESPN HoopGurls.

She played behind NC States best player her freshman year who happened to be a post player. She sat out last year after playing 5 games for NC State and decided to transfer. She’s only been a starter for 3 games this year for us. I don’t think you’re being fair to her.
 



The Huskies, who have dealt with numerous injuries the last couple of years, are experienced in this area and will call on it again Sunday as Fudd, who injured her knee last week in practice, won’t be available for the game at Minnesota, a second successive Big Ten opponent. Sunday at 5 p.m.

The task will require a village.

“However long this wait is, you don’t have somebody you can plug in and say, ‘go out there and shoot it like Azzi,'” coach Geno Auriemma said. “So you’re going to have to get it different way. (Against Maryland), Aubrey Griffin gave it to us a different way, Ashlynn Shade gave it to us a different way, KK Arnold gave it to us a little different way. That’s the only way we can make up for it.”

...Auriemma started Griffin, a fifth-year senior, who is not a perimeter threat, against Maryland, and she had 13 rebounds and helped amp up the defense in UConn’s 80-48 win, helping to fill the rebounding void left by the departure of Dorka Juhusz, now in the WNBA. The freshmen, Arnold and Shade, produced a burst of energy on both ends and both scored in double figures. UConn was 6 for 19 on threes, but managed to score 80 points by getting 16 steals, and the easy buckets that came with them.

“If you’ve got to walk the ball up the floor and run your half-court offense the whole game like we did against NC State, any team that has to do that is going to have a hard time winning,” Auriemma said. “You’ve got to get some easy baskets.”

If Auriemma stays with the same starting lineup, he’ll be hoping for more production from Caroline Ducharme, who scored only one point in 11 minutes against Maryland. Ducharme sometimes suffers symptoms from past concussions.

“When Caroline’s got it going, I might play her 39 minutes,” Auriemma said. “And when she looks a little bit off, then I’ve got to try to figure out what am I going to do about it. But, yeah, we need Caroline to be Caroline.”
 


This is a pivotal game...

UConn was a significant opponent for Hart last season too when she played for North Carolina State. She played but 1 minute in that game, relegated to 3rd string center. After that dissed game she entered the transfer portal.

The UConn match-up is EXTREMELY important for Sophie hart. It was a key, pivotal game in her life last season.

And now here we are again, UConn. This time she's starting and playing full minutes (for her position). How does that story get written?

She has the ball.
 


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"It means everything to me." --Paige Bueckers


"Over 100 of Paige Bueckers’ family members and close friends will be in attendance Sunday afternoon at Williams Arena for the UConn women’s basketball star’s senior homecoming against the University of Minnesota."


Link updated not papay wall.


“You often hear the phrase ‘Minnesota nice,’ ” Bueckers said. “I think everything around here, just everybody knows everybody. Everybody's nice to each other. Everybody’s like family once you meet them. So, I think that just is sort of why I love relationships, why I love people so much and why I love getting to know people so much and I think that has a lot to do with where I’m from.”
 


With the big game a few days away, after she had scored a career-high 20 points against North Dakota State, Amaya Battle sat courtside at Williams Arena and talked about her friend Paige Bueckers.

Her first thoughts weren't basketball-related. Not the 2019 Class 4A state title they won together at Hopkins High School. Or about that already-legendary 2020 Section 6 final, in a Hopkins High School gym so jammed that the fire department had to limit the crowd, with Karl-Anthony Towns and some Timberwolves teammates in attendance. The Royals and a Wayzata team that included Mara Braun went toe-to-toe all game. Hopkins won, Bueckers — the top high school player in the country who would go to Connecticut — scored 33, but Braun and Wayzata pushed them.

No. Battle talked about the fall of 2021.

Amaya's mom, Stephanie, had died, suddenly. At the service, Battle was greeting people at the door when Bueckers — who had left Connecticut to come home — was there. "I remember her walking in," Battle said. "And I just lost it. That's the thing about Paige. She has a great heart. She's a great competitor on the court, and that's what most people see. But she has a great heart."
 

The new Gophers defense faces a tough test today, under a new defensive-minded coach, Coach P (Dawn Plitzuweit).

The defense looked new and better last game against NDSU. It's too early but the new Coach P defense looks promising.

To me, the defensive battle is a star of the show too.

In the past few years, defense was an issue for Minnesota, a perennial weakness.

Two seasons ago at Williams Arena, Minnesota's defense couldn't stop Iowa on the way to 105 points. Caitlin Clarke scored 35. Iowa enjoyed an all you can eat buffet.

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Is UConn going over 100 against Minnesota today? Is Paige Bueckers going for a career high against an unranked sacrificial lamb Minnesota served in a buffet?

The Gophers are young. One freshman and three Sophomores are starting. Then off the bench are more underclassmen. Thrown into the fire.

Speaking of defense, UConn last week held #20 Maryland to 48 points.

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Paige Bueckers: "There's a lot of family and friends coming. It's super surreal because I grew up going to games at the Barn and watching the Gophers, and watching the Lynx play. So to be playing there where I grew up -- and like my childhood -- at my dream school wearing a UConn uniform in that arena, it's like a surreal feeling for me."

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LOL. UConn tweets "Let's go to Minneapolis." Cold, winter coats.



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Is there prep football at tcf or anything besides basketball going same time? Absurd amount of cars lined up to park
 




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