December 30, 2010

Cardinal Bookends The Streak!!!

This is UConn's record since 6 April 2008, beginning with a 73-82 loss to Stanford in the NCAA Semifinal round:

L-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-L

and ending with a 59-71 loss to Stanford at Maples on 30 December 2010.

A sweet pair of Cardinal bookends around a historic achievement!

Jeanette told her father before the game that she was sick and tired of losing to UConn. Her determination to win this one was clear from her three-pointer that began the scoring all the way to her six free throws at the end that sealed the victory. In all she scored a career-high 31 points, including five of nine three-pointers and ten of ten free throws. She also had nine rebounds, six assists and a steal.

2x + 3 for #23
#23 Jeanette scored 31 points. #23 Maya Moore scored a season-low total of 14 points. The latter was largely due to Chiney's tenacious defense. She stuck to her like super glue and – along with Kayla, Nneka and Joslyn – held her to five of 15 field goal attempts, the first successful one not coming until 17 minutes into the game. Chiney kept up her superb defense until the last 1:42 minutes when she finally fouled out. She also scored six points and had five rebounds.

Kayla was as determined as Jeanette to get her second win against UConn. She led the Cardinal's defensive effort with 11 rebounds and two steals. She didn't shoot much tonight, but got off a couple of "How did she do that!" reverse layups and scored a total of eight points.

I'm sure Geno remembered what he said of Nneka after she scored 20 points against UConn last season, "I wish she was a free agent; I would do a Steinbrenner and go after her." She drove through the Huskie's defense time after time tonight and made five of her nine field goal attempts. She ended with 12 points, six rebounds and a steal.

Lindy started again tonight and played for a career-high 35 minutes. She continued her excellent ball-handling with six assists and just one turnover. She also made a couple of lovely three-pointers herself.

Here are game reports:

The box score and play-by-play,

The press conference video with Tara, Kayla, Jeanette and Nneka,

The press conference video with Geno

The game highlights video,

Video clips from ESPN:

Photos by: And some of the many celebratory photos:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How sweet it is. Marian, your write-up of this historic game matches the teams effort. This is great reporting. Thank you.