So much to love about the bench. 20 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists, 7 steals, and 2 blocks, 0 personal fouls (not dumb or bad players), and just 3 TOs. The team UConn was playing is not that turnover prone or victims of that many steals (13 TOs and 9 steals against per game) but UConn got 23 and 18, showing just how nasty the defense was. And the bench was a big part of it. Tulane worked hard in the first half for their one halfway reasonable route for points, the three-pointer, but when UConn took that away in the second half they were left with little but fortunate scoop shots that wouldn't have succeeded if Stewie was still on the floor.
So much to love about some UConn season stats too as the 8-0 A\TO in the game for Saniya puts her at exactly 2.0 A\TO behind MoJeff's 3.0 A\TO, with Kia at 1.91, KML at 1.90, Morgan at 1.83, Stewie at 1.54, and Tierney is also up at 2.0 on 6 assists to 3 turnovers. Fantastic!
And the wars between the bench and reserves continued as despite the 8 steals for MoJeff (in 32 minutes), Gabby picked up 4 more in only 10 minutes and closed the gap in the all-important minutes-per-steal battle as MoJeff is down to 10.3, but Gabby dived down to 11.3. OTOH, though Gabby's blocks per minute average dwarfs MoJeff's, the Texas Terror definitely had the show stopper one last night. Kiah only had 1 block, but Tulane was smartly shying away from her, and you know that with 129 blocks and only 2 behind Lobo's season record, she wants to get that record in the next game at UConn.
And one of the great things for Saniya is that she is getting a big amount of time with a hybrid lineup of starters and reserves early in the second half, mainly as the PG since MoJeff is usually but not always sitting out then. Quite a few of her assists recently and last night came from a quick look inside to freeze the defense and then a perfect dump off to KML for an unguarded 3-pointer. Of course getting an assist depends on the shooter hitting the shot, and that is a lot less likely to happen when it's someone not named KML taking that shot. But Saniya just looks ferociously hungry for assists out there now, with Gabby being a great option and the two are developing a great routine, and the assists also open up the basket on occasions for a quick slice and lay-up for her too.
And what's wrong with set shots? In my day that's what they taught us, set shots and two-handed lay-ups, and what's good enough for my granddad is good enough for me, with addition of course of all those new-fangled inventions like internet forums that came along afterward.
