(Guru’s note: There was no print story per se beyond a blurb on the Temple-Dartmouth game for the roundup in the Thursday paper, but information on the Owls’ 65-29 romp Wednesday night at the Liacouras Center is contained in the following report.)
By Mel Greenberg
PHILADELPHIA – Now that another former member of the Connecticut family has become a head coach, it looks like the Huskies and Temple could be meeting as soon as next year or as quick as a spot appears on each other’s schedule.
Depending on your perception, the potential home-and-home meeting has been set in motion either because the Guru and our colleague to the north – John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant – are negotiating through through UConn coach Geno Auriemma and new Temple coach Tonya Cardoza OR the two coaches are negotiating through the two media members.
Here’s the sequence of events with some background.
Altavilla and the Guru exchange tidbits from time to time on each other’s blogs because of the interest in Temple from Connecticut fans since former Huskies assistant Tonya Cardoza became the new Owls coach last spring.
And so it was that many in UConn territory watched the national telecast of Temple challenging No. 15 Rutgers at the Liacouras Center Monday night in a nonconference game won in the final minutes by the Scarlet Knights.
Auriemma was asked about his reaction to the game and Altavilla posted the following on his blog. He sent the details for the Guru to use and inform those who may not regularly check in on UConn coverage, although with Germantown Academy’s Caroline Doty off to a sensational freshman debut with the Huskies, it would seem there would be considerable interest down here in her exploits, which we’ll get to in a little bit.
But first, here’s Auriemma talking to Altavilla (we don’t know if it was exclusive or in the usual crowd) about Cardoza,
"Temple had a chance to win that game for a long time, until it got away in the final five minutes," Geno said. "Tonya has put together a good staff with experienced people. There's always excitement with a new coach around and they almost played a perfect game against Rutgers. I wartched Tonya on the sideline and she's young and aggressive, animated. It was fun."
He also knows she picked up her first technical last Saturday in the second half of a 79-50 victory over Hampton.
"She does have a little bit of a temper, which people may not know about her," Geno said. "She can get hot."
Someday, UConn and Temple may begin a series, but when - and if - will totally depend on them.
"I haven't talked to Tonya about it," Geno said. "It would be completely up to them. They know our number and that we will always say yes. But I don't pursue it. We'll go down there, they can come here, at a time when its good, like it is now with Jen Rizzotti [and Hartford]. Those games are tough for us. They are no win games for us. You just win, you can't ever look good or come out feeling that we played well. It's just picking on some team."
Incidentally, during the game the Guru imparted Geno’s comments to the Temple athletic brass, who immediately became enthused.
Since both the Guru and Altavilla were interested in Cardoza’s reaction, the Guru did the honors at the end of the postgame press conference by making her aware of her former boss’s comments.
“When (former coach) Dawn (Staley) was here, she always wanted to play us,” Cardoza said with a sly grin. “Our excuse was always, `We already go to Philadelphia to play Villanova (in the Big East wars). But of course, anytime you can play Connecticut, you’re going to want to play them.
“And I hear he’s (Auriemma) looking to do a home-and-home and I think the fans of Philadelphia would love for them to come here, so, of course, I will make a phone call and try to set that up.”
As for the game, Temple (4-2) started sluggishly against the Big Green (1-5), falling behind, 10-4, in part, perhaps, for having a hangover from the tough loss 48 hours earlier to Rutgers.
Then the Owls put the hammer down with a 32-8 dash to halftime and a 38-18 lead. In the second half, the Owls did it offensively and defensively, outscoring Dartmouth 29-11.
Sophomore Shaqwedia Wallace had a career-high 18 points for Temple, while Shenita Landry added 14 points, and Shanea Cotton scored 11. Dartmouth’s Koren Schram had 15 points, and Brittney Smith grabbed 10 rebounds.
Prior to the game, veteran Dartmouth coach Chris Wieglus praised the Liacouras Center and said her group was thrilled to be in the house. She was less elated by the time the clock expired because of the play of her squad, which will return to town later in the schedule to play Penn in the Ivy League.
But Temple had a lot to do with the inability of the Big Green.
“We talked about trying to put (Rutgers) behind us,” Cardoza said of the slow start. “The only way we would really put it behind us is if we came out here and played well for 40 minutes.
“I think the adrenalin was probably going, but once they were able to get things done, I think everything went out there, but it was hard to get it started.”
Temple’s outside shooting was somewhat better with a 6-for-18 effort on three-pointers.
“For the most part, I am happy, but we can always get better at it. Six-for-18 is still not a good percentage,” Cardoza said. “But at least it wasn’t 27 jack-ups. Those guys (in the post) Shenita and Shanea were able to shoot 22 shots so that’s something we need to continue to do.
“Those guys need to get double-figure shots every single night and when those guys get (defensively) collapsed, they need to be able to quick it out and find the open guy.”
Temple only committed 11 turnovers while Dartmouth had 21 miscues.
Point guard LaKeisha Eaddy suffered a groin injury near the end of Monday night’s game and was sick Tuesday.
“I wasn’t going to play her but she wanted to play. She played a couple of minutes but I didn’t want to leave her out there long,” Cardoza said. “Getting (freshman) BJ (Williams) minutes was more important than Keisha hobbling around.”
Cardoza said she apologized to the newcomer for not getting her involved in the Rutgers game.
Temple hosts Florida State on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
“It’s another opportunity to play a team that’s really good,” Cardoza said. “We get them at home again. It’s another opportunity to play against a team that’s good and see where we stand against top competition.”
Meanwhile, to pick up a loose end from earlier in this report, Connecticut freshman Doty was mentioned, in part because of the way she blitzed Oklahoma with a 6-for-6 effort on three-pointers.
Starting against Holy Cross, Wednesday night, Doty was 3-for-3 from behind the arc in 20 minutes of action, scoring 11 points in the 96-37 rout by the top-ranked Huskies.
Auriemma talked of Doty’s effort in the Oklahoma game prior to the contest against Holy Cross.
Again, here’s the discussion as it appeared in Altavilla’s blog.
Well, the bubble wrap is off Caroline Doty now and it's clear the kid has IT. You know what IT is, right? You'd know it if you saw IT. You'd realize it if you didn't see IT.
"It's personality driven with Caroline," Geno Auriemma said. "That's why, as much as you can, you try and recruit personality types. Her personality type allows her to play the way she's been playing after missing a year [because of her ACL injury in high school].
"Caroline actually believes she's the best guard on the floor. Obviously, she respects Renee Montgomery and Maya Moore and all her teammates, but her confidence is through the roof. It wouldn't have mattered if she missed two years. She'd still be able to step right in. In one sense, everything Caroline is doing is very surprising. But yet in another, it's completely within her personality. I've had no doubts at all."
One of the things Geno likes best about Doty is that she possesses a hard-edge. She can be a wiseguy, like her coach. She's prone to say exactly what's on her mind, which apparently got her into some trouble at home around the dinner table, etc.
"I'll get on her sometimes about her shooting, tell her that she's missed eight or 10 in a row when she's really missed only four or five," Geno cracked. "And she'll snap at me, say 'I know!'"
Said Caroline: "Yeah, when they are getting on me, I get revved up a little bit."
Caroline said she approached Sunday's game against Oklahoma as if she was being challeneged personally by the Sooners' freshman guard Whitney Hand, who scored 3,649 points in high school.
"I knew Whitney Hand was an unbelieveable three-point shooter and my goal was to outshoot her and try to stop her." Caroline said.
Well, that's exactly how it turned out as Doty became the first UConn women's player to make all six three-pointers in one game. When it was done, she was overwhelmed by congratulatory emails and text messages.
"I made sure I responded to every email and text, because I appreciated them so much," she said.
And now, here comes Holy Cross and all we can say right now about Doty is Holy Cow.
"She's the kind of kid who doesn't care what just happened. She'll just make the next one, the next play. She has a short memory, which all great players have."
- Mel, with an assistant from John Altavilla
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