Orange Women Lose By 52 To UConn And Have A Tough Day

So as I am about to go to bed, I come across this story about the Orange women's loss to UConn by the score of 107-53. Chris Wagner of syracuse.com has the story and pictures from the game. One of the pictures is of Juanita Ward hitting UConn's Caroline Doty with an elbow to the face, which led to a technical foul.

Later, I find a YouTube clip that has Orange women's coach Quentin Hillsman being asked if one of his players, Nicole Michael, intentionally tripped UConn Coach Geno Auriemma. Although Geno states it was probably more of a stepped on shoe incident, as you will see in Chris's article if you click here http://blog.syracuse.com/orange-women/2009/01/huskies_humble_orange_women.html ,he states that the Orange women were not exactly in the hand shaking mood following the game(so maybe they were just not touchy feely as opposed to trying to trip him up). And below is the video from Jim Clark of Full Court Press asking for Coach Hillsman's comment about the tripping incident and calling the move "bush league" and asking if he would comment on his team's "lacks appropriate respect" and to Coach Hillsman's credit, he did handle the incident without blowing up and attempted to defuse is saying he did not see it and would ask Nicole himself about it later.

I did not see the game but I can believe it to be a bit difficult to swallow a 52 point loss with a smile on your face though I also think there are better ways to handle it then this. Juanita's incident is caught on film but as yet, I have not found the one involving Coach Auriemma and Nicole Michael but I found it worth noting to see where this team goes from here. Is this trying to be more physically dominating and trying to intimidate or just a one time incident where emotions got the better of all involved? Here is the video and maybe someday we will know if Nicole truly attempted to trip him in frustration or Mr. Clark blew the incident out of proportion.



UPDATE: I have found the ESPN clip of the incident and here it is for your viewing pleasure and it does look like she probably went out of her way to get in his way. Here is the video proof, what do you think?