March 10, 2003

Piscataway, N.J. - The Virginia Tech women's basketball team played arguably its best 11:30 of basketball this season, but it still wasn't enough to stop the winning streak of the mighty Connecticut Huskies. Playing the No. 1 team in the country in the BIG EAST tournament, the Hokies went down swinging 71-54 and fell to 21-9 on the year.

Connecticut stretched its winning streak to 70 straight games and moves on to face the winner of the Villanova/Miami semifinal game in the BIG EAST championship.

The Hokies had been plagued by slow starts all season, but that was not the case against UConn. Tech raced out of the gate, matching the Huskies shot for shot. After a Ieva Kublina (Riga, Latvia) 3-pointer at the 8:30 mark, the Hokies held a 25-18 advantage. However, foul trouble forced Kublina to the bench and the Huskies closed out the half with a 13-4 run to claim a 31-29 halftime lead.

In the second half, Tech tied the score at 35 with a pair of Kublina free throws. However, UConn took it up a notch at that point, embarking on a 29-11 run to pull away. The Hokies, who had played relentlessly on both ends of the floor for the first 24 minutes, appeared fatigued playing their third game in three nights.

"It didn't help," Henrickson said of playing three games in three days. "But that's the reality of the situation, that's not an excuse. That's where you have to buckle down and take care of business in the regular season and get that first round bye."

BIG EAST Player of the Year Diana Taurasi kept UConn in the game with 14 first-half points and finished with 18 in the game. Jessica Moore finished with 14.

Kublina paced the Hokies with 16 points and Chrystal Starling (Syracuse, NY) added 11. Freshman Kerri Gardin also played a strong game, totaling 10 points, five assists and three steals.

"We really like playing Virginia Tech because they're physical and you know you're going to get pushed around a little bit," Moore said.

Tech was not physical enough in some key areas though, getting outrebounded by the Huskies 36-21. The Huskies outscored Tech 40-22 in the paint and 16-2 in second chance points. And while the Hokies did shoot 52.6 percent in the second half, they also turned the ball over six times to just one UConn turnover.

"Where it (the fatigue) hurt us the most was offensive rebounding and getting out to defend shots," Henrickson said.

Now the Hokies will wait until the NCAA selection show to find out their destination and opponent for the NCAA tournament. The show will air Sunday, March 16, at 5 p.m. on ESPN.