12 Social Media Posts From UConn’s 77-71 Win at Gampel Pavilion

Instagram: Since it is senior night, I would post a picture of each of the seniors being honored with their families and hoisting their framed jerseys high in front of the sellout crowd. Also, I would post a video of Christian Vital, the team’s only four-year senior, giving a speech to the crowd after the electrifying win, something that was not otherwise recorded by any journalists.

Snapchat: I would primarily post videos to snapchat as well. A video of the team taking the court, videos of pregame introductions when the strobe lights are playing, and a final video capturing the moment the final buzzer went off securing the win, with the crowd erupting in the background.

Twitter: For Twitter, I would primarily post text, as I would live tweet the game. However, with the fourth sellout crowd of the season, I would post an establishing photo of the packed student section. For the live tweets, I would tweet runs, substitutions, provide a halftime score and a final score.

Facebook: I would post a mixture of the aforementioned posts from the other mediums. Since Facebook has the most traffic, I would post game start, halftime and final score updates, photos of the seniors being honored with coach Dan Hurley and a video of the final speech from Vital.

Photos from Southern CT State University Intramural Basketball League

This image comes from twitter, but was posted by LeBron James and Jayson Tatum on Instagram. This photo drew me in because it shows LeBron James, an all-time NBA great, and Tatum, who is in the younger generation of stars at just 23-years-old. Tatum grew up watching and idolizing many players and LeBron was one of them. In this image, they are posing in pretty much the same position and are almost mirroring each other. James is arguably the best player ever, but he won’t be around for too much longer. Whereas Tatum will be playing for years to come, so one day this photo will be looked back on as the time these two were locked in an epic battle against each other.

This image comes from Getty Images. I like this picture because it is an action shot and is well balanced. I don’t really know any context behind this picture like who these players are and how good they are and other logistics, however just as a general sports fan, I would want this put on a poster because the shot was taken with every subject mid action.

This photo also comes from Getty Images, from the same game as the previous photo pictured above. I like this photo because, again, it is an action shot and is catching interesting/unusual facial expression that nobody would ever really see close up. I also liked the aperture of the picture, as the only things not blurred in the photo are the two players and the ball in the foreground, drawing my eye to the action.

Owls Get Pummeled by NE10-Leading Dolphins For Second Time This Season

With the top team in the NE10 Southwest Division coming to Moore Field House, the Owls’ men’s basketball team had the opportunity for a statement win and come another step closer to clinching a postseason spot. Instead, the Owls suffered a 73-60 loss to the Le Moyne Dolphins.

Owls' Starters:
G- Seaforth
G – Bennett
G/F – Boissard
F – Jones
F – Adams II

— Sam Tapper (@SamTapper2) February 15, 2020

The Owls had just one lead in the game at 2-0, thanks to a layup in traffic by forward Greg Jones, a junior. Le Moyne quickly countered with senior forward Tom Brown converting on an and-one to make it 3-2. From that point, the Dolphins did not trail again.

Le Moyne’s offense came out hot in the early going, hitting three after three in the first half. The Dolphins built themselves a 10-point lead in the first 10 minutes of play. For the rest of the half, the Owls were not able to get it any closer than that.

Burrell calls his third time. 28-13. Not happy in the huddle

— Sam Tapper (@SamTapper2) February 15, 2020

“We just didn’t have any energy, no effort, we didn’t have a purpose,” said head coach Scott Burrell. “I think we had the chance to move up the ladder [in the NE10], to make a statement of who we were going to be finishing up the season, and we laid an egg, basically.”

The Owls offense could never seem to get going on the night. In the first half, they shot 13-for-37 and just 1-for-14 from three-point range. For much of the first half, the Dolphins’ defense had the Owls forcing shots, all the while they kept sinking threes of their own, shooting 7-of-16 from deep.

“We didn’t move the ball, we didn’t take good shots, we weren’t strong with the ball,” Burrell said. “We didn’t come ready to play on both ends, offensively and defensively, we weren’t strong or tough, we weren’t aggressive, we weren’t the same team that played last Wednesday, but, we had two bad days of practice and it carried over to today’s game.”

Ryan Roland draws the foul on a three right before the buzzer. Makes one FT. 40-29 Dolphins at the half

— Sam Tapper (@SamTapper2) February 15, 2020

After being down 40-29 at the half, the Owls, for a time, found new energy to start the second. Their defensive effort for the first few minutes was solid and forward Taurus Adams II, a senior, who had eight points and nine rebounds on the night, was able to cut the deficit back to single digits. However, that did not last for long, as a nine-point Dolphins lead grew to 21 in just four minutes.

The Owls’ offensive struggles continued from that point, their largest deficit being 23. In total, the Owls shot 25-70 on the night, just under 36 percent. Jones was the leading scorer for Southern with 15 points and 12 rebounds, his fourth double-double of the season. Guard Isaiah Boissard, a redshirt junior, finished with 11 and guard Levar Allen, a freshman, finished with 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting off the bench. The area where the Owls struggled most, however, was three-point shooting, going just 3-for-27 from beyond the arch.

“We started missing a lot, then we just started to get very stagnant, we just started to take unforced shots,” said guard Lyron Bennett, a freshman. “We just weren’t playing as a team and that’s one thing where we’ve been struggling all season, that’s one thing we’ve got to work on is fighting through adversity.”

Bennett finished with six points but also grabbed 10 rebounds for the third time this season and dished out a team-high four assists. The Owls were able to spark an 11-2 run for themselves to get back into it, cutting the lead to 58-44 with just over nine minutes left. After a Le Moyne timeout, the Dolphins sparked an 11-5 run of their own, extending the lead back up to 69-49 with 3:13 on the clock. At that point, the game was sealed for the Dolphins.

Final: Le Moyne 73, SCSU 60

— Sam Tapper (@SamTapper2) February 15, 2020

“We came out a little slow, and we can’t come out a little slow against the best team in the conference,” said guard C.J. Seaforth, a junior, who finished with only three points. “We’ve got to come out stronger the next game.”

With the loss, the Owls fall to 8-8 in the NE10 and 13-10 overall. Going into the game, the Owls were in soul possession of third place in the division. They are now tied with Pace again for fourth, as the New Haven Chargers picked up a win against AIC to jump into third. The Owls will face their cross-town rival, New Haven on Wednesday Feb. 19 as every matchup at this point becomes critical for the NE10 Conference Tournament.

To close out the regular season, the Owls will face in order:

• New Haven
• Saint Rose
• @ Adelphi

“Just pride, pride, you’ve got to have pride in competing,” Burrell said of where his team needs to improve. “Forget the X’s and O’s, you’ve got to have pride in competing and trying to win a game. That’s the bottom line.”

It has been a season marked by upsets, a rotation of No. 1 teams and seemingly no clear-cut favorites moving forward. But over the past few weeks, we’ve started to get some separation at the top, especially when it comes to sorting teams by résumé.

The 1-seeds are clear-cut: Baylor, Gonzaga, San Diego State and Kansas. Combined, those four teams have lost one game since the calendar turned to 2020 – Kansas’ defeat to Baylor. They’re a combined 36-1 in that span. They’re the top four teams in the NET rankings, four of the top five at KenPom, the top four in ESPN’s Strength of Record metrics and the top four of the AP poll.

Baylor is the best team in the country, both in terms of the eye test and résumé. The Bears have fallen once all season, a three-point loss to Washington in a game Baylor led for nearly its entirety. The Bears have a top-five defense and arguably the best perimeter group in the country.

Gonzaga has also lost just once. The Bulldogs have run over the West Coast Conference, with only two games decided by single digits. One factor moving forward for them is the availability of Killian Tillie.

San Diego State is the last unbeaten remaining in college basketball. The Aztecs are one of the best defensive teams in the country and have a legitimate All-America candidate in Malachi Flynn.

Then there’s Kansas, which has three losses — but is atop most metric-based rankings. There has been constant discussion about how there’s no dominant team in college basketball this season, but this Jayhawks’ adjusted efficiency margin ranks in the top three in all but two seasons in the KenPom era.

There’s still more than a month until conference tournaments start, and Louisville and Dayton are playing as well as anyone in the country right now — and the metrics still love Duke — but the top-four teams in the rankings are in their own tier for now.

For Baylor, Freddie Gillespie is one of the best stories in college basketball. Gillespie started his career at Division III Carleton College — and played just four games during his freshman season. Following his sophomore campaign, he transferred to Baylor and sat out as a walk-on before earning a scholarship for the 2018-19 season. Now, he’s averaging 10.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks and has been terrific over his past seven games. During that stretch, Gillespie is averaging 12.7 points, 8.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks — while shooting 64.3% from the field.

Gonzaga’s past two games were two of their worst offensive outings in several weeks. Not surprisingly, one of them came when Tillie played only nine minutes and the other came with Tillie sidelined. With him out for the San Francisco game, Mark Few went with essentially a six-man rotation and Drew Timme getting most of Tillie’s vacated minutes. In just his second start of the season, Timme answered the call, finishing with 19 points, four rebounds and three blocks.

Meanwhile, last week was supposed to be one of the San Diego State’s tougher weeks remaining in the regular season: a road trip to New Mexico where they haven’t lost all season, and a home date with Utah State. The trip to Albuquerque was a cakewalk, with San Diego State rolling by 28. But Utah State did test the Aztecs. The Aggies went on a 19-3 run late in the first half and stayed in the game until a scoring drought in the final 10 minutes. San Diego State didn’t have trouble scoring against Utah State as the Aggies shot 42.9% from 3.

And with the Kansas’ season entering its final month and discussions for awards heating up, look at Devon Dotson’s candidacy to at least be in the discussion for the Wooden Award. Dotson has come up big in some of the Jayhawks’ biggest wins, including 21 points Saturday against Texas Tech and 31 points against Dayton back in November. Dotson is top-10 in offensive box plus/minus and the only player in the country at least 5.0 adjusted points above replacement on both offense and defense.

Hi, my name is Sam Tapper. I am a junior at SCSU majoring in journalism. I am currently the sports writer for the Southern News with aspirations of being a sports reporter (hence why I am taking this course). My three favorite sports in order are basketball, followed by baseball, then football. I am also a Boston fan all-around, so, Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots, you get it. My two favorite current-athletes are Kemba Walker and Mookie Betts. I met Kemba when I was 11 and he was at UConn which makes an impact on me, but the attitude he has when playing and the level at which he works is admirable. Same goes for Mookie, I’ve watched him come up as a rookie AAA call-up and blossom into an MVP. All of that was through dedication and hard work. Both are an absolute joy to watch play their respective games, and play with a little swagger, another thing I enjoy watching. My favorite athlete of all time, however, is Paul Pierce. I just loved the way he played the game and the passion he had for his team and winning.