Poor performance baffles Prince

on March 04, 2008 at 3:00 AM, updated March 04, 2008 at 3:01 AM


HARTFORD, Conn. -- For Epiphanny Prince, dealing with the boos at the end of the game wasn't the toughest part of her night.

Her offense was.

The sophomore had one of her worst games of the year, totaling just five points. This coming off of a 33-point performance the last time these teams met.

"I really don't think that they did anything differently than they did last time," Prince said. "I just felt like I wasn't ... I'm known to take what the defense gives me and what they were giving me were like open shots, but not within the style that we play."

After scoring 27 of her 33 points in the second half of their first meeting, Prince's status as a scorer received a boost. However, Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma said that his players took it personally.

"Look, this isn't Epiphanny Prince's fault, but after that game -- man, every time I opened the newspaper and turned on the TV, you know, I didn't realize that Epiphanny became Kobe Bryant all of a sudden," Auriemma said. "It's not her fault, this kid's averaging 14 points a game before we played them and now after we played them.

"So I think everybody just started throwing Epiphanny Prince into the All-American list, 'First team All-American, National Player of the Year, how could she not be on the Olympic team?' And now it was a tossup between her and LeBron between who's the best player in America right now."

But the Huskies did take a special bit of pride in shutting down Rutgers' top scorer.

"I told our guys, 'If somebody gets 20 in the second half against Connecticut, they reach rock star status,'" Auriemma said. "We had to live with that, I didn't, but the kids on our team got (ticked), not at Epiphanny, but just at the reaction people had over it."

With the physical play between both teams last night, many left the XL Center feeling that this rivalry had been kicked up a notch.

Moore said that there were no hard feelings during the post-game handshake, and many of the Rutgers players -- including Prince -- asked if she was all right. Of the foul, Prince said: "I didn't try to hurt anybody. I would never try to hurt anybody." Auriemma and some of the other Huskies shrugged the foul off as nothing out of the ordinary.

Stringer though, thought the booing wasn't called for.

"I think everybody needs to grow up," she said. "People don't need to boo, they're 17- and 18-year-old kids. She (Moore) knows good and well that she (Prince) didn't mean to do that. We don't need to have a villain. It doesn't need to be a soap opera."

However, Auriemma thinks that both teams being each other's villain isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"They've taken Tennessee's place as the villain team," the Connecticut coach said with a chuckle. "For us they're it and for them we're it. It's good to have that. If they're not booing you, that means you're not doing anything."

Rutgers had just one player score in double-figures: Essence Carson with 15. It was only the second time that's happened all season. The other was in a 49-44 loss to Duke. ... Rutgers outrebounded Connecticut, 39-36, with Rashidat Junaid grabbing 11.