Football: It's gameweek at West Virginia, where the Huskies are 20.5 point underdogs. Kickoff is at noon on SNY and Big East regional TV. UConn is 2-3 overall, and this is the Big East opener. The good news is, Johnny McEntee is starting to put it all together. The bad news is, our defense can't play like they did last week or we'll lose by 40. And we all know what will happen in the Daily Campus come Monday. On a side note, if McDonalds ever buys out Johnny Rockets, Johnny Mac wouldn't be a bad name for the new mascot/meal.  And sadly/thankfully, I won't be watching this game anyway since it is Yom Kippur.

Men's Soccer: The #1 Huskies defeated the Manhattan College Jaspers, 3-0 last night. Carlos Alvarez scored the first UConn goal just four minutes into the action, and Juho Karpinen and Stephane Diop added goals later in the half. In the second half, the Huskies' second stringers failed to score a goal. Nevertheless, Andre Blake recorded the eighth straight shutout, tying a team record set in 2009. The Huskies will look for the win and record Saturday at noon as they travel to Notre Dame. A Husky win puts them in good position to win the Blue Division title, with both Georgetown and Marquette coming as home games later in the season.

Women's Volleyball: The Huskies bounced back from a rough weekend, sweeping the Hartford Hawks in straight sets, 3-0. The Huskies are now back at .500 with a 9-9 record, and will travel to South Florida over the weekend. The Bulls are 6-10 overall (2-2 Big East).

Field Hockey: UConn ranked #2 in the first RPI computer ranking of the season. The 10-1 Huskies trail only unbeaten Old Dominion. However, we are still stuck at #4 in the coaches' poll. This weekend, the Huskies are in Washington, DC to face Georgetown on Friday at 3:00, then will face Virginia in Princeton, NJ at 11:00 AM on Sunday. The Huskies are tied with Syracuse for first place in the Big East at 3-0.

2012 Women's Lacrosse Schedule Released on Super ScoreBoard (CORRECTED)

The always benevolent Super Scoreboard has been updated to reflect the Spring 2012 Women's Lacrosse schedule. Expect a press release soon. For now, here are the games. I assume this is all of them. Presumably all home games are at Sherman except as Noted.

Saturday, February 18: vs. Iona, 1:00 PM
Saturday, February 25: vs. Quinnipiac 1:00 PM
Wednesday, February 29: vs. Boston College, 3:00 PM
Wednesday, March 7: at New Hampshire, 3:30 PM
Saturday, March 10: vs. Fairfield, 1:00 PM
Friday, March 16: at Sacred Heart, 3:00 PM
Saturday, March 24: vs. Syracuse, 1:00 PM
Friday, March 30: at Georgetown, 4:00 PM
Sunday, April 1: at Rutgers, 1:00 PM
Saturday, April 7: at Columbia, 1:00 PM
Saturday, April 14: vs. Notre Dame, 12:00 PM
Friday, April 20: at Cincinnati, 3:30 PM
Sunday, April 22: at Louisville, 1:00 PM
Friday, April 27: vs. Villanova, 4:00 PM
Sunday, April 29: vs. Loyola, 1:00 PM

So, presuming this is the real and complete schedule, here are some thoughts:

• It's good to see we're opening in the afternoon this time instead of on 4:00 PM on a rainy, dreary day. Let's hope the sun is shining when we take the field against Iona.


• The game against Quinnipiac is the same day as College Gameday comes to Storrs for the basketball game vs. Syracuse. Gameday will go off air at noon, and the ticket hallway back to Sherman provides a good exit strategy. Plus, you get to see the game. Interestingly, that's supposed to be Senior Night for the Men's Ice Hockey team as well. If the women aren't hosting a Hockey East quarterfinal, that may get bumped up to afternoon. Which could make for a very interesting Saturday.


• I'm guessing the road game at Columbia has some connection to the basketball game they're playing at our place. Those have a funny way of popping up.


• Two games over Finals Weekend this year. Procrastinators, beware. Or happy, for now.


• Outdoor Track also has the "Dog Fight" meet at home on the 14th. What this means for the women's lacrosse vs. Notre Dame, I don't know. They used to play at Morrone, perhaps a game there?

Note: A game against Iona on February 18th was not included in an earlier version of this post. Additionally, that post implied that the February 25th game was the opener. This has been remedied.

 

Men's Soccer: Tomorrow, the Huskies will play their final non-conference game of the season, as they host the Manhahttan Jaspers at 7:30 PM. The Huskies are 10-0 and ranked #1 nationally. The Jaspers are 0-9. We should dominate this game against the team from the Bronx. And yes, Manhattan College is in the Bronx. And that probably is meaningless to anyone not from the greater New York Metropolitan Area. But the school is not actually in Manhattan. Following the showdown with the Jaspers, the Huskies will travel to South Bend to face #10 Notre Dame at noon on Saturday. The Irish are looking to bounce back from a heartbreaking double OT loss to St. John's that will cause their ranking to drop. This game could decide the Blue Division title. The Huskies get both Georgetown and Marquette at home, and with a win on the road, would be in an excellent position to take the title. As for how to catch the games, you can watch the Manhattan contest on All-Access, though it is not on the WHUS schedule yet. The UND game will be on Irish All-Access and WHUS.

Women's Volleyball: Jordan Kirk recorded her 1,000t kill, but the Huskies were swept by the Syracuse Orange, 3-0. The Huskies are now 8-9 overall and 0-4 in Big East play. Next up, the Huskies host in-state rival Hartford on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM, before traveling to Tampa to face the South Florida Bulls Friday at 7:00. The former is available on GameTracker, while the latter may have something available on USF's website.

Field Hockey: Same old story. Marie Elena Bolles scores and lifts the Huskies to victory. This time, it was a 1-0 win over in-state rival Yale, improving the #4 ranked Huskies to 10-1 on the year. While we should have been able to beat the Bulldogs by more, a win is a win. I'm sure Nancy Stevens will take it, and so will I. Next up, we travel to Georgetown Friday at 3:00 PM. The Hoyas are 0-2 in Big East play and 2-9 overall. The weekend concludes by facing Virginia in a neutral site contest at Princeton at 11:00 AM on October 9th. This was expected to be a huge matchup, but the Cavaliers have really struggled this season.

Women's Soccer: The team bounced back from the Notre Dame debacle, beating the DePaul Blue Demons 2-1 in Chicago. Danielle Schullman and Devin Prendergast both scored for the visiting Huskies, who are now 5-5-2 overall and 2-2-2 in Big East play. This gives them 8 points, 2 more than USF and Providence for the final tournament spot.

Men's and Women's Tennis: The men's team is in Hartford today at 3:00 PM to face off against the Hawks. The women head to UMass Wednesday at 2:00 PM. Stay tuned for more coverage.

Baseball: We have several known baseball games for next season, found by using other teams' schedules who have released them and this Hartford Courant article.  Note that some of these games, especially Big East weekend contests, may be moved to Norwich or New Britain. No word yet on student transportation. Here they are. Times are TBD unless otherwise noted.

Mon. March 5: At Mississippi State
Oregon Tournament (TBD, Fri-Sat. March 3-11): vs. Oregon, Oregon State, Oklahoma, Illinois
Tuesday, March 13th: at Sacred Heart
Fri-Sun, April 13-15: at St. John's
Sat-Sun, May 5 (DH)-6: vs. Cincinnati
Tues. May 24th: vs. Bryant, 3:30 PM
No Games: Villanova, Georgetown

Live Blogging Today, Beginning Rougly 1:45 PM (NEVERMIND)

Today, starting at roughly 1:45 PM, I will be live blogging about the Women's Soccer game at DePaul, Women's Volleyball game vs. Syracuse, and Field Hockey Game at Yale. All-Access video for Volleyball is available on UConn's website, the DePaul game will be on DePaul's Website and the Yale Game will have live stats on Yale's site. I will be making a few updates before then, so stay tuned.

12:42 PM - Just realized the Yankees are playing at 3:07 PM today. I'll be watching that instead. Sorry, guys.

12:19 PM: Let's post this! Time for lunch and the NFL Today on CBS. Back in about 15 minutes.

Where We Go From Here: A Look Ahead to the Next Few Months

As of the end of last week, I have been officially cleared to return to UConn from medical leave next semester. This was not unexpected, but now it's finalized. Of course, I still have housing and class registration, but that's simple and happens every semester. Not a big deal. But as for how this effects this blog:

In keeping with my style, I will be writing full posts  about every game I attend, and keeping track of them in the Log and Spreadsheet (see above). I also plan to go into more detail than I have been doing in last year. It's basically a "see wat works and go with it" kind of thing. So that will still be there.

However, I will also devote more space to analysis of UConn Sports in general, including games I did not attend. I was criticized last year for not discussing the Fiesta Bowl or basketball national championship. So yes, I'll be discussing what's going on in games that I'm not physically at. Which brings me to my next point.

For the next few months, I will be writing some expanded posts about specific games. These will mainly be games I watched either on TV or All-Access, but we'll see what's easiest. Once I go back, these posts will likely be limited to what I attend, with a few exceptions (such as National Championship Games and games of similar caliber). But the daily (or nearly daily roundups) will fill return/remain. And they will be (I hope) roughly what they are now. How I want to work around the expanded post/included in round-up thing, I really don't know. But I'll figure it out when we come to it.

As for basketball tickets, I have a plan on how to make it work. I don't think it's right for me to say more for now until I actually finalize certain aspects of it. But I will have basketball tickets for the games that I'm there for.

As for the rest, we'll wait and see how it plays out...

What a day for UConn sports. Super Saturday, if you will. I was considering hyping it as such, but due to the Jewish High Holidays, I didn't know how much time I would have to promote it in the days before. However, I also have some exciting news.... I was officially cleared to return to UConn from medical leave for Spring 2012 semester. For those who are asking, I have a way of addressing the basketball tickets issue. I'll explain all this and more when I post a full post on this later tonight. For now, here's the (now standard) roundup on all the action that went down tonight.

Women's Ice Hockey: The Huskies suffered a disappointing loss against RPI to drop to 0-1-1 on the young season. With the score 0-0 and nine seconds left in OT, Alisa Harrison scored a sudden death goal and the Huskies took this one. The Huskies head off to upstate New York next weekend, facing St. Lawrence on Saturday at 1:00 PM and Clarkson at Saturday at the same time. I'm not entirely sure where (if at all) you can view/listen/track to these games live, but I'll find out.

Field Hockey: In a major Big East matchup, the #4 Huskies defeated the #19 Louisville Cardinals 4-2 at home. The Huskies are 9-1 overall and 3-0 in Big East play. This all but knocks the Cardinals out of contention for the #1 seed in the Big East and the right to avoid the other two in the first round. So it will come down to the UConn-Syracuse matchup on October 23, in Storrs. For now though, we play at in-state rival Yale tomorrow at 2:00 PM. No video, but Live Stats are available on the Yale website. Next Friday (October 7th), the Big East schedule continues as we head to Wasington, DC to face off against the Georgetown Hoyas. The Hoyas have just two wins this year and are 0-2 in conference. Do not expect a serious challenge. The neutral-site contest against Virginia was expected to be a challenge pre-season with the Cavaliers in the Top 5. But they have disappointed. It won't be an easy win, but that shouldn't be a toughie either.

Women's Volleyball: The Huskies fell to Marquette today, 3-1. In our first match at home, we took the first set but then lost the next three. Overall scoreline was 23-25, 25-20, 25-16, 25-13 in favor of the Golden Eagles. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, the Syracuse Orange will roll into Gampel Pavilion  to face the Huskies. So what if it's not in basketball? You can still show up.

Football: I tried to put off writing this up by burying it under other sports. But I've got to do it eventually. The fact is, this was a crazy game and the ending sucked. Although frankly, on that fumble, it looked like he tried to signal time-out before he was down. Anyone else think the same thing? Frankly, though, if I'm right, I would find it less forgivable a mistake than just failing to hold onto the football, even at a crucial time like that. Because the latter happens to even the best of players. The former is just dumb. For those who haven't heard, we lost, 38-31 to Western Michigan and are now 2-3 on the season. Big East play starts next Saturday at noon at West Virginia. SNY and Big East Regional TV will have the game.

Men's Ice Hockey: The Huskies defeated Ryerson 7-4 in an exhibition game. For the box score, see here. The regular season gets underway next Friday and Saturday with a game at Bowling Green at 7:05 PM each day.

Men's Soccer: Another double OT thriller,  though thankfully, this was against a far better team than Yale. And also thankfully, we beat them on a Stepane Djop goal in Double OT. In our first real test as the #1 team, we went into Cardinal Stadium at #8 Louisville. The Cardinals appeared to be dominating for the first 15 minutes or so. Then WHUS fixed the audio stream, and Bam! The Huskies were fixed too. One crucial play came on the 81st minute. Louisville was awarded a penalty kick. And we all know how penalty kicks have been our downfall in crucial games. Thankfully, it missed over the crossbar and we lived on. Djop would later end it once and for all. Next Tuesday, we host Manhattan at 7:30 PM in our final non-conference game of the season. GameTracker and Live Video are available online, though it is not currently listed as on WHUS.

Twitter and Tags: Blog News

What a day for UConn Athletics. I'll wrap it up after the Yankees game (I hope!). For now though, here's some brief news.

• You can now view updates from my twitter page (@gregoryakoch) on the sidebar. Will I tweet more about UConn? Maybe. We'll see. But I have some fun ideas. Let's see how things go.


• I am also using tags more in addition to categories. This has caused the Tag Cloud on the right to activate. It will be more accurate in a few weeks. It should also generate more traffic, which is good.


• Well, back to the Yankees game. Apparently someone hit either a home run or a double.

Football: The 2-2 Huskies look to make it two in a row as they host Western Michigan today at 3:30 PM. The game will be primarily airing on SNY but will be simulcasted by other networks in different markets. See the Big East press release here (these links can be found on http://the506.com every week before the games. It's easier than searching the Big East site). Most notably, some Eastern Connecticut viewers are considered in the Providence area and thus can find the game on Cox Sports Network, and SNY will be blacked out. Check your local listings. The Broncos are 2-2 this year, with wins coming against Nicholls State and Central Michigan plus losses to Michigan and Illinois. This is our final non-conference game, and I like our bowl chances a lot better starting 3-2 than 2-3. We face West Virginia and Pitt on the road, the later on national TV. But if we win today, we only have to win three out of five between home games against USF, Louisville, Syracuse, and Rutgers, and a road trip to Cincinnati. Let's hope last week was a sign of things to come for Johnny McEntee. And thankfully, the game really will be on SNY this week (most places).

Women's Ice Hockey: The Huskies opened the season by tying the RPI Engineers, 3-3. Caitlin Hewes scored the first goal of the season for the Huskies to put them up 1-0, this game would bounce back and forth throughout. Sarah McDonnell would become the second fresman to score for the Huskies, putting UConn up 2-1 with 6:03 left in the second period. RPI would pull level again, but seconds into the third period, Rebecca Hewett put the Huskies up. Taylor Horton would score the game-deciding equalizer for RPI with just under four minutes remaining, and neither team scored again or in OT. So, it was a 3-3 tie. Attendance is listed at 112 in the official box score but judging by what I saw on All-Access last night, I doubt it was that high. The two teams square off this afternoon at 3:00 PM.

Women's Soccer: The Huskies were embarrassed on National TV, losing to Notre Dame 3-0 on ESPNU last night. The Irish scored two goals within a minute of each other midway through the first half and added another one later. Not a good night for the Huskies. UConn looks to bounce back Sunday at 2:00 PM at DePaul. That game is on WHUS and Blue Demons All-Access. If we lose, our season may be over essentially.

Men's Soccer: As I've said before, huge game at #8/#9 Louisville tonight. No point in me saying the same thing over and over. Just read my old posts. The game starts at 7:00 PM and will be on 91.7 FM locally and nationally  online at WHUS.org. Louisville All-Access, as of now, will NOT be covering it. So WHUS is your best bet.

Field Hockey: UConn has a big game at home vs. #19 Louisville today at noon. GameTracker or All-Access is your best bet to watch. The Huskies would love a win in this game, since a subsequent Syracuse slip-up would all but assure us at least a share of the regular season title. And Syracuse comes to our place on October 23rd. If we're tied with them, it goes to head-to-head. So today and 'Cuse are the two big dates on our calendar. But the fun does not stop. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, we travel to Yale to face the Bulldogs in New Haven. Live stats are available on Yale's page here.

Women's Volleyball: Marquette visits Gampel today at 2:00 PM, and Syracuse rolls in Sunday at the same time. We are 0-2 in the Big East but looking to bounce back. Presumably due to limited camera crews, only the Syracuse game will be on All-Access.

Men's Ice Hockey: Exhibition tonight vs. Ryerson at 8:00 PM. Only late start of the season. Most games start at 7:05 but the women are playing earlier. Real season starts next weekend at Bowling Green.