Temple Women Visit Two-Time Defending National Champs UConn Tonight

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- The challenges don't get much tougher than the one the Temple women's basketball team faces tonight.

They are up in Storrs, Connecticut, for an American Athletic Conference battle with #2, and two-time defending national champion, Connecticut.

The Owls have dropped two straight and bring a 7-10 record into tonight's match-up (3-1 in the AAC), but head coach Tonya Cardoza thinks the arrow is pointing up for her squad.

"I like my group," Cardoza tells KYW Newsradio. "I know that we're young and inexperienced, but I like our fight every single night. I think we work hard and we compete and we've just got to fix a few things. I think defensively we could be a little bit better, but we've lost some close games that hopefully we've learned from them, and down the stretch can win some of those games."

Listen to Tonya Cardoza with KYW's Matt Leon:

The Owls feature just one senior on the roster, guard Tyonna Williams, and they are led in scoring by a sophomore. Guard Feyonda Fitzgerald averages 12.5 points per game. Freshman guard Tanaya Atkinson is second, pouring in just over 11 points a contest.

Connecticut has been the premier program in women's hoops for quite sometime and as per the usual, they are loaded again this season. The Huskies bring a 14-1 record (4-0 in the AAC) into this one.

"The one thing about them is they don't really have weaknesses," Cardoza says. "There's no one that you can help off. About every single kid shoots over 50%, so there's match-up problems. They've got Breanna Stewart, who is arguably the best player in the country. She's a 6-4, Larry Bird-type player. So it's a hard match-up because she requires two guys to guard her. They have one the best three-point shooters of all time in Kaleena (Mosqueda-Lewis) and Moriah Jefferson has just been playing great basketball."

Cardoza is very familiar with the UConn program. Prior to coming to Temple she spent 14 seasons as an assistant coach at Connecticut under head coach Geno Auriemma.

Tonight's game at Gampel Pavilion gets underway at 7:00pm.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.

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