UR women will visit UConn for Thanksgiving tournament

Who's afraid of the big, bad Huskies?

Not the University of Richmond Spiders, apparently.

Richmond coach Michael Shafer yesterday confirmed that his club will face the University of Connecticut, the reigning champions of women's Division I basketball, in a round-robin Thanksgiving tournament hosted by the Huskies next fall. The event, scheduled for Nov. 27-29, will bring Richmond, Clemson and Hofstra to Connecticut. Each of the four teams will play three games in three days.

Shafer said the opportunity to compete with UConn, the winner of six national championships in the past 14 seasons, "is basically an opportunity to see how much we've improved; to see how good we are; to test ourselves against the best."

The best? That's putting it mildly. UConn, perfectly relentless, posted a 39-0 record in 2008-09. Its average margin of victory was little shy of remarkable: 30.5 points per game. The Huskies smashed Louisville 76-54 in last Tuesday's NCAA title game in St. Louis.

UR last encountered Connecticut in November 2006, when next season's seniors were freshmen. The Spiders absorbed an 84-50 thumping.

Said Shafer: "Our approach will be, 'OK, we've done it once, not too long ago. Let's try again and see where we are now compared to where we were then.'"

UR posted a 24-10 record in 2009 and advanced to the third round of the women's postseason NIT.

Contact Vic Dorr Jr. at (804) 649-6442 or .