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STORRS, Conn. -- No. 2 UConn was expected to be tested against No. 15 DePaul, the first of five ranked teams it will face this month.It quickly became clear that the Huskies had all the answers Thursday night.Kia Nurse scored a career-high 33 points and UConn routed the Blue Demons 91-46 for its 81st straight victory.Napheesa Collier added 18 points, and Katie Lou Samuelson had 16.Kelly Campbell had 10 points to lead DePaul (5-2).The Blue Demons missed their first eight shots and were held to a single free throw for nearly 6 minutes to start the game. UConn (6-0), which has won 53 straight at home, hit its first nine shots, most of them on the break, and jumped out to a 22-1 lead.By the end of the quarter, UConn led 37-6.We played with a little bit more of a purpose defensively and that got us off and running, coach Geno Auriemma said. We created a lot of easy shots for ourselves.Nurse, who hadnt scored more than 15 points this season, made three quick layups and had 19 points after 10 minutes. She hit 12 of her 16 shots, including her first nine and was 6 of 9 from 3-point range.She didnt miss until a corner 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer, when she had already eclipsed her previous career high with 24 points.I came into this game and said I was going to do the little things that I was good at and running the floor is one of those things, Nurse said. To get out in transition and have that work out the first couple of shots was pretty cool.UConn was 15 of 19 from the floor in the first quarter, while holding. DePaul to just 2 of 14. UConn also had a 20-0 advantage in the paint and 16 fast-break points.The Huskies went into halftime leading 53-19 and pushed that to 80-30 after the third quarter.UConn made 59.3 percent of its shots and held DePaul to just 25 percent shooting.THE BIG PICTUREUConn: UConn coach Geno Auriemma has said he hopes someone gives his team a wake-up call to show them that winning isnt as easy as they think. The Huskies face four more ranked opponents before the end of the month that might be able to do that, including No. 14 Texas on Sunday and No. 1 Notre Dame three days later. UConn also plays No. 9 Ohio State and No. 5 Maryland before January.Theres no guarantee like the past couple years that, yeah we got this, Auriemma said. Its a wait and see. Its a process. I just dont want to take any steps back. I dont know how many steps forward were going to take. I just dont want to take any steps back.DePaul: The Blue Demons made just 17 of 68 shots and made seven of their 40 shots from behind the arc. They came into the game making just under 39 percent from 3-point range, and were averaging a nations best 13.5 3-pointers a game.This was DePauls third straight game against a ranked team. They lost to No. 5 Baylor 104-72 and beat No. 11 Syracuse, a game in which they hit 19 3-pointers.College basketball really is cruel and its cool, DePaul coach Doug Bruon said. When you throw the ball to the other team and give up breakaway layups like we did tonight its pretty cruel, especially against good players. Its also cool because you get a chance to come back pretty quickly, and Ive seen teams throughout my many years, six, seven, eight days later, you dont even know its the same team. We really are going to be better for what happened tonight than for not having played tonight.POLL IMPLICATIONSShould they have a similarly impressive win Sunday against No. 14 Texas, UConn may pick up a few more first-place votes going into the Dec. 7 showdown with top-ranked Notre Dame in South BendBREAKING GOODUConns perimeter defense led to 24 DePaul turnovers and sparked the Huskies transition game. UConn outscored the Blue Demons 26-4 on the fast break and 44-10 in the paint.CRYSTAL CLEAREDUConn freshman guard Crystal Dangerfield, who missed the Huskies win on Tuesday against Chattanooga with concussion-like symptoms, came off the bench in this one. She played 23 minutes and had three points and two assists.GOLD MEDALAuriemma and Bruno received Olympic rings from USA Basketball in a ceremony before the game. Bruno has served as an assistant to Auriemma on the last two gold-medal winning USA Olympic teams. Auriemma was named USA Basketballs co-coach of the year Thursday, sharing the honor with mens Olympic coach Mike Krzyzewski.HOME COOKINGUConn wont be spending a lot of time playing in Storrs during the next two months. This was its last game at Gampel Pavilion until Jan. 22 against Tulane. They Huskies will play at Mohegan Sun on Sunday and have four games at the XL Center in Hartford in December and January. They play eight games on the road.UP NEXTUConn: The Huskies continue their string of games against ranked opponents when they face the Longhorns on Sunday at the Mohegan Sun arena, about 30 miles south of UConns campus.DePaul: The Blue Demons host Prairie View on Monday, before welcoming Notre Dame on Dec. 10.Mikko Rantanen Jersey . Cuban testified Thursday that he was upset when the companys CEO told him news that would reduce the value of his shares, for which hed paid $7.5 million. But he said he did nothing improper when he sold those shares over the next two days. Rob Ramage Avalanche Jersey . Irving scored 23 points, Tristan Thompson had 20 points and 10 rebounds and the Cavaliers beat the Denver Nuggets 117-109 on Friday night. http://www.hockeyavalanche.com/authentic-mark-barberio-avalanche-jersey/ . After a first half in which he thought "the lid was on the basket," the Toronto Raptors coach watched his squad mount a second half surge to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers 98-91. John Wensink Jersey . LOUIS -- St. Gabriel Landeskog Jersey . "I wrote 36 on my sheet at the beginning of the game," the Cincinnati coach said, referring the yard line the ball would need to be snapped from.I remember the first time I saw diving.I was at my sisters swim practice at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre and I had wandered down the pool to the diving boards. Watching the divers soon became a routine. I would turn up for my sisters training hoping that the divers were there, too. But, it wasnt until I was watching the finals of the synchronized diving at the 2000 Sydney Olympics with my dad that my parents finally let me join a diving team. I was 10-years-old. At first it was just a fun after-school activity, but it soon became a passion.Shortly after taking up diving, I was accepted into the junior diving program at the Australian Institute of Sport in Brisbane. I accelerated quickly after that, and it wasnt long before I was competing. By 13 I was the national champion and Commonwealth Games silver medallist, and by 16 Id won an Olympic Medal.Over my time as an Australian diver competing at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games, I have grown from a young athlete learning her craft to an experienced diver leading her team into the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.These are just a few lessons Ive learned about myself, diving and growing up in such a competitive landscape.Remain Focused On Your GoalsAt 13-years-old I attended my first national diving championship. It was an important time in my career; I was in a program with three other divers and if you didnt perform you were out.The championship is a bit of a blur now. I was so focused on training, performing and maintaining my spot in the program. But I remember when one of my teammates was dropped, I overheard his mum on pool-deck telling people I should have been kicked out as well. I remember that day so clearly, thinking no, Ive trained so hard for this and Im not going to be kicked out.It was a stressful time. Id constantly been reviewed and analysed in the lead up to the championship and I knew I had to perform to qualify for the Commonwealth Games.Winning the championship was a relief, defeating established Australian stars Chantelle Newbery, an Olympic champion, and Loudy Tourkey, a bronze medal winner at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004. I was under so much pressure to perform, and it was that moment that I realised Id made it and I just needed to keep working and keep focused on myself. My coach at the time was so focused on the job. For him it wasnt about me beating people, but me diving well. We trained hard for me to compete well, so he was very focused on my performance.It was an important lesson for me going into the rest of my career, making sure I didnt focus on other people. At the end of the day, and no matter what other people say, you still have to do your dives and so I make sure to focus as much as I can on what Im doing.All About Performance - Expectations Are HighI had my first experience on an international stage at the 2006 Commonwealth Games; I was 14-years-old, and it was an eye-opening experience.I was thrown together with my synchronized diving partner, Alex Croak, a week before the Games. We didnt really know what to expect, so we just thought wed do our best. It was different to anything Id experienced.We won the silver medal and I cant really remember what I was thinking at the time; I just remember being so excited. I dont even remember being nervous. I just remember competing.I never really thought of what I achieved. The mentality of the program, everyone was expected to perform; not just me but the whole team. You dont think about what youve accomplished when the culture iis based so much on performance.dddddddddddd You grew up learning that everything is about performance, so I went in there trying to have fun but knowing I had to perform.It was the same when I won silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. I was 16-years-old, and Id had a few more international tournaments under my belt. I won silver again in the synchro, with Briony Cole, and I became the youngest Australian diver to medal at the Olympics. But I didnt really know or focus on that achievement. My time at the Olympics was all about performance. I had to go there and perform; getting a medal, particularly the silver, was what was expected of me, especially with our previous results in the lead up.With all that pressure and the expectations, winning the silver wasnt really a wow moment. It was amazing winning a medal, but I remember having that pressure on me and just thinking that was what was expected of me.You Have To Be Brave To Be A DiverDespite practising simple dives from the 10 metre platform for a long time, I still remember the first time trying a more difficult dive from that height. Id been trained from a young age to be comfortable up there, but still it was really scary trying the difficult dives for the first time.I can remember that day as I was getting to the pool. I could feel the adrenalin building and I was getting pretty nervous to start doing those more technical dives. But once I did it, it was such a great feeling because then I knew that rush.We do all the practice and all the lead up to prepare ourselves, but you never know what youre going to feel like until you go up there. Its the fear of the unknown; you need to have that bravery and willpower to just go for it and not worry about whats going to happen.Being Teammates and Competitors Can Be A Lonely PlaceIts always tough being in a competitive solo sport. People can be very different in the pool and out of the pool.Alex Croak is probably one of the few people in my diving crew who remained friends with me no matter what the results were. But I have found that friendships like Alexs are rarer than people who treat you differently with the results.Its just the nature of sports; its something you learn form a young age that its just how people are in a sporting environment; so you learn to just stay focused on what youre doing. If you make friends, thats a bonus; but at the end of the day youre probably not going to have that many friends.It can be a really lonely place being teammates and competitors. It was especially hard when I was younger. It was really tough. Were all teammates trying to compete in the same environment, and if you dont perform youre out.Youre Not Always Friends On The Olympic TeamIve matured a lot over the years, obviously as a person and through my diving, too.It takes a lot of time to get experience and to start diving consistently; its a real mental thing in competitions. You do all your physical preparations in training but at the end of the day its about whos going to be the toughest mentally, and I think in the last few years I have improved my mental strength.After years of self-doubt, I finally feel more comfortable in myself.Ive had a lot of issues with self-confidence over the years and now I feel so much better on so many different levels, and to be able to pass on this confidence to younger athletes is something Im really proud of. ' ' '