WBB: Huskies survive Storrs slugfest, move to Bridgeport’s Sweet 16
STORRS-A day that began with a power outage on the University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus ended with the Huskies’ women’s basketball team shooting lights out for a brief but crucial stretch at Gampel Pavilion.
It took every ounce of physicality the Huskies had in their arsenal, but a slugfest in Storrs ended with UConn (27-5) on the winning end of a 52-47 final over the University of Central Florida to cap off second-round action of the NCAA Tournament’s Bridgeport Region.
The Huskies’ early fourth quarter box score, which saw them sink three of their first five opportunities from the field, was an anomaly in a defensive struggle, as they’d go on to miss their next six attempts.
But the early output, headlined by triples from Azzi Fudd and Christyn Williams, was just enough to outlast the upset-minded Knights (26-4), whose historic 2021-22 campaign came to a heartbreaking end through a taste of their own gritty medicine.
“I can honestly say that, given the kind of season we've had, I thought I'd pretty much seen it all. But this was a rather new experience for me,” head coach Geno Auriemma said of the narrow triumph.
“It was what we thought it would be. It was going to be really difficult. It was going to be really ugly looking, and it was. We could have just as easily let that game get away from us and we didn't. There's something to be said for that, that you can win a game that you probably would look back and say I'm not sure how we won that game, but we did.”
UConn improved to 14-0 all-time against their former rivals from their days in the American Athletic Conference. From the get-go, the game was defined by gritty physicality and defense, an effort well-anticipated from the Knights, who allowed a nation-low 47.6 points per game en route to the AAC title. The two sides united for 45 fouls, 24 called against UCF.
The senior Williams, who bid farewell to Storrs with a dozen-point showing, was one of the few representatives left from UConn’s regular meetings with UCF. She was aware of the physicality the Knights built their newfound winning reputation upon and when it became clear that a relative brawl would ensue, the Huskies would have to bite back. Williams felt the team responded and then some, dispatching the Knights’ own brand of aggressiveness back at them.
Monday’s scrappiness was prominently on display during a tie-up between Paige Bueckers and Tay Sanders in the first half. The jousting drew players from both sides over to center court, with Bueckers saved from a possible technical foul thanks to Evina Westbrook’s intervention. Once freed, Bueckers encouraged a Gampel Pavilion crowed amplified by students returning from spring break to get loud, a request that the 10,167 gathered were more than happy to oblige.
“When we played them my freshman and sophomore year, they were always super aggressive. We knew coming into this game they would be very physical and very aggressive. We just tried to throw the first punch and keep punching them,” Williams said.
“We knew it was going to be like that from the tip-off. It was going to be an aggressive game and a physical game. We just fought back. That was the only thing we really could do was just hold our own and fight back. We just kept on throwing punches and eventually they backed down.”
The Huskies were allowed to sink only 14 shots from the field in their win, but countered UCF’s strikes…some of them literal…with physical play of their own and capitalized at the free throw line.
UConn would erase UCF’s 18-12 lead after the first quarter primarily through free throws, sinking 9-of-13 while shooting only 2-of-7 from the field over that ten-minute stretch.
The Knights’ dominant interior threats, namely Masseny Kaba (infamous in Storrs for a bloody encounter with Nelson-Ododa in the teams’ last meeting in 2020) were ensnared in foul trouble, allowing UConn to chop away at the lead. Full-court pressure overseen by Nika Muhl kept UCF in check, limiting them to five points in the second frame.
In comparison, the Knights’ Cinderella bid from Orlando was thwarted thanks in part to their own inability to sink their freebies: UCF shot 10-of-20 from the charity stripe, including 4-of-9 in the first half, failing to build their early lead past eight. Thus ended a memorable season for the Knights, who earned their first NCAA Tournament triumph on Saturday against in-state rival Florida.
The early sharpshooting from Williams and Fudd boosted UConn’s lead to as high as 12, but a combination of a cold snap from the field and whistle-happy officials allowed UCF to creep back in. Nelson-Ododa and Aaliyah Edwards each fouled out, leading Auriemma to turn to Dorka Juhasz in the interior while Paige Bueckers played 32 minutes, by far her busiest effort since returning from a December knee injury that erased over two months of her sophomore season, even though Auriemma admitted was “too much”.
Though UCF trimmed the lead to as little as three in the final minute, further composure both on defense and at the foul line allowed the Huskies to escape with the win. The freshman Fudd led all scorers with 16 in her second career NCAA Tournament game and, despite shooting only 4-of-13 from the field, came through with some of the biggest scoreboard contributions of the night. A three-pointer just past the midway mark of the third frame gave UConn a permanent lead and ignited a 12-0 run that she sandwiched with another triple at the onset of the fourth.
“My teammates had confidence in me,” Fudd said of her late scoring. “When my shot wasn't falling, they just kept telling me to shoot and kept finding me and giving me great looks. That's kind of what I did.”
“Kudos to Azzi. She did a very good job of handling the ball in the backcourt,” Williams added. (She) did good, she was very poised. She might not think she was, but it's hard out there, especially as a freshman. But she did very good, and I'm just proud of our team that we held it together down the stretch.”
The visiting Knights were paced by 12 points from Diamond Battles. While they failed to keep their magical season alive, they earned a bittersweet footnote in Huskies history: UConn’s 52
points were their fewest in a victorious NCAA Tournament effort, beating the 53 they had against Stanford in 2010’s national title game.
Advancing to their record-extending 28th consecutive Sweet 16, the Huskies will battle third-ranked Indiana at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, about an hour-plus drive away from Storrs. The Hoosiers (24-8, 11-5 Big Ten) crushed No. 14 Charlotte in opening round action on Saturday before likewise staving off a Monday upset bid in 56-55 fashion, this one coming from 11th-seeded Princeton.
| Date | Location | Game |
|---|---|---|
Monday, 3/21 | Raleigh, NC | No. 1 North Carolina State 89, No. 9 Kansas State 57 |
Monday, 3/21 | Norman, OK | No. 5 Notre Dame 108, No. 4 Oklahoma 64 |
Monday, 3/21 | Bloomington, IN | No. 3 Indiana 56, No. 11 Princeton 55 |
Monday, 3/21 | Storrs, CT | No. 2 UConn 52, No. 7 UCF 47 |
