Twice, senior forward Aaliyah Edwards got called for an offensive foul against the Marquette Golden Eagles in the second quarter. A third foul, this time on defense, sent Edwards to the bench for the remaining 4:25 of the first half. The No. 8 UConn women’s basketball team fell behind 29-28 on Golden Eagles forward Liza Karlen’s 3-pointer 12 seconds later, but the foul flipped a switch.
Senior guard Nika Mühl responded on the other end with a triple, one of five the Huskies hit over the next four minutes. Marquette twice called a timeout to try and bring the game back to its competitive nature. No matter how many times they attempted to do so, Connecticut could not miss.
Most times in basketball, a dagger ices the game for the team leading by a slim margin. Redshirt junior guard Paige Bueckers delivered it at halftime. Senior guard Jordan King drained a trey with six seconds left in the first half, but it was too much time for Bueckers. The redshirt junior hustled halfway down the court, releasing the ball from the Golden Eagles’ logo just before the buzzer sounded. It hit nothing but net, putting a stamp on the Huskies’ 85-59 victory over Marquette at the Al McGuire Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Bueckers, who finished with a game-high 26 points, celebrated with her teammates afterward. Her fourth-straight performance with 20-plus points almost did not happen. The arena fell silent for the second time in six days when the redshirt junior remained on the ground following a collision 3:10 into the contest. The UConn fans in attendance could not even look as Bueckers held on to the back of her left knee.
During the time she spent on the bench, the Golden Eagles went on an 8-4 run and grabbed a three-point lead. Marquette was one step ahead several times, but with the redshirt junior back on the court two minutes later, the Huskies had the ammunition they needed to go toe-to-toe in a heavyweight bout.
“Any team you put her on would be a different team,” head coach Geno Auriemma said about Bueckers. “The things that she does impact each and every player on our team in a positive way.”
The game’s physicality continued with no end in sight. Players entered foul trouble, both teams exchanged the lead like a hot potato and turnover issues occurred on both ends of the floor. For almost an entire half, it felt like Connecticut was in the midst of their closest Big East contest to date.
Yet the Huskies kept their streak of both scoring 80-plus points and winning by 25-plus. After outscoring the Golden Eagles 21-9 in the final four minutes of the first half, UConn kept its foot on the gas with 22 points in the first 5:50 of the second half. Both Edwards and first-year guard KK Arnold crossed double figures, leading the charge for an offense that shot 9-17 from the field in the third quarter.
On the other end, the Huskies’ defense surrendered one two-pointer in that frame. Marquette’s three triples kept them in the game several times, but Connecticut continued clamping down, holding their opponents to a 3-13 clip from the field in the final frame and two points in the last 7:37. It officially iced the Golden Eagles’ first loss in Milwaukee this season, three weeks after the Huskies handed them their first defeat of the season in Hartford, Connecticut.
This was Arnold’s first collegiate game in Wisconsin. The four-time Big East Freshman of the Week hails from Germantown, Wisconsin, which is approximately 30 minutes away from Milwaukee. Limited to 11 first-half minutes because of foul trouble, Arnold attacked the transition game behind her quickness for two steals alongside her 13 points.
Connecticut buried just three triples when they lost in Milwaukee last season, the same number they made in their win over the DePaul Blue Demons on Saturday. Against Marquette, they put together their deadliest performance from downtown yet with 11 3-pointers, all but one of which came in the final 24 minutes. Bueckers buried four for the second time in three games; Big East Freshman of the Week Ashlynn Shade shot a perfect 3-3 from downtown; Mühl made her first three and finished 3-5.
Edwards, meanwhile, commanded the glass en route to her 25th-career double-double with 12 rebounds to go alongside her 10 points. The senior forward also accounted for one of the team’s 11 steals, a staple of a defense that scored 24 points off 16 Golden Eagle turnovers.
Karlen scored 13 points in the first meeting between these two teams; she exceeded that total in the first half with 19. Despite being a nuisance in the interior for the first 20 minutes, however, the Huskies limited the senior forward to two points across the second half and 21 on the night.
Her silence allowed sophomore guard Mackenzie Hare to create most of the offense for Marquette, who scored 21 points in the second half. Hare accounted for four of the team’s eight triples, further establishing herself as one of the nation’s most dangerous 3-point threats and finishing with 19 points. Senior guard Rose Nkumu collected six rebounds while dealing with foul trouble for most of the game.
Other than King, who had 10 points and six assists, the rest of the team struggled to keep up with the pack. The Golden Eagles have been outrebounded in a game only twice this season; Connecticut accounts for both, taking this battle of the boards 38-28.
The Huskies, now halfway through their 18-game conference slate, will not play a Big East foe for a week. That does not mean a seven-day break, however, as one of UConn’s longtime rivals, the No. 15 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (14-3, 5-2 ACC), rolls into Storrs on Saturday night. Tip-off from Gampel Pavilion is at 8 p.m. on FOX.