The UConn women’s basketball team defeated South Florida, 86-49, in front of a sold-out Gampel Pavilion crowd on Sunday afternoon to improve to 2-0 on the season.
Redshirt senior Paige Bueckers led all scorers with 22 points in just 28 minutes of gametime. Sophomore Ashlynn Shade scored 15 points, 12 of which came in the second half. Third leading scorer Sarah Strong tallied 13 points in the Huskies 37-point victory.
Kaitlyn Chen found redshirt sophomore Ice Brady for the game’s first points off the tip, and Brady scored again after a second chance rebound to put the Huskies in front 4-0.
“I think she’s been really solid and really patient,” said Head Coach Geno Auriemma, “And she’s going to make some of, you know, 15, 17-footers which will really change the way we play.” Brady scored the game’s first two baskets and finished with eight points on 4/5 shooting, playing 22:56 of gametime.
Paige Bueckers got on the board with an early three pointer which forced USF to take a timeout not even two minutes into the game, as the Bulls started 1/7 from the field and UConn raced to a 9-0 lead.
The Huskies ended the first quarter with a 19-13 lead but shot just 1/6 from three. Auriemma addressed this postgame saying “I’d still like to maybe get 25 threes every night, but I know, a bucket’s a bucket.”
Jana El Alfy started the second quarter scoring with a post hook, putting the Huskies up eight before Paige Bueckers extended the lead to 10 with a shot-clock-beater on the next possession. USF climbed within six points four minutes into the period, aided by Sammie Puisis’ seven points off the bench, before Kaitlyn Chen and Paige Bueckers found the basket from the interior to start a 16-4 Husky run to end the half.
Five different Huskies scored over the course of a 16-4 run that ended the first half and spanned across the final four minutes of play. Bueckers accounted for six of those points and freshman Morgan Cheli buried a three to get herself on the board. Strong was reliable on the glass, grabbing five first half rebounds as the Huskies parlayed that with a 30-12 paint advantage at the break.
“Good teams don’t detract from themselves,” said Auriemma post-game. “When they find something that is good, they build on it.”
Four UConn fouls gave USF six attempts at the line but zero points to show for it, scoring twice in the final four and a half minutes as the Husky lead swelled to 17 and 18 points as the first half expired with an Ashlynn Shade three pointer at the buzzer.
UConn doubled South Florida in the third quarter, outscoring the Bulls 30-14 as the lead stretched to 34. Of the 30, 27 points were scored by UConn freshman or sophomores, including Shade, who scored eight in the quarter. The Huskies also shot 81.3% from the field in the third quarter, missing just three shots as the lead built upon itself with fast break transitional points and a bevy of down low post scoring.
Shade stretched the lead to 30 points with a breakaway steal as the Huskies entered the fourth quarter with a 34 points advantage.
“Seemed like every possession mattered on both ends of the floor and everything that they did,” said USF Head Coach Jose Fernandez. “They’re good. They’re good and they’re talented. They’re deep [and] they play hard.”
The fourth quarter started with a Mama Dembele fast break lay in, which put the Bulls over 40 points. The USF guard was the team’s leading scorer with 12 points, scoring many times through tough shots from inside the arc. UConn opened the lead by three more, at one point leading by as many as 39 points, before allowing a basket in the final 33 seconds to finalize the score at 86-49.
The Huskies will play next in Greensboro, NC against the No. 15 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels, a pivotal early season matchup for two top 15 squads. The game will tip off on Friday at 6:00 p.m. and will be available on ESPN2.