For a program that uses its 12 national championship trophies as doorstops deep within the innards of its home arena, winning the Big East Regular Season Championship doesn’t come with much hoorah for the UConn women’s basketball team.
It’s status quo, after all, even if Wednesday’s 83-69 victory over second-place Villanova (21-6, 14-4) gave the Huskies (28-0, 17-0) their 25th Big East regular season crown and 61st conference title overall.
There are still things to “clean up,” as Geno Auriemma cryptically alluded to last week.
Getting spunky freshman Blanca Quiñonez back from a nagging shoulder injury will certainly help in those janitorial endeavors… eventually, at least.
But after missing six consecutive games, Quiñonez will need time to readjust to the lineup – that was evident early on Wednesday. The freshman subbed in for Serah Williams at the 6:12 mark and turned the ball over twice before the first media timeout.
Quiñonez’s early woes contributed to UConn’s sloppy offensive start, which Villanova took advantage of to take a lead into the first media timeout.
Luckily the top-ranked Huskies have Naismith candidates Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd to lean on in times of offensive hardship. The two potential All-Americans combined for 14 of UConn’s 19 first quarter points and were the catalysts in the Huskies’ come-from-behind effort in the first half.
Strong and Fudd combined for 46 points on 19 field goals, 15 rebounds, eight assists and seven steals in the come-from-behind win over the conference’s second best team, looking every bit the part of the all-world duo they’ve been billed as.
But Villanova, much like Marquette did on Saturday, instituted an early breakneck tempo in an attempt to outnumber the Huskies in transition. The Wildcats pushed the ball in transition and forced Connecticut bigs to burn fouls under the rim, leading to open looks from the perimeter for Jasmine Bascoe and forward Denae Carter.
The Wildcats, despite a moribund 17 first half turnovers (partially offset by 12 UConn giveaways), led by three points at the break after Bascoe notched her 18th point of the half at the charity stripe.
Outside of herculean efforts from Strong and Fudd, the Huskies struggled to produce offensively; Villanova was denying passes to bigs down low and trapping on passes to the wing.
It was Ashlynn Shade who helped dig Connecticut out of its 5-point hole early in the second quarter, slicing to the elbow and hitting on contested elbow jumpers to whittle the deficit.
Shade, one of two Huskies to appear and start in all 28 games so far this season, finished with 13 points on 5-of-11 shooting and corralled six boards in 37 minutes.
But the Wildcats, headed by Bascoe, would punch back after every Husky make, both from 3 and at the rim. Villanova led for over 16 minutes in the first half and never allowed UConn to settle offensively, pressuring the ball and double-teaming Strong. The Cats took a 40-37 lead into the locker room and held UConn to a 13-of-32 mark from the field and minus-5 mark on the glass (22-17).
It took Fudd less than 15 seconds to tie the game out of the half on a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from corner. It took KK Arnold, UConn’s most energetic defender, 10 more seconds to grind down the shot clock and force Bascoe’s most wayward response of the night on the ensuing possession.
Strong and Shade added two tough buckets on the next two Husky possessions, Williams finished an and-1 opportunity at the rim, and Connecticut had its largest lead of the night (7) less than two-and-a-half minutes into the second half.
And it would last – and grow – without Strong, who exited before the third quarter media timeout after picking up two fouls in eight seconds to give her four personals.
That’s when Quiñonez came alive. A driving lay-in from the freshman at the 5:23 mark extended Connecticut’s lead back to six, and after Shade added two at the charity stripe, Quiñonez found the bottom of the net again with a powerful step-thru to force a Villanova timeout.
But it was Fudd who threw the haymaker – ironically on the offensive glass, of all places. The graduate plucked Arnold’s missed free throw out of the air and hurled it to Allie Ziebell, who canned a triple to extend UConn’s lead to double digits for the first time all night in the final minute of the third.
The Huskies never surrendered the lead after that, flexing it to as large 21 points and running away from the pesky Wildcats with bottlenecking defensive pressure, ultimately downing the Wildcats SCORE.
UConn is next in action Sunday, when Providence comes to Gampel Pavilion for Senior Day at 12 p.m.