STORRS — Regann Reardon had just drained her second 3-pointer of the first quarter, giving Army an early 18-10 lead, when Sarah Strong motioned — rather aggressively — for a team huddle under the basket.
UConn was shooting 2-for-11 from the field over six minutes into the first quarter; Army, meanwhile, had hit on five early field goals and was nearly doubling the Huskies on the scoreboard. Usually unflappable Connecticut was rattled — and desperately needed to reset.
Geno Auriemma, who sat palming his face between scoffs on the bench, wasn’t the one to initiate it, though. That was by design. He watched on as Strong, the Huskies’ entrusted on-court leader, commanded the huddle and galvanized her teammates.
Auriemma’s preached accountability to his team this preseason. The need to be independent on the court and solve its own problems. To find its voice.
UConn, thanks in large part to Strong, did just that throughout the final three quarters on Sunday, using a 43-7 run over 12 minutes of game time to smush Army 86-50 in its preseason finale.
“KK (Arnold) even said it: when Sarah decides to say something, when she does say something, no matter what it is, everybody is just quiet and they listen,” Auriemma said post-game. “The more she takes advantage of that, I think the better for us.”
Strong, who finished with a game-high 19 points, started the blue and white avalanche with a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from the left wing. Steely freshman guard Jovana Popovic followed with a 3 of her own. Strong blocked Reardon seconds later before Arnold tied the game with a twirling layup. Always-fiery Ashlynn Shade added three points from the charity stripe as the first quarter expired to give UConn the lead.
“It’s kind of been a pattern, the first three games that we played,” Auriemma said. “Where we kind of waited around for somebody to get us going offensively. The thing that makes us good is when everybody touches the ball, and we give ourselves opportunities. We are not very good when the ball gets stagnant, and two people are playing a two-man game.”
It was emphatically lopsided, particularly defensively, in the second quarter: UConn forced 10 turnovers, held Army to a 3-of-11 mark from the field (1-for-8 from 3) and allowed just a single basket in the paint while pouring on 14 points down on the other end.
“I think we have to be better at — and we were in the second quarter — at pushing out there and contesting more,” Auriemma said. “We did a much better job of that (later on), obviously. And when you score, you can get into your pressure more. So, yeah, I wasn’t ready to call a couple of timeouts in the first quarter.”
Connecticut ballooned its lead from five to 17 points in less than five minutes in the second period before adding 11 more in the final four minutes to stretch its lead to 28 at the break.
A litany of 3-pointers from Popovic, who finished with 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting, and sharpshooting Allie Ziebell, as well as an end-of-half blitz from Shade, who added six points in less than 20 seconds as the clock expired, lifted UConn to an 8-of-17 (47.1%) mark from 3. The Huskies hit only one 3-pointer in the second half, finishing 9-of-25 overall.
The onslaught only continued in the second half. After adding 17 points on eight field goals in the third, Connecticut opened up a 31-point lead by the mid-point of the fourth quarter while forcing 22 total turnovers, scoring 42 points in the paint and 36 off the bench.
“I thought, when we had a certain lineup out there, the pressure was really good,” Auriemma said. “We kept them away from the free throw line, too.”
Strong (19), Ziebell (13) and Popovic (10) were the only Huskies to reach double figures, but nine of the 10 players who checked in the game hit multiple field goals, including backup point guard Kayleigh Heckel, who scored just six points but grabbed seven rebounds and dished four assists while not turning the ball over once.
“I thought there were a lot of really good moments,” Auriemma said. “Heckel had a great day. It shows you that it doesn’t have to be just scoring the ball. She rebounded the ball, she made plays for other people, she got in the lane — a lot.”
Sunday concluded UConn’s three-game preseason, with the Nov. 2 regular-season opener against Cornell in Hartford marking the start of “the next phase” in Connecticut’s chase for a 13th championship.
“We’re not there yet,” Auriemma quipped. “But we’re not supposed to be there yet. It’s still early in the season.”