HARTFORD – After No. 2 UConn’s three-game exhibition series, Head Coach Geno Auriemma saw a lot of things from his team. Some of those things he liked, others he didn’t.
“We didn’t make any threes against Syracuse, our defense was really good against Texas,” Auriemma said last Saturday. “[And] for the most part, our defense was not great the first part of the Army game.”
Auriemma emphasized that during the program’s first regular-season game against Cornell, he wanted to see his program combine these qualities.
With a 100-35 win over the Cornell Big Red, Auriemma and Husky fans had an opportunity to see these combinations, marking the Huskies’ 31st consecutive season opener win.
“You hope that, you know, everybody performs pretty well and comes out of there feeling like you know ‘We’ve got some work to do,’” Auriemma said on his roster’s season opener. “At the same time, we did a bunch of good things, and I thought we competed really hard and played with a lot of energy.”
Over the first half, despite going only 2-9 from beyond the arc, the Huskies’ peppery defense and ball movement in the paint aided the Huskies to build such a hefty lead.
Freshman Jovana Popovic and junior Sarah Strong were the two offensive anchors for the Huskies. Popovic locked the Huskies’ offense in, while Strong set her teammates up.
In her first regular-season game as a Husky, Popovic cashed in 19 points and three rebounds, going 8-12 from the field.
Strong reached a new career-high with eight steals, showcasing her niftiness and consistent pressure on the defensive end. Strong was the catalyst for UConn in stealing the ball from Cornell, then dishing it off to her teammates to finish it off in the paint.
With the opening of the season, it also brought Blanca Quiñonez’s sophomore year debut, after missing the Huskies’ three exhibition games due to a shoulder injury.
Coming into this matchup, it brought up the question of whether Quiñonez would step in for freshman Jovana Popovic, who got the nod from Auriemma in the preseason.
Quiñonez ended up coming off the bench in the matchup, picking up right where she left off. The lineup combination, including Popovic, Strong and Quiñonez on the floor proved to be a lethal matchup against Cornell.
“She just gives us a different look out there. She gives us a different dimension,” Auriemma said when asked about Quiñonez. “When she and Sarah are on the floor together, there’s a lot of chemistry between the two of them. She’s not crazy about how she played today […] but she puts a lot of time into it.”
With 28 points in the paint over the course of the first and second frames, it was utter annihilation from the Huskies in the first half, forcing Cornell to go 5-26 from the field for the entirety of the first half.
Throughout the first two frames, Connecticut forced Cornell to only go 3-14 from the field and 2-12 from beyond the arc. UConn capitalized on Cornell’s 18 turnovers, scoring 28 points off them.
At the end of the second quarter, the Huskies led 46-13.
Fans had the chance to see freshman Marine Dursus step onto the court for the first time as a Husky in the second half of the matchup. After being sidelined due to a foot injury for the first three exhibition games, fans got to see Dursus’ skills on full display.
As the Big Red worked their way to combat the Huskies’ defense, Dursus added to the Huskies lead, going 100% with her attempts from the field and beyond the arc in the final frame.
Over the duration of the fourth quarter, Dursus piled up 11 points and two steals in just 10 minutes on the court.
“I think it feels great, like I was kind of waiting for this moment,” Dursus said postgame when asked about her first game. “It’s been like two months, even more. I just wanted to play, so now I could see what [it’s like] to play in this arena with the fans and everything. It’s really great.”
With Dursus at the forefront, the Huskies closed out the game on a 17-0 run over the final four minutes of the matchup.
Now, with their first win under their belt, the Huskies will look to shift their focus to Thursday’s matchup against Syla Swords and No. 5 Michigan.
“They have a style of play that I think is fun to watch,” Auriemma said when asked about the Michigan matchup. “They’re well coached and I’m sure they’re incredibly good at home because that’s what all good teams are.”
Tip-off between these two foes is scheduled for 6:30 from the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. Husky fans can tune in to the bout on FS1.