Count ‘Em: Another Trophy For The Shelf
The Story: It was never in doubt that the women’s basketball team would claim its 20th Big East tournament title as it steamrolled Villanova to win 70-40 last night at Mohegan Sun. Perhaps the only drama all evening centered around Dorka Juhasz and whether she could get that baseball hat to stay atop the Big East trophy during the presentation. (She could not.)
YOU SEE ME ROLLIN’: The Huskies (25-5, 16-1 Big East) took an 11-0 run over the first four minutes and never took their feet off the gas. They more than made up for the three-point loss during the teams’ only meeting during the regular season — one that snapped their 145-game conference winning streak — by likely keeping the Wildcats (23-8, 15-4 Big East) from making the NCAA Tournament. That’s revenge.
• Evina Westbrook had a team-high 13 points and Aaliyah Edwards had 12 points and a team-high six rebounds for UConn, which was up 33-18 at halftime and 49-26 after three. It shot 55.8 percent, had a 39-17 edge in rebounding, had a 36-18 advantage in the paint and tallied assists on 15 of 29 field goals. Christyn Williams was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
• Villanova, held to a season low in scoring, shot 32 percent and had just 18 points at halftime. UConn held its three Big East tournament opponents to fewer than 10 points in a quarter five times. Villanova’s not bad. Marquette isn’t, either. (But Georgetown is.) We love points, but we just don’t talk enough about how good the Huskies’ defense can be. Maybe we should at some point this week.
• Maddy Siegrist, who was named the Big East Player of the Year because Paige Bueckers missed nearly the whole season, had 16 points on 7-of-17 shooting. Lior Garzon, who had a team-high 19 points in the first meeting, was held to three points last night.
• It wasn’t all flawless as the Huskies had seven of their 17 turnovers in the first quarter. But that’s like pointing out the one cloud that rolled in during a mid-winter Miami Beach vacation. Things could be worse.
• Villanova is a borderline NCAA Tournament team, but you’d have to imagine it’s a bad sign to be blown out by 30 points. Then again, it was probably also a bad sign that coach Denise Dillon was imploring her players to stop feeling sorry for themselves during a timeout early in the second quarter. Just be happy to be there, coach.
PROBLEMS FOR PAIGE? The Huskies showed a bit of precaution with Bueckers, who entered at the start of the second quarter and had two points in eight minutes. She did not warm up with her teammates as she battled a bit of soreness in her surgically repaired left knee.
• Bueckers played 18 minutes in each of UConn’s first two Big East tournament games, so it goes without saying that someone who missed two months with her injuries would need a bit of time to get back to full strength.
• There’s no cause for concern — yet. Remember, the Huskies are playing the long game with Bueckers. Would it be great to have her back playing 40 minutes and scoring 25 points a game? Of course. But they don’t need her right now. They likely won’t even need her next week, when they’re playing Oklahoma Panhandle State or Double Directional Tech. Get her back into the flow of the game, get her healthy and get her ready for later this month.
• Bueckers also has to remember the mental hurdles that will pop up. She’s going to have days when she doesn’t feel as good, and there will be times when she’s feeling tight or sore. How she’s able to prepare and manage that going through the next three weeks will be key to her success.
FILLING THE GAPS: It’s been nice seeing the Huskies’ rotation come together now that everyone is healthy. Caroline Ducharme playing off the bench and scoring six of her nine points in the second quarter is an example of the depth the injuries and illnesses of the season have created. Those adjustments can be difficult for some players to handle. UConn has adapted very well in just five games, which is a great sign.
• Ducharme was thrust into filling a primary scoring role with many of the Huskies’ top players out in January, and though she did that well, that wasn’t an expectation for her this season. But when she leaves the bench as part of the second wave, UConn knows it has a player there who can make an impact and shoulder that burden.
• We love the way Juhasz has evolved over the season and the ways she changes the offense. She and Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who had a team-high four assists, are deft passers, but Juhasz’s ability to shoot from the perimeter and handle the ball offers something Nelson-Ododa can’t. That pass at the five-minute mark of the second quarter, when she was able to find Ducharme for the easy layup, has provided the Huskies with a dimension they haven’t had in a long time. She can even play a high-low game that’s unique for someone with her height. She was real good at Ohio State, and she may be even better at UConn. Hopefully, she decides to return.
• One thing that’s going to make the Huskies tough in the NCAA Tournament is that teams haven’t seen them at full strength. They’re easily going nine players deep, which is something Geno Auriemma hasn’t had in many years, and it will be tough for opponents to adequately prepare for the team as it’s constructed. (One aside: Baylor has just nine players total. UConn has nine players who are meaningful contributors. That depth is going to mean something should the two teams meet.)
• It’s gone under the radar, but how good has Edwards been lately? She has reached double figures in scoring in four of her last six games. Her slump appears to be well behind her. She’ll be massively important over the next three weeks.
WHAT DID GENO SAY? “We never lost sight of who we are and what we’re trying to do, and some days it was really bleak. You go to practice and you have five able bodies and you can’t even go up and down the floor. But we never lost sight of, ‘As long as five players show up, we have a chance, and when these guys come back and we start to get whole again’ — little by little, we just keep getting better.
“That’s the thing that I respect the most about this particular group is that we just kept getting better and we kept getting better and we kept getting better. They became very unselfish — not that they weren’t before, but they became very unselfish about playing time, who’s starting, who wasn’t and who was getting all these minutes and who wasn’t, because, when you go from playing 30 minutes and suddenly you’re playing 20 or 15, you can react one of two ways, and every one of these guys reacted like the champions they are. I’m really proud of them.”
WHAT ELSE DID GENO SAY? “By the time you get to be a senior, it seems like it was yesterday that you were a freshman and you thought you had forever. Now, you realize you have three weeks, and in those three weeks, you can make a legacy for yourself in three weeks. Regardless of what has happened in the previous three and a half years that you’ve been here, you have a three-week period when you can become famous. I think all three of them want this to end the right way, and I would love nothing better than to help them do that.”
UP NEXT: The Huskies will find out on Sunday where they will be seeded in the NCAA Tournament and who they’ll play — likely a small-conference champion such as Mercer or Longwood. More importantly, they’ll find out whether they’ll be placed in the Bridgeport Region. The masses will riot if they’re not.
Morning Reads
• The baseball team will bring its 8-1 start into the home opener this afternoon when it faces Hartford at 3:05 p.m. (UConnHuskies.com)
• UConn has announced that it will raise prices on its men’s and women’s basketball season ticket packages beginning next season. It’s a complicated issue, especially as we’re all tightening our wallets, but the athletic department reported a record $47 million deficit last year. And, according to the school, other Big East universities still charge more. (Hartford Courant)
• Even though Kemba Walker will sit out the rest of the season as he rests his arthritic left knee, Jim Calhoun said Walker “wants to continue to play.” Let’s hope so, because we’d love to see Walker go out on a high note, not like this. (New York Post)
• Kimani Young, the men’s basketball team’s associate head coach, could be on his way to becoming the head coach at UMass. Guess that’s what happens when you do a marvelous job in beating Villanova. (Mark Blaudschun on Twitter)
