Huskies End Regular Season With a Whimper
The Story: Aaliyah Edwards had eight of her 19 points in the fourth quarter as the No. 9 UConn women, somehow challenged by the worst team in the Big East, hung on for a 60-51 win over Xavier at Gampel Pavilion on Senior Night.
WHAT THE … ? It’s the latest confusing result for the Huskies (26-5, 18-2 Big East), whose third consecutive Big East regular-season title and 10th consecutive regular-season championship was overshadowed by another poor performance.
• Xavier (7-22, 0-20 Big East) entered on an 18-game losing streak, had lost all six of its previous games in February by an average of 23 points and had absolutely nothing to play for, yet there it was, leading 22-20 two minutes into the second quarter.
TURN IT ON: UConn went on a 14-2 run to close the half and was up by as many as 18 in the third quarter. The lead never dipped below double digits until Courtney Prenger made a layup with 42 seconds left for the final margin.
• Edwards’ eight fourth-quarter points accounted for almost all of UConn’s scoring in the period, with only a layup by Aubrey Griffin breaking Edwards’ run. Caroline Ducharme had 14 points and Lou Lopez Senechal, honored before the game as part of Senior Night, finished with 12.
CREDIT TO MUHL: Nika Muhl, who you may remember only became the starting point guard in the wake of Paige Bueckers‘ torn ACL, finished with five points and seven assists. Those assists allowed her to set the school’s single-season record, which had been held for 20 years by Sue Bird.
MORE INJURY WOES: The Huskies were without Dorka Juhasz, who injured her right ankle in the win at DePaul on Saturday and sat out of last night’s game as a precautionary measure.
• Griffin also appeared to jam her right wrist midway through the first quarter, but she was back in the game soon thereafter, and Edwards received treatment on her left leg following a second-quarter collision with Xavier’s Taylor Smith.
CONTROL THE BALL: It was another sloppy performance for the Huskies, who had 17 turnovers and watched as Xavier turned them into 12 points. Edwards had six turnovers and Lopez Senechal had two.
• UConn had a 37-30 edge in rebounding, paced by Edwards’ eight, but only had five second-chance points and five fast-break points.
• It shot 40.4 percent, including a dismal 5-for-22 from 3-point range, and Xavier shot 39.3 percent and went 3-for-14 from beyond the arc.
• No Xavier player had more than nine points or four rebounds. Fernanda Ovalle had nine points off the bench for the Musketeers.
CRUNCH TIME BEGINS: The Huskies will open the Big East tournament on Saturday at noon and will face Marquette or St. John’s — teams that beat them in the regular season — in the quarterfinals.
• So much has been made about the Huskies’ fatigue costing them in games (or costing them games, depending on how you look at it). How can a team that struggled against one that went 0-20 in the conference be expected to hold up for three games against opponents that know how to beat them? That’s Geno Auriemma‘s challenge for the next four days.
WHAT DID GENO SAY? “These last two weeks have been really, really difficult. Every game’s a struggle. Everything we try to do is a struggle. Hopefully, these next four or five days, we can get better organized, but I’m proud of them because it’s been a long season and they’ve been through a lot, and we came out of this winning a Big East championship, which is a heck of a thing considering what we’ve been through.”
— Zac Boyer
Morning Reads
• The UConn men moved up to No. 14 in the Associated Press poll yesterday after their wins over Providence at St. John’s last week. (Hearst Connecticut Media)
• The men’s hockey team enters its final weekend of the regular season at No. 17 in the USCHO poll, one spot down from a week ago. (USCHO.com)
• Nick Ahmed has taken on a leadership role with the Diamondbacks, especially as he enters his 10th season in the majors after leaving UConn in 2011. (Arizona Republic)
Top photo: Aaliyah Edwards drives in the exhibition game against Kutztown. (Courtesy of UConn athletics)
