WOMEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY
XAVIER at No. 3 UCONN
When: Saturday, 1 p.m.
Where: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs
Records: Xavier 3-1 (0-0, Big East) UConn 3-0 (2-0, Big East)
TV: SNY
Radio: UConn Sports Network (97.9 FM-ESPN Hartford, WAVZ 1300 AM, WICC 600 AM, WINE 940 AM, WGCH 1490 AM, WILI 1400 AM)
Streaming: Available in-market via NBC Sports app (stream.nbcsports.com/rsn/sny). Out-of-market available at no additional cost to subscribers who have Fox as TV package. Sign in at www.foxsports.com or in FOX Sports app.
KEEP AN EYE ON
Back at it: UConn plays its fourth game in eight days to start the season, a busy stretch that’s seen the Huskies outscore opponents (UMass Lowell, Seton Hall, Creighton) by an average of 42 points.
“It’s not an easy stretch, but in the world that we live in, this COVID world, you’ve got to try to get as many games in as you can, whenever you can get them,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “The alternative is take a couple days off and then something happens, and you don’t get to play the game. …
“You don’t practice as long, you don’t do as much. We’re certainly not the only team that’s going through that.”
Westbrook OK: Evina Westbrook hobbled off the floor late in the third quarter of Thursday’s win against Creighton, but said it wasn’t her surgically repaired knee that was aching.
“It was just my hamstring, but no problems at all,” Westbrook said.
The junior’s absence was brief. She returned just 67 seconds later and finished with eight points and six rebounds.
Meanwhile, freshman Nika Muhl (left foot) did not play and is expected to be out through Christmas.
History lesson: UConn won its only previous meeting with Xavier, 86-84 in the second round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament in Storrs.
“They would’ve done us a favor by winning that game,” Auriemma joked, “because then we went to Iowa State and got our (butts) beat in Cincinnati. I think they would’ve done us a favor.”
Auriemma noted how that UConn team had five freshmen — Sue Bird, Keirsten Wolters, Asjha Jones, Swin Cash, Tamika Williams — one fewer than his current squad.
“Very similar circumstances,” he said.