STEPPING UP
Mühl, Samuels, Brady help UConn make up for loss of Griffin
UConn women’s basketball had three days to adjust to playing without guard/forward Aubrey Griffin.
Who would make up for the loss of Griffin’s spark off the bench? What about her aggressiveness down low in grabbing rebounds? Or her scoring production and her ability to drive through crowded lanes and draw fouls?
In the Huskies’ nearly 30point win over Georgetown in Washington on Sunday, they found some answers from both the starters and the underclassmen on the bench. No, it wasn’t all pretty and smooth, and who knows what it’ll look like against tougher opponents.
But for now, UConn may have found a solution.
Griffin plays with a fearlessness incomparable to any of the other Huskies. She constantly takes big hits when going up for layups and always bounces right back up, sometimes drawing fouls in the process. Even on defense, her length pressures opponents, forcing them to make quick and incorrect reads.
On Wednesday, the New York native jumped up for a potential block in front of the Creighton basket late in the third quarter. But she never made contact with the ball nor the opponent as she immediately grabbed her left knee mid-jump before taking a hard tumble to the court.
She needed assistance getting off the court and didn’t return to the bench.
Initial examination of her knee said it was “very, very unstable.” She traveled with the team to Washington later in the week and was on the bench with crutches Sunday. SNY reported UConn would provide an update on her status later this week once she could be fully assessed by its medical staff back in Connecticut.
Her absence leaves UConn without an experienced sub coming off the bench, without one of its most aggressive and physical players, and makes the Huskies' lineup that much smaller without her long 6-foot-1 frame.
“We're going to be facing with this, not that we haven't already, but we're smaller than most teams that we line up against in our starting lineup,” Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma said Sunday. “Not having Aubrey available, we can't get bigger on the wing real quick. So, I think teams are going to, tonight anyway, they try to take advantage of us physically, both on the perimeter and inside. I do think that's going to be a common theme as we go forward.”
The Hoyas, not too much bigger than UConn, punched first Sunday afternoon. They played physically and pressured the Huskies into playing just as scrappy, knowing UConn can't afford to have players get into foul trouble.
At halftime, Paige Bueckers, Nika Mühl, Aaliyah Edwards and Ice Brady all had two fouls each.
“We don't look necessarily like we could be a physical team, but I think we can be. I think we showed that today,” Auriemma said. “But it's, you know, as we move along, it's gonna become even more of a factor. You know, teams that have 10 players they can go out there and go, ‘We don't care how many fouls we rack up. You know, if we can get them into an Ifoul-you-you-foul-me situation.' And unfortunately, we can't play like that.”
Griffin was fifth on the team averaging 9.5 points. On Sunday, Mühl made up for her production on offense by showcasing her growth on the perimeter.
The senior guard made 4 of 5 3-point attempts to record a season-high 14 points. It was just the third time this season that she drained three or more shots from deep in a single game.
“Nika had the ball on her hands 99 percent of the time last year, you know, and now that she's in a situation where she's sharing the ball a lot with KK (Arnold) and Paige, she knows that she's going to be open and she's become a really, really, really good 3-point shooter because she's worked at it,” Auriemma said. “She's worked really, really hard at it. … I couldn't be happier and I couldn't be prouder of her right now.”
Added Mühl during an SNY interview Sunday: “I'm not gonna lie, I've been working my ass off when it comes to the 3pointer. I've been in the gym. I really have and coach Mo (Morgan Valley) has been in the gym with me all the time, working on the 3's and I've become more and more confident in just attempting to shoot it. I don't think the making part was ever my problem, it was just attempting to shoot it.”
Griffin was also fifth on the team in field goals attempted (86 across 14 games). Following her injury this week, Auriemma said freshman Qadence Samuels stepped up and said she wanted to fill in Griffin's role.
At 6-foot, Samuels' length helps makeup for Griffin's size and her unending confidence shooting the ball helps even more. As she gains more experience, more of her shots will fall (she was 3 of 10 from the floor, including 0 of 4 from deep on Sunday) leading to even more confidence and a greater impact.
Against the Hoyas, the guard was the first sub off the bench and played 16 minutes, scoring six points, with five rebounds (second on the team).
“Q has been sitting on the bench but taking that all in and she figures that there was probably 30some shots in the last two weeks that Aubrey didn't take and she was going to make up for that,” Auriemma said. “So that was the biggest difference, you know. We put Aubrey in (and) our defense gets better, our rebounding gets better, our transition game gets better. And we didn't have the opportunity to do that today. So, what we got was we got more shots and that killed our 3-point field goal percentage.”
Outside of Samuels, redshirt freshman Ice Brady will also be expected to step up coming off the bench, especially under the basket. Brady played 25 minutes (one short of her season-high) on Sunday and her aggression and physicality down low helped keep the Huskies' defense stay afloat.
Auriemma used eight of his nine available players in the first half. Sophomore guard Inês Bettencourt played seven minutes and came in to give Mühl and Arnold rest. Amari DeBerry wasn't brought into the game until the game's final three minutes.
While UConn won't win the size battle very often this season, getting more minutes for the 6-6 DeBerry could give Edwards and Brady early rest especially against bigger opponents like Notre Dame later this month (Jan. 27).
“Well, here's my theory on basketball: the object for any coach, I think, the obligation for any coach is to put their five best players on the floor at all times,” Auriemma said. “So, if I can do that every single time and rotate it among seven, eight players, nine, however many as long as we got, you know, the five best players that I can put out there at that time on the court. So right now, that's what we're doing.”