Bueckers out, Huskies roll
UConn women beat Georgetown as star freshman sits with injury.
STORRS — No Paige Bueckers, no Anna Makurat, no... offensive flow, but also no true threat to the Huskies facing a far inferior conference squad Saturday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion
With two members of their rotation, including their starting point guard, out with injuries, No. 3 UConn (10-0, 8-0 Big East) still managed to handily beat the visiting Hoyas, 72-41.
Bueckers, who rolled her right ankle two days ago in the fourth quarter against Tennessee, has a “better chance than not” of returning for Thursday’s game at Arkansas, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after the game. She’s technically considered “day-to-day” and will be evaluated after Saturday’s game.
Makurat, meanwhile, is out indefinitely with a lower right leg issue that Auriemma said she’s been dealing with for the last few weeks. Auriemma did not provide a timetable for her return or any more specificity regarding her injury, though he said she’d been rehabbing it and the staff had tried to limit how much time she was playing before they shut her down this weekend as a precaution.
Both Bueckers and Makurat wore boots on the sidelines Saturday afternoon.
The game was never out of the
Huskies’ control, but it was fairly ugly by UConn standards as Bueckers’ and even Makurat’s absences were felt especially on offense. The Huskies’ 72 points were their second-lowest scoring output of the season — the lowest for any Big East game — and their ball movement stalled short two of their best passers.
Though its offense was lacking, UConn built a comfortable lead in the first half behind six three-pointers and its defensive press, which helped force Georgetown to commit more turnovers (13) than points it scored (11).
“Overall, it was a horrendous basketball game to watch,” Auriemma said. “It was very difficult to watch. The choppiness of it and the lack of flow, and nothing seemed like it came easy. Players in some positions where they’re not quite comfortable yet. But I thought our defense did a decent job for the most part, and sometimes that’s the way it’s got to be.”
Four UConn starters finished in double figures, led by Olivia Nelson-Ododa with 19 points. Aubrey Griffin was once more impressive, making her third straight start and tallying seven rebounds and 15 points — the fourth consecutive game she’s scored at least 10.
Evina Westbrook fell one assist short of a double-double (13 points, nine assists), while Christyn Williams chipped in 17 points, 11 in the first half. Freshman Nika Muhl earned her first career start in place of Bueckers, playing a career-high 35 minutes
and netting two threes but also committing five turnovers.
Georgetown, one of the worst teams in the Big East, fell to 1-5 on the season.
Without Bueckers and Makurat on the court to stretch the floor, Georgetown packed the paint, making it tougher for UConn to get the ball inside to their posts. UConn settled for 16 three-point attempts in the first half, with Williams and Westbrook hitting a pair and NelsonOdoda and Muhl each chipping in one. UConn used a 16-4 run to close the first quarter up 21-9.
“I thought our ball movement was not great today,” Auriemma said. “Having two pretty good passers out of the lineup is definitely going to affect your ball movement and it’s definitely going to affect the continuity of your offense, no question about it. And two really good perimeter shooters. It was a doublewhammy for this particular game.”
UConn ultimately finished with nearly as many turnovers (17) as assists (20 on 26 made field goals).
“It was pretty difficult,” Williams said of playing without Bueckers. “Paige is our starting point guard. Of course, without her, our offense was lagging a little, but I thought Nika came off the bench and helped a lot. I thought we had a lot of players step in and play their role.”
The Huskies scored the first six points of the second period before Georgetown hit its only basket of the frame at the 7:31 mark. UConn rattled off a 12-0 run to finish off the half and go into the break ahead 39-11. Eighteen of the Huskies’ 39 points were off of Georgetown turnovers.
Nelson-Ododa really got going in the third. She scored 11 straight points, hitting multiple long range shots including another three, to help the Huskies extend their advantage to 60-26 going into the final period.
Georgetown found some life on the offensive end after halftime, surpassing its first-half output six minutes into third quarter and ultimately putting up 30 points in the final 20 minutes. A sluggish fourth quarter in which UConn committed seven turnovers resulted in a 12-12 final stanza, though it didn’t matter much given UConn’s already wide edge.
“It was messy,” Nelson-Ododa said of UConn’s defense. “At times we had really good stuff. I remember we had great traps and we had high defensive intensity. Other times, it was lacking. So that’s something we’re just going to have to be overall consistent at going into a big game like this [Thursday at Arkansas].”