AN UNUSUAL EXIT
Huskies suffer program’s first Sweet 16 loss since 2005
SEATTLE — The last time the UConn women’s basketball team traveled out West for a regional was the last time the Huskies didn’t make it to the Final Four.
The year was 2007 and UConn were sent to Fresno, Calif., where the Huskies beat Kay Yow’s North Carolina State team in the regional semifinal but lost to Stanford in the regional final.
After that, every year since 2008, it would be March and you’d turn on your TV and there UConn would be in the Final Four.
But Saturday afternoon at Climate Pledge Arena, under the gaze of former UConn greats Sue Bird and Asjha Jones, UConn couldn’t get the job done, losing 73-61 to Ohio State. Lou Lopez Senechal led the second-seeded Huskies with 25 points.
The Huskies had been 6-0 against Ohio State before Saturday,
It was the first time UConn hadn’t advanced past the Sweet 16 since 2005, when the Huskies lost to Stanford in Kansas City.
Saturday’s game was a difficult ending to a difficult season, filled with injuries to key players, including preseason season-ending injuries to Paige Bueckers and vaunted freshman Ice Brady.
“It seems like it’s a two-year ordeal that we’ve had,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said Friday. “If you said to anybody in the country, you know, you have the National Player of the Year as a freshman and she’s going to miss half the season her sophomore year and the entire season her junior year, it’s a lot, and then compound that with how many other injuries we had this year.
“And yet to still be here and still be in a position to do more, it’s a testament to the coaching staff that I have, the support people that we have.”
But of course for UConn, being UConn, wasn’t happy to just “be here.” The expec
tation, even for this season, is always the Final Four and when UConn got some key players back from injuries and started playing well during the Big East tournament – then won it – the expectations surged again.
UConn knew Ohio State’s smothering press was going to be difficult to deal with, but point guard Nika Muhl said Friday she thought the Huskies would be in a “good place against it.
Auriemma talked about the press Friday before the game.
“They create a lot of chaotic situations for you if you’re not prepared to handle it,” he said.
UConn had 25 turnovers, the most since the Huskies played Princeton in December and had 27 turnovers.
The first half proved chaotic for UConn, which struggled to handle the press. The Huskies had 18 turnovers and trailed 36-26 at halftime. It didn’t help that Aaliyah Edwards was in foul trouble and only played nine minutes in the first half, and Lopez
Senechal, who led the Huskies in scoring at halftime with eight points, slipped midway through the second quarter and left the court, holding her right knee.
UConn didn’t even to get a shot off in the second quarter until Azzi Fudd hit one with 5:30 left in the quarter and the Huskies trailing 26-19.
Lopez Senechal returned in the second half and hit a driving baseline layup and it appeared the Huskies had righted themselves. But they had another turnover. Edwards picked up her fourth foul with 7:07 left.
By the end of the third quarter, the Huskies still trailed by 10, 54-44. UConn made a brief rally in the fourth, cutting the lead to nine on a Lopez Senechal 3-pointer with 3:44 left. But they ran out of time.