New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Huskies shake off rust
Auriemma moves within one win of tying Summitt
STORRS — UConn and DePaul have played the last seven seasons, though Tuesday’s meeting at Gampel Pavilion was the first since the Huskies returned to the Big East.
Per usual, the Huskies won. But it didn’t come without difficulty.
Both teams were a bit rusty, as was to be expected after a holiday layoff. The fourth-ranked Huskies, playing their first game in a week, struggled to get their offense in gear, but ultimately did more than enough defensively to beat No. 18 DePaul, 75-52.
“It was not an easy assignment to guard them because they’re a good team. They didn’t look like a good team tonight,” said UConn’s Geno Auriemma, who picked up his 1,097th career win, moving within one of Tennessee legend Pat Summitt for second all-time among women’s coaches.
“We certainly didn’t look like a good team either. Maybe our defense had something to do with us, and their defense had something to do with them.”
The Huskies (6-0) stifled DePaul’s high-octane offense, holding them to 25 percent shooting and their lowest point total since Dec. 1, 2016, when they scored 46 against UConn. And in doing so, they improved to 18-1 all-time against the Blue Demons, whose lone victory in the series was in the teams’ inaugural meeting in 1983 — prior to Auriemma’s arrival in Storrs.
“I always call UConn’s defense their dirty little secret because they do such a good job of executing offensively,” DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. “That’s what everybody knows. … UConn is always, if not the toughest team, certainly one of the one or two toughest teams we play against year in and year out that makes it difficult to get good open looks. They did that again tonight.”
UConn led 57-43 after three quarters, then used a 10-0 run to pull ahead for good. DePaul, which came in averaging 88.8 points per game, went 4:07 without scoring that stretch, and managed just nine points the entire fourth.
“We said going into the game that we needed to have a really, really good defensive night,” Auriemma said. “We needed to be on our game, and we needed to force difficult shots, and we did.”
Freshman Paige Bueckers paced the Huskies with 18 points while Olivia Nelson-Ododa added 16 points and 14 rebounds. Christyn Williams (14), Aaliyah Edwards (11) and Evina Westbrook (10) joined the duo in double-figures. Darrione Rogers led DePaul with 20 points.
DePaul jumped ahead 14-12, but UConn answered with a 16-3 run to push its lead to double digits for the first time. And it mostly
stayed that way, though the Huskies didn’t do themselves any favors with their shot selection.
The Huskies seemed intent on trying to beat DePaul at its own game, settling for 3-pointers when they more easily could’ve been crashing the paint with Nelson-Ododa and Edwards. The Huskies were just 4-of-15 from beyond the arc in the first half (1-of-11 not including Bueckers).
“They’re throwbacks, they’re low-post players,” Bruno said of Nelson-Ododa and Edwards
At halftime, with the Huskies leading 38-27, Auriemma voiced his frustrations once again during an interview with SNY, calling this the worst shooting team he’s had at UConn.
Auriemma also specifically implored Bueckers, the star freshman, to shoot more. And that she did, finishing with a team-high 15 attempts from the floor, though Auriemma did not characterize it as one of her better performances
“She looked a little bit
tentative, she looked a little unsure at times,” Auriemma said. “I think she’s still not comfortable shooting the ball as many times as I want her to shoot it. If you looked at the other five games she’s played and you look at tonight’s game, tonight wasn’t one of her better efforts.”
Added Bueckers: “I want to do everything that my team needs me to do to win. If that’s taking more shots, even if it’s against what I like to do as a player … I’m shooting the ball more.”
The Huskies finished shooting a modest 41 percent, but just 8-of-27 from
3.
Notes: Williams became the 49th Husky to score 1,000 career points on a first-quarter layup. … Former Husky — and reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year — Crystal Dangerfield was in attendance and announced UConn’s starting lineup from the student section.