Five stats that stood out in win vs. DePaul

STORRS — No. 4 UConn notched its first ranked win of the season, beating No. 18 DePaul 75-52 on Tuesday at Gampel Pavilion.

Here are a few key stats from the victory:

1

Geno Auriemma moved within one win of matching Tennessee legend Pat Summitt for second all-time among women’s coaches. His first opportunity to tie Summitt will come Jan. 7 at No. 7 Baylor. Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer holds the record with 1,101 victories.

8&5

Christyn Williams didn’t have her most productive night from a scoring standpoint (14 points on 5-of-13 shooting), but contributed in other ways: eight rebounds, five assists and quality defense. Auriemma took it as another sign that Williams, 76 games into her UConn career, is evolving and maturing.

“On those nights when those shots start dropping and she does all those other things,” Auriemma said, “obviously that elevates our team tremendously.”

38

DePaul played two players taller than 5-foot-11, and only one — 6-1 Jorie Allen — who saw significant minutes. The 6-5 Olivia NelsonOdoda exploited that mismatch and scored 16 points while 6-3 Aaliyah Edwards contributed 11 off the bench. Altogether, the Huskies outscored DePaul 38-12 in the paint and matched their season high with 53 rebounds.

40.8

Despite what Auriemma says, this isn’t the worst shooting team he’s ever had. But it’s not a particularly good one either, at least not yet. The Huskies’ 3-point woes continued. Aside from Paige Bueckers (4 of 6), they were just 8 of 27 from long range. Overall, they shot a season-low 40.8 percent.

Auriemma liked his team’s shot selection, saying they took 27 “wide-open” 3s — a slight exaggeration — and implored them to stay aggressive, particularly Bueckers, who as a passfirst point guard is needing to remodel her game a bit.

“If you have a really good 3-point shooter that won’t shoot or is thinking passfirst,” Auriemma said, “that’s great provided the other guys that you’re passing it to are Klay Thompson and Steph Curry. But since they’re not available, she needs to shoot more.”

1,489

The Huskies passed their first big test of the season, and they did it with a tenacious defense that stifled one of the country’s best offensive teams. They held DePaul, which came in averaging 88.8 points per game, to its lowest point total since Dec. 1, 2016 — a span of 1,489 days — also against UConn. In fact, the Blue Demons had scored fewer than 55 points just twice since the 2015-16 campaign.