Huskies roll by UMass Lowell
Team cruises in first game in more than nine months
STORRS — At some point during Saturday’s 2020-21 season opener against UMass Lowell at Gampel Pavilion, UConn’s Geno Auriemma glanced across the court and spotted his wife, Kathy, in the seats.
“I wasn’t sure if it was her or the cardboard version of her,” he said. “It was the weirdest thing.”
He was kidding. We think.
Coaching during a pandemic was certainly quite different for Auriemma, but his third-ranked Huskies helped add a bit of normalcy back into the day with an easy 79-23 victory.
“There was a lot to like and there was a lot to not like,” Auriemma said following the team’s first game in more than nine months. “That’s usually how these things go.”
Paige Bueckers’ performance falls into the former category, for sure. Bueckers, one of five freshmen to play but the only one to start, shook off some pregame jitters to nearly outscore UMass Lowell (0-2) by herself in her muchanticipated debut. She had 17 points, including a putback off a missed 3-pointer by Christyn Williams for the game’s first basket, to go with nine rebounds, five assists and five steals.
“Before the game I was really nervous, in warmups I was nervous, before tipoff I was nervous,” Bueckers said, “but once you start
playing basketball it’s like any other game.”
Added Auriemma: “I think Paige was Paige. Paige did all things that Paige does. She scored some points, she rebounded the ball, she stole the ball, she passed the ball.
“Her first game as a college player, I thought she was really great.”
Olivia Nelson-Ododa had 12 points and nine rebounds. Williams added 10 points and seven boards.
Evina Westbrook, playing her first game with the Huskies since transferring from Tennessee in May 2019, contributed five points in 21 minutes.
“Just going out there and finally getting into a game, I think, was the biggest thing for me,” Westbrook said.
The Huskies (1-0) reeled off the game’s first 11 points and 17 of the first 20. They led 27-7 after one quarter, then used a 19-0 spurt later in the half to roll into the break ahead 48-13. The River Hawks went almost eight minutes without scoring during the second quarter.
UConn led by as many as 62 points, and finished shooting 54.7 percent from the floor, compared to just 14.3 percent for UMass Lowell.
That authoritative performance, even with so many new players, was familiar to Auriemma.
But everything else, including those cardboard cutouts, not so much.
“This was the weirdest thing ever, man,” Auriemma said. “I can’t stress that enough. This was the weirdest thing ever. I looked over in the end zone, we had more dog posters than human beings. When’s the last time that happened?”
Notes: UMass Lowell players all took a knee for the national anthem, while UConn players and coaches stood, arms interlocked. … Former UConn star Napheesa Collier introduced the Huskies’ starting lineup on the video board.