No Jersey barrier
Huskies avoid losing consecutive games for 1st time since ’93
NEWARK — For the past 28 seasons, the UConn women’s basketball team has not lost back-toback games.
The No. 3 Huskies extended that streak to 1,031 straight games on Saturday against UCLA, defeating the Bruins 71-61 at the Never Forget Tribute Classic.
Coming off a loss at Georgia Tech, UConn (6-2) was playing its second game without injured star Paige Bueckers, sidelined six to eight weeks after suffering a fracture below her left knee. UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after the victory over UCLA that Bueckers is considering surgery, which would extend the timeline for her return.
The Huskies are also without Azzi Fudd (foot), Nika Mühl (foot) and Aubrey Griffin (back/ankle).
“You can use any excuse you want, ‘Well, we don't have half our team.’ Well, that's neither here nor there,” Auriemma said. “You can still play as a team even though you're missing key components of your team. I think the change was let's try to be more, play as a team.
“Instead of five guys running up and down the floor and hoping something happens, play through each other, play for each other, make things happen for each other. That happened today.”
UConn relied on its most experienced players against UCLA. Senior Evina Westbrook led UConn with 17 points, seven rebounds and seven assists while graduate transfer Dorka Juhász had 16 points and 16 rebounds.
Senior Christyn Williams had 11 points, Olivia Nelson-Ododa had 10, and freshman Caroline Ducharme 14 as all five starters were in double figures in scoring.
“This is the team we are. We just had to turn a switch on for this game, just play with energy, passion, play for each other,” UConn graduate transfer Dorka Juhász said. “We know what we have to do. .. We’re just fighters. We were not able to show that in the last game, but I think this game just showed that we can fight back no matter what happens with our team, who’s injured, that doesn’t matter. It’s us and we have to play
for each other every single day.”
Here are takeaways from New Jersey:
PAIGE’S PROGNOSIS
Auriemma said a decision on Bueckers will be made in the coming days.
“She needed to solicit a couple other opinions and then the next step is either there’s going to be surgery or there’s not going to be surgery,” Auriemma said. “That’s got to happen relatively soon, yes or no.”
Bueckers sustained in the final minute of last Sunday’s victory over Notre Dame. The timeline for recovery that UConn announced on Tuesday would brring her back in late January or early February.
Surgery would extend that to mid-to-late February.
“I don’t think it changes that much,” Auriemma said. “The original timetable was going to be 6-8 weeks. That won’t change whether there’s surgery, no surgery. Again, each person heals differently. So I’m going by that, if there is surgery, I’m looking at mid-February, late-February at the latest.”
SENIORS LEAD
UConn’s seniors arose and took charge Saturday at the Prudential Center. Westbrook came up big with nine of UConn’s first 12 points. She was the only Husky to score a field goal in the first nine minutes before assisting fellow senior Nelson-Ododa on a layup in the final 10 seconds of the first quarter.
Her own layup at 3:30 in the third gave UConn its first lead since opening the game 1-0.
“I thought E really kind of got us going in the right direction right from the very beginning,” Auriemma said.
Despite struggling to get her shot going, Williams looked for open teammates to take care of the ball. Her assist to Ducharme, who got her first career start in place of Aaliyah Edwards, for a wide-open 3-pointer during an 11-2 run that cut an 11-point UCLA lead to two in the first half.
Williams didn’t score until the 7:15-minute mark of the quarter. But she contributed late in the game, as her 3-pointer started a 11-0 UConn run in the fourth quarter.
After an inconsistent offense (4 points against Notre Dame and 6-of-19 shooting at Georgia Tech), Williams appeared to get her groove back.
DORKA’S ARRIVAL
Juhász, a graduate transfer from Ohio State, had her best game of the season Saturday, starting with a 3-pointer at 4:24 in the third, which brought the Huskies within a point of UCLA. Her pair of free throws less than a minute prior gave her 1,000thcareer point.
“I just want to help the team with whatever way I can, like rebounding, defense, offense, whatever they need me,” Juhász said.
But the 6-foot-5 Hungary native’s impact didn’t stop at scoring. The forward was everywhere on defense in the fourth quarter. She crashed the boards repetitively, with nine rebounds in the fourth.
She also made a put-back layup off of Westbrook’s miss at 7:17 and immediately followed with a steal. She scored four of UConn’s 11 second-chance points in first five minutes while adding two more from the free throw line.
“I thought today she had a pretty good pace about her,” Auriemma said. “But she always plays with a certain intensity level and a certain strength. She's a force out there, you know. And it's not easy for her to come in after playing three years in a different system and then coming here and having to try to adjust to what we're doing. Even now it's not 100 percent there, obviously, but little by little, I hope today was an indication of what she can be.”
FOURTH QUARTER, MIXED BAG
The Huskies entered the final 10 minutes seemingly in control after ending the third with a 50-44 lead.
Yet they missed their first five shots before Juhász’ put-back at 7:17, which came after UCLA cut the lead to two.
UConn’s next basket came off a Williams’ 3pointer about a minute later. Juhász sparked a quick turnaround with another layup and a steal, while Ducharme’s long jumper at 3:09 gave UConn a 9-0 run. The Huskies led by 14 with 1:20 left.
But UCLA reeled off 10 unanswered points to make it a four-point game with less than 40 seconds remaining. UConn couldn’t get shots to fall with Ducharme’s basket its last field goal of the game.
Yet, the Bruins fell into an offensive hole of their own. UCLA fouled the Huskies five times and made two turnovers in the final 30 seconds.
UConn went 6 of 10 from the line and secured the win.
It was a much better fourth-quarter performance from UConn after it was outscored in the fourth against Georgia Tech, 18-5. Yet, the Huskies still struggled defensively to shut down their opponent.
“It's all about executing, and we believed at the end that we could actually come back,” said UCLA’s Charisma Osborne, who led the Bruins with 26 points, including seven 3-pointers. “We made a couple mistakes at the end and really stopped just executing.”
NEXT: The Huskies will get an eight-day break before facing No. 7 Louisville at the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun Arena, Sunday Dec. 19 at 3:30 p.m.on ESPN.