Grabbing a victory
Uconn routs Georgetown behind Edwards, season high in scoring from Muhl
WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Uconn women’s basketball team almost looks comfortable with adversity amid its third season plagued by injuries.
The Huskies showed they haven’t missed a beat in an 83-55 win at Georgetown on Sunday, their first game since Aubrey Griffin’s knee injury against Creighton. Griffin was on the bench using crutches, but the team will not update her status until she can be evaluated back in Storrs.
All-american forward Aaliyah Edwards led the Huskies with 18 points, six rebounds and three assists, but freshman Ashlynn Shade was close behind with 16 points. Senior point guard Nika Muhl also scored a season-best 14 points, and all five Uconn starters finished with double-digits in scoring.
“It’s just believing in the work
that I’ve been doing for this season,” Muhl said. “My teammates believe in me. They pass me the ball and believe I’m going to make those shots. My confidence has just been growing since I’ve been putting more work in, so I’m trusting that process.”
It was an uncharacteristically inefficient performance for star guard Paige Bueckers, who shot 5-of-12 from the field but still finished with 15 points. Freshman Qadence Samuels was the first player off the bench in Griffin’s usual role, but she also struggled,
shooting 3-of-10 from the field and 0-of-4 beyond the arc.
Coach Geno Auriemma attributed the Huskies’ poor team shooting — 33.3% from 3-point range — partly to Griffin’s absence.
“Aubrey is very reluctant to look at the basket and shoot it, and Q has been sitting on the bench taking that all in. She figures there were probably 30-some shots in the last two weeks that Aubrey didn’t take, and she was going to make up for that,” Auriemma said. “When we put Aubrey in, our defense gets better. Rebounding gets better … and we didn’t have the opportunity to do that today, so what we got was more shots, and that killed our 3-point field goal percentage.”
Shade started out hot, scoring Uconn’s first five points, but the shooting cooled off quickly with the team hitting less than 50% from the field in the first quarter. Georgetown led by as many as seven points, but the freshmen fueled the Huskies to a 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter. Shade and Samuels teamed up for a key defensive stop in the final seconds that turned into a steal-and-score for KK Arnold.
The Huskies forced 22 turnovers against the Hoyas, and Arnold finished with four of Uconn’s 14 steals.
“Coach kept telling us during timeouts and in the huddle, defense is going to have to drive our team for us,” Muhl said. “Our defense always leads to offense, and I felt like we got a lot of points in transition today and were running pretty good. We always have that in mind, that defense goes a long way for this team.”
The second quarter was a complete reversal once Uconn’s shooters got hot. Muhl hit two of her three 3-point attempts, and Edwards was perfect from the field with eight of her nine first half points in the second quarter. The Huskies led by 12 at halftime behind 13 points from Bueckers, who shot 4-of-7 from the field after starting the half 0-for-3.
Uconn settled in to start the second half, leaning on its elite passers to create opportunities. Five of the team’s first six baskets in the third quarter were assisted, and Muhl finished the game with eight assists. The Huskies outscored Georgetown 21-8 in the third quarter, the only quarter where they beat the Hoyas by more than seven points.
“Once you get a feel for a team and how they’re going to be in their attack, you can start to anticipate certain things,” Auriemma said. “I think we were one step quicker, one step ahead with everything … That (halftime) break gave us a chance to regroup, and once our defense starts creating turnovers and our rebounding kicks in, we’re pretty quick getting into our offense.”
In a highly-physical game from both teams, perhaps Uconn’s biggest victory was keeping all nine active players healthy through the game. Griffin’s injury left the team with just three available forwards, and Ice Brady played more than 20 minutes for just the third time this season.
Despite a thin front court, Auriemma waited until late in the fourth quarter to rotate through his entire bench, finally bringing Amari Deberry in with less than four minutes remaining.
“Here’s my theory on basketball: The object for any coach, I think obligation for any coach, is to put their five best players on the floor at all times,” Auriemma said. “If I can do that every single time and rotate amongst … however many, as long as we’ve got the five best players that I can put out there at that time on the court. Right now, that’s what we’re doing.”
After back-to-back road trips, the Huskies (12-3, 4-0 Big East) return to XL Center in Hartford on Wednesday (6:30 p.m., SNY) to face Providence (8-8, 2-1).