New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Marquette’s stunner against UConn fueled by turnovers
For the first time in nearly 30 years, UConn women’s basketball has lost back-to-back games.
After falling to No. 1 South Carolina on Sunday, the No. 4 Huskies fell to unranked Marquette 59-52 in Milwaukee Wednesday night.
The loss snaps UConn’s 1,083-game streak (including 1,008 wins) without losing two straight games. Wednesday’s loss is just UConn’s second to a conference opponent in the last 10 years and its first to Marquette in the teams’ 16year series.
“I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for us to have that kind of mental checkout,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma told SNY after Wednesday’s loss. “That’s the first time all year in 20-something games that has happened. And tonight happened to be that night playing against the wrong team.”
The last time the Huskies lost back-to-back games was in March 1993, two years before they won their first of an NCAA record-tying 11 national championships. UConn lost 87-73 in a Big East Tournament semifinal at Providence on March 7 and then again 10 days later in a 74-71 NCAA Tournament first-round loss to Lousiville.
After losing to South Carolina by four points three days beforehand, UConn (21-4, 13-1 Big East) showed Wednesday it’s gassed both physically and mentally. The Huskies played with just eight available players for the sixth-straight game.
Dorka Juhász led UConn with her ninth double-double of the year with 15 points and 11 rebounds. She was followed by Lou Lopez Sénéchal and Aubrey Griffin with 12 points each Aaliyah Edwards contributed 12 rebounds and Nika Mühl had seven assists. The Huskies’ 58 points marked their season-low this season.
Marquette (16-8, 9-6) played perhaps its best game of the year. The Golden Eagles forced the Huskies into 19 turnovers and had 12 steals against the reigning Big East champs. Marquette was led by Chloe Marotta’s 19 points (15 in the second half ) and Jordan King’s 18.
“I’m just so incredibly proud of their fight and we knew we were the bigtime underdogs,” Marquette coach Megan Duffy told SNY postgame. “... (UConn) has a great women’s basketball history, so we’re honored to be a piece of it . ... UConn will have a phenomenal rest of the season, I know it, but for our program to do this in front of a home crowd, I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
The Huskies started Wednesday looking like their normal selves. UConn opened the game on a 6-0 run and held Golden Eagles from scoring until nearly 3-and-ahalf minutes into the game.
Marquette missed its first eight shots, however, its first points came off a UConn turnover and that was all the Golden Eagles needed to flip the script.
By the quarter’s media timeout, the Huskies had four turnovers. The Golden Eagles had used a 10-0 run (all from King) to take over the lead as UConn was kept scoreless for over four minutes.
UConn’s nearly 3 1/2-minute lead to start the game was its only lead the rest of the way.
Between the final minutes of the first quarter and the opening minutes of the second, the Golden Eagles strung together a 21-4 run to lead by as much as 13.
“Right now, you know we’re just a stagnated team,” Auriemma told SNY at halftime. “It’s happening way too much. There’s too many people standing and standing and standing, waiting for something to happen. And then you try to force inside. We’re just not in a good place right now mentally.”
The Huskies reached double-digit turnovers by 4:44 in the second quarter as Marquette had just one at the quarter’s media timeout.
Auriemma emptied his bench, using all eight available players about a minute later. With fresh legs on the court, the Huskies went on an 8-0 run to cut Marquette’s lead to three.
But the Huskies’ offense was stuck inside. At halftime, 20 of UConn’s 22 points had come from the paint as it was 0 of 5 from the 3-point line.
“I think something happened and as it started to go the other way, that one stretch in the first quarter, I think where we had maybe four or five straight turnovers, I think that just completely and totally deflated us,” Auriemma said.
UConn’s first 3-pointer of the game came from Griffin at 8:01 in the third. A layup from Edwards less than two minutes later capped a 7-0 UConn run
and tied Marquette at 31.
Marquette led by one to start the fourth quarter.
But for the first time all season, UConn completely ran out of energy. Shots were rushed, the offense was slow and turnovers once again got the best of the Huskies’ momentum.
A jumper from Marotta at 1:35 was Marquette’s final dagger as it led by as much as eight in the final 30 seconds.
UConn’s second 3pointer of the night came with 1:20 left to close the gap to four, but it simply wasn’t enough as the program suffered one of its most historic losses.
“They disrupted our whole offense, you know, we probably didn’t push the pace as much as we would like,” Auriemma said. “I think mentally we were just drained.”
The Huskies will stay on the road and next play Saturday at Georgetown at 5 p.m. on SNY.
NOTABLES
Lopez Sénéchal surpassed the 2,000-career point benchmark with a layup at 5:49 in the first quarter. The graduate forward now has 2,011 career points between her four years at Fairfield and this season at UConn.
Mühl became the sixth Husky ever to record 200 or more assists in a single season when she assisted Edwards on a layup at 1:27 in the second quarter. The junior point guard is now tied for No. 5 on UConn’s all-time top-10 list of single-season assists with Moriah Jefferson (2015-16) with 204 assists this season.