Williams shut out, Griffin rebounds with big effort

STORRS — UConn coach Geno Auriemma reached another milestone in Saturday’s 87-50 victory over Providence, matching Tennessee legend Pat Summitt with his 1,098th career victory.

Here are five more numbers that stood out in the win:

0

Junior Christyn Williams didn’t score a point nor attempt a shot while playing just 13 minutes. It was only the second time in 77 games she went scoreless.

When asked postgame about Williams’ struggles, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said both Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa simply need to play with more urgency.

“It’s not that complicated,” he said. “Sometimes we try to look real deep. Sometimes it’s pretty easy — we’ve just got to be better, we’ve just got to be better.”

8

Coming on the heels of a string of solid practices, Aubrey Griffin turned in her most inspired performance of the season, scoring 18 points and pulling down nine rebounds in 24 minutes. Eight of those boards were on the offensive end, which was more than Providence’s entire team combined.

It was the closest we’ve seen to the freshman version of Griffin, who was invaluable off the bench, particularly in some of the bigger games (Tennessee, the American Athletic Conference tournament).

10

Paige Bueckers’ 23 points were a team-high, and she was efficient getting there, needing just 10 shots for her eight field goals.

“That’s pretty good,” Auriemma said. “Some guys need 22 shots to get 23 points.”

36

Auriemma switched up his starters for the first time this season, replacing sophomore Anna Makurat with freshman Aaliyah Edwards.

The move likely won’t stick long-term — Auriemma indicated he would rethink his lineup because of the slow start — but it did seem to settle down Makurat, who hit her first two 3’s and finished with nine points on 3 of 5 shooting. Ironically, she wound up playing a seasonhigh 36 minutes.

1,000

UConn has now gone 1,000 games without backto-back losses. The last time the Huskies dropped two straight was at the end of the 1992-93 season. Incredible, isn’t it? “That’s just one of those things,” Auriemma said. “First of all, I’ve been lucky. I’ve coached a lot of kids that get pissed off when we lose. I don’t know if that’s the way it is today in the world, but all these years that I’ve coached at Connecticut, when we lose a game, guys are really pissed. It doesn’t take much for me to get them ready to go for the next game. There’s this mindset at Connecticut where when we lose a game, everybody takes it personally.”