Before a full minute of game time elapsed in the UConn women’s basketball team’s matchup against Marquette on Wednesday, the Huskies already had forced three turnovers against the Golden Eagles.
UConn’s defensive onslaught began with the opening tipoff, when Sarah Strong forced Marquette guard Olivia Porter out of bounds while chasing down the ball knocked over their heads. KK Arnold and Azzi Fudd then tied Porter up for a steal off an inbound pass, and the pair combined with Ashlynn Shade to cause a five-second violation with their full-court pressure on another inbound attempt after a layup from Serah Williams gave the team an early 4-0 lead.
The No. 1 Huskies went on to rout Marquette 89-53 at PeoplesBank Arena, powered by their stifling defensive effort. The Golden Eagles entered the matchup as the fifth-rated 3-point shooting team in the country, averaging nearly nine makes from beyond the arc per game, but UConn held them well below their usual percentage to just 5-for-16. Marquette also turned the ball over a season-high 21 times, and shot its second-worst mark of the year from the field, hitting 38.2%.
“Part of teams’ strategies is to kind of run (the shot clock) down and limit how many times we touch the ball, so we have to be disruptive,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “We have to force them to shoot earlier. We have to force them into rush shots. … You want to make sure that you’re constantly being disruptive and forcing the action.”
The Huskies’ performance Wednesday night was far from an outlier. Through 11 games, including four against ranked teams and six against power conference opponents, UConn has the No. 8 scoring defense in the country, allowing just 51.8 points per game, and it also ranks 10th in field goal percentage defense, eighth in steals per game and 14th in forced turnovers.
Every team the Huskies have faced so far has shot below its season average from the field, and they held two of the top 15 scoring offenses in the country — Ohio State and Michigan — to fewer than 70 points.
“We started this season off really trying to make an emphasis of having defense be part of our team identity,” Fudd said. “Immediately it was defense, from preseason to now. I really think defense is effort, and I think that when we go in, we definitely feed off each other’s energy and defensive intensity. … We’re all on the same page as well, so when we’re trapping, we’re rotating, (you know) that you can trust that the person has your back if you go for a steal and miss. So I think it’s trust and like, just wanting it more than the other team.”
Though defense has been an emphasis since the moment the team returned to campus this fall, Auriemma is still surprised by how quickly UConn found its flow on that end of the court. The Huskies’ coach remembers the team’s defensive development being a more difficult process in 2024-25, especially during nonconference play. UConn struggled to handle elite guards, giving up 29 points to Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and 25 to USC’s JuJu Watkins in a pair of December losses, and it allowed a season-high 80 points to Tennessee in the rivalry upset in February.
But by the end of the season, defense was essential to the team’s historic NCAA championship run. The Huskies gave up more than 60 points just once in the entire postseason when USC scored 64 in the Elite Eight, and their combined margin of victory across the Final Four and national titles games was plus-57 — the second largest in tournament history behind only the 2016 UConn team that won its fourth consecutive championship.
“Did I think we would be this good at this time in the season, 11 games into the season? I don’t know,” Auriemma said. “Last year it took us a long time to become a really, really good defensive team, so I think time will tell. But I like where we are, and I think we could be a lot better.”
Fudd believes the defense started out stronger this year in part because so many of the Huskies’ veterans maintained that mindset from the end of last season. Strong, Arnold, Fudd and Shade are currently the top four leaders on the team in steals, and they are also the team’s top four in defensive rating and defensive win shares.
“There’s no real schedule for being good at defense, but I think that it just goes to show how we ended the year being really locked in on defense,” Fudd said. “All the returners kind of carried that over from last yea, and just let that continue to build with all the new pieces we have as well.”
Even with the team’s early dominance, Auriemma still sees plenty of work to be done before March. UConn’s 3-point defense often leaves something to be desired with seven opponents so far shooting at or above their season average beyond the arc against the Huskies. Auriemma also said he wants to see improvement in their transition defense and a greater emphasis on the defensive boards where the team ranks outside the top 60 nationally.
“Sometimes your defense looks really good because the other team misses, so for me, I look at what kind of shots did they get? Did they get open shots and just miss them, or did we do a great job?” Auriemma said. “In today’s world you have to be really, really good defending the 3-point line, and I think that’s something we’re constantly working on and something I’m never satisfied with. You have to be great at transition defense, and that’s something most coaches are never satisfied with, and you have to be great at defensive rebounding. If you can do those three things, you defense looks pretty good.”
Sarah Strong powers UConn women’s basketball to 89-53 victory over Marquette