Even with All-American sophomore Sarah Strong sidelined, the UConn women’s basketball team continued its dominant run through Big East play with an 80-48 rout of Butler at PeoplesBank Arena on Saturday.
Star guard Azzi Fudd carried the mantle for Strong in the victory, filling the stat sheet with a team-high 17 points plus four assists and three steals playing just 23 minutes. Senior center Serah Williams stepped up in the frontcourt with 11 points, four assists, three blocks and three rebounds in 21 minutes.
Sophomore guard Allie Ziebell replaced Strong in the starting lineup, and she also had a productive day with 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting plus four rebounds and a career-high four steals.
Coach Geno Auriemma said postgame that Strong was experiencing some “tightness,” and the team wanted to prevent anything from progressing negatively.
“If she had to play today she would have played without a problem, but we’ve got a long way ahead of us,” Auriemma said.
Top-ranked UConn improved to 25-0 with the win, completing a regular-season sweep of Butler. The Huskies have won 41 games in a row dating back to last year, and they also extended their streak of 61 straight victories in the Big East.
Strong’s absence was immediately apparent in the stagnation of UConn’s offense, though the team still led by 11 at the end of the first quarter. Williams started off strong with seven points in the first shooting 3-for-4, and she looked comfortable playing at multiple levels with her first basket coming on a long midrange jumper. But the Huskies had difficultly getting into their usual rhythm, and they ended the first quarter on more than two minutes without points.
“Especially in the first half I felt like we weren’t attacking enough, and usually we have Sarah to bail us out,” Fudd said. “I felt like we weren’t driving enough, getting the lane, and those are things that she does really well … I thought all of us, it’s hard to pick up when someone like Sarah Strong is out, but I saw all of us just try to do a little bit more.”
Auriemma experimented with atypical lineup combinations with freshman forward Blanca Quinonez also sidelined by a shoulder injury for a fourth straight game. He briefly played Williams and redshirt sophomore center Jana El Alfy at the same time but quickly went back to the smaller four-guard lineups he’s preferred for most of the year even when all of his forwards are available. Even with a shortened rotation, Auriemma seemed hesitant to give El Alfy an extended run, though she put up four points and four rebounds in just five minutes on the court before halftime.
Fudd took matters into her own hands in the second, scoring the Huskies’ first eight points of the quarter. UConn went nearly three minutes without a field goal until the star guard connected on a jump shot, and Williams quickly picked up the momentum forcing a steal that resulted in a layup at the other end assisted by Fudd.
“You’re used to just, ‘Throw the ball to Sarah,’ when things are a little bit stale, so now you can’t do that, and I thought there was more of us standing around than normal,” Auriemma said. “And then usually Blanca comes off the bench and things get stirred up, so you’re missing those two elements. I thought that made Azzi have to stay on the court for longer stretches than I would like.”
As the defense locked in, UConn’s offense started to find a flow. The Huskies entered halftime with 30 of their 44 points coming off of 19 forced turnovers, and they held Butler to just six points and two field goals in the second quarter. Ziebell had all four of her steals in the first half, and point guard KK Arnold also added four to lead the team.
Butler went scoreless for another three minutes to start the third quarter, extending a run of seven minutes without hitting a field goal including the end of the second. Fudd and Williams continued to power the offense early, but the Huskies began to find a more balanced attack after both went to the bench midway through the third. Arnold put up five of her 10 points in the quarter, and Ziebell also knocked down her first 3-pointer to reach double digits for the fourth time in five games. Junior guard Ashlynn Shade, who started the game 1-for-6 from the field, went 2-for-3 in the third.
“I thought in the second half, we were much better,” Auriemma said. “The ball moved more. We were able to get going more off the dribble. So it took about 20 minutes, but we finally got
it.”
But once Fudd and Williams were on the bench, UConn’s defense began to suffer. Butler scored 14 points in the final six minutes of the third, more than double their second-quarter production. The Huskies failed to log a single steal in the quarter with just three forced turnovers.
All of UConn’s starters except Shade sat the fourth quarter, and the team got solid production from its bench. Freshman Kelis Fisher tied her career high with six points playing more than 10 minutes for just the second time this season, and El Alfy finished leading the Huskies on the boards with a career-high 11 rebounds plus four points.
“It looked like they were playing more free today, so that was great” Fudd said. “Sometimes it’s hard to go in at the end like that, and I feel like they’ve been doing such a great job all season long of going in, being aggressive and trying to keep that momentum alive.”