UConn women’s basketball survives first-half scare to clinch Big East championship at Villanova

VILLANOVA, Pa. — At halftime of Wednesday night’s game against Villanova at Finneran Pavilion, the UConn women’s basketball team looked shell-shocked.

For the first time since their February 2023 loss to St. John’s, the Huskies found themselves trailing at halftime against a Big East opponent. Though it was only a three-point deficit, they’d led for barely two minutes in the half, and and it suddenly felt like the team’s streak of almost three undefeated years in the conference was in real jeopardy.

It took a heroic offensive performance from star guard Azzi Fudd and a smothering second-half defensive effort to avert disaster, but UConn escaped Villanova with an 83-69 victory to improve to 28-0 on the season and 17-0 in the Big East.

“I think we didn’t come out ready to play,” Fudd said postgame. “Our intensity offensively, defensively wasn’t there. We’ve just got to to be better. We can’t let that happen.”

UConn clinched its sixth straight Big East regular-season championship with the win. Including seven years in the American Athletic Conference from 2013-20, the Huskies have won 13 consecutive regular-season conference titles.

Fudd finished with 25 points shooting 55.6% from the field and 4-for-6 beyond the arc, accounting for half of the team’s 3-point makes. The star guard added three rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals. All-American sophomore Sarah Strong had a dominant showing behind Fudd, recording her seventh double-double of the season with 21 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, five steals and three blocks.

Junior guard Ashlynn Shade also stepped up in key moments to join the superstar duo in double digits, logging 13 points, six rebounds, five assists and a steal.

“We can take this game, learn from it and just try to build on it,” Fudd said. “We’re not super proud of how we played, but there are things we can take from this that we got better at and learned from. If we just continue to get little bit better every single day …. that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.”

Slow starts have been an issue for UConn throughout Big East play, but the Huskies had a total meltdown early against the Wildcats. The team faced its only halftime deficit of the season after giving up 12 first-half turnovers — more than it allowed in 12 complete games this year. Though Fudd and Strong were as productive as usual, the rest of the offense stymied particularly in the second quarter.

UConn went more than four minutes in the second without hitting a shot in the halfcourt, starting 0-for-7 from the field. Shade came in clutch with a steal that she turned into a jump shot at the other end to end the drought, and she scored five straight points later in the quarter that briefly gave the Huskies the lead.

But Villanova found an answer every time UConn tried to build momentum. The Wildcats shot 7-for-15 on 3-pointers before halftime, and star guard Jasmine Bascoe put up 18 points singlehandedly after she scored just eight in the first meeting between the teams on Jan. 15. It was only a late 3-pointer from Fudd that kept it a single-possession game, and she was the only UConn player in double-digits at halftime. The Huskies shot just 29% in the second quarter, and they were 4-for-12 on layups in the first half.

“I don’t think there was a lot going on in the locker room at halftime,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “I think they knew that something was missing, and I said it at halftime. I said, ‘I don’t think we’re all there right now. Physically, mentally, we’re just not there. But you have to be able to win games like that.”

UConn was immediately more aggressive out of the halftime locker room, opening the third quarter on a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from Fudd that launched a 9-2 run. The Huskies’ momentum took a hit when Strong had to check out of the game four minutes into the third after picking up her third and fourth fouls over a six-second stretch, and Villanova tried to capitalized with the sophomore superstar off the floor. The Wildcats scored eight of their 12 points in the quarter after Strong came out, but the Huskies managed to maintain their offensive rhythm to outscore Villanova by 14 in the third.

“I give them credit, they stuck to their game plan, and I think we let up on what we needed to do,” Wildcats coach Denise Dillon said. “(Our) focus and attention was on the defensive end and rebounding the basketball, and if you miss a possession here or there, they’re going to take advantage, and that’s what happened. ”

UConn finally pulled away in earnest in the fourth quarter thanks to an early 13-2 run that the Wildcats never recovered from. The Huskies finished with 28 points off of 26 forced turnovers, and they limited Villanova to just four 3-pointers after halftime. Strong put up 11 points in the fourth and combined with Fudd for 18 of the team’s 20 in the final frame.

Though UConn emerged with the victory, Bascoe finished with 26 points for Villanova for the highest-scoring performance by any Big East player against the Huskies this year. Wildcats senior Denae Carter also added a career-high 21 points, becoming one of just three players in the conference along with Bascoe and Creighton’s Ava Zediker to score 20-plus on UConn.

“It was the kind of game you used to play back in the old days in the Big East,” Auriemma said. “They didn’t play the way they normally play, which is a credit to Denise and her coaching staff … I think they made a concerted effort to play more one-on-one and try to beat us off the dribble and get in the lane hoping we help, which we did, and then kick it out. Then those guys have to make threes, and in the first half they did.”

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