No. 1 UConn Women’s Hoops rides strong second half to emphatic skid-ending win over Notre Dame
As one streak ends, another continues.
The No. 1 UConn Women’s Basketball team ended their three-game slide against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish with a commanding 85-47 win. Connecticut extended its winning streak to 35, tied for the sixth-longest in the program’s history, in the process.
More impressive than the 38-point margin of victory, however, was what transpired in the second half inside Gampel Pavilion.
The Huskies led by just nine, 32-23, at the break. UConn started 4-4 with the game’s first eight points but finished the half shooting 9-26.
A botched sequence before the buzzer highlighted a 7-2 Notre Dame run to close the half. Head coach Geno Auriemma, dissatisfied during that moment, had a blunt message in the locker room.
“We do not have to be perfect; we do not have to be exact,” Auriemma stated postgame. “We just [have] to take advantage of the opportunities that we get.”
Their mindset adjusted, UConn came out with, as Fighting Irish head coach Niele Ivey described, “a ton of fire.”
Following a Cassandre Prosper floater, KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade buried three-pointers a minute apart. After Shade’s bucket, Azzi Fudd subsequently pickpocketed Vanessa de Jesus, landed the layup and forced a second Notre Dame timeout.
Connecticut ballooned their second 8-0 run to 18-2 in almost three minutes. Iyana Moore scored the Fighting Irish’s first non-Prosper points of the period at the charity stripe. By the time the former Vanderbilt Commodore struck again, the Huskies had stretched their run to 25-4. Notre Dame scored the quarter’s last six points, but UConn had done its damage with a 24-point advantage.
The final frame was just as assertive for the Huskies. Connecticut allowed just 12 points and scored 26. Arnold and Kayleigh Heckel’s traditional three-point plays each brought the home crowd to their feet. Ayanna Patterson and Kelis Fisher each scored at the free throw line as the Huskies secured the rivalry’s largest margin of victory.
UConn, in all, picked up 53 points on 22-33 shooting with seven steals and 13 assists in the final 20 minutes. It was a stark difference from the gritty first half. The Huskies opened on that 8-0 run then clawed for their other 24 points while finding themselves in three separate jump ball situations. Along the way, Connecticut committed eight turnovers and had multiple scoring droughts that lasted over two minutes.
But in that second half, the Huskies’ five starters had either seven or eight points. It resulted in all of them finishing in double figures for the first time this season. Only Heckel, who had three assists to complement her nine points, scored more. Sarah Strong’s 18 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks led all players, yet her most significant moment came in the second quarter.
Gampel Pavilion erupted when Strong sank UConn’s first three of the game. That shot gave the reigning Big East Player of the Week her 1,000th (and 1001st) career point. Only Maya Moore and Paige Bueckers (55 games apiece) reached that milestone in fewer games than Strong’s 59.
“She does not go two or three games where it comes up empty,” Auriemma remarked. “Her 1,000 points come within the context of what we are trying to do as a team.”
Fudd gradually heated up, finishing with 15 points at a 7-13 clip. Williams dropped 11 on 5-6 shooting and snagged eight boards. Shade picked up 10 points, four field goals, four assists and four boards.
Arnold, whom Ivey described as the Huskies’ “sparkplug,” recorded 12 points and had five assists. But the way the Wisconsin native contained Hannah Hidalgo nearly mirrored how Nika Mühl limited Caitlin Clark two seasons earlier. Hidalgo entered Storrs averaging 25 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 5.6 steals. The nation’s second-leading scorer departed with 16 points on 5-15 shooting, four boards, three takeaways and two dimes.
Expanded further, none of Hidalgo’s steals were outright swipes; two of her takeaways came off deflected passes. Furthermore, the reigning ACC Player of the Year did not score in the first and third quarters. Hidalgo shot a combined 0-5 in those periods.
“She was incredible tonight,” the 5-foot-11 guard from Virginia proudly said about Arnold afterward. “Everywhere I looked, KK [Arnold] was there.”
The defensive pressure applied at the one spread to the entire lineup. Notre Dame posted season lows in points and three-point percentage (6.3%) as well as their second-lowest numbers in assists and steals. Prosper amassed 12 points, seven boards and both of the Fighting Irish’s offensive rebounds. Malaya Cowles and I. Moore combined for 11 points and four buckets. Kansas State transfer Gisela Sanchez had all six of the Fighting Irish’s bench points.
Connecticut, in theory, won twice Monday evening. Bueckers suffered a non-contact knee injury in the final minute of the Huskies’ previous triumph over Notre Dame in 2021. No such incident deflated the Gampel Pavilion crowd four years, a month and two weeks removed from that program-altering moment.
The only late-game tension, rather, occurred on the final shot of the game. Williams and Sanchez jostled under the basket as Allie Ziebell released her lone field goal attempt. After the whistle blew, both forwards looked ready to go at each other. Referees assessed offsetting technical fouls; the former Wisconsin Badger made one of her two free throws.
Monday evening also marked a personal victory for Fudd. The Final Four Most Outstanding Player took on the former Big East Conference school fully healthy for the first time. Reflecting on it days earlier, Fudd was thrilled to be getting involved in one of the program’s most historic feuds.
“I was just excited,” Fudd commented. “Having to watch every year, I was excited to finally be a part of it and get to play out there with my teammates.”
UConn next travels to the graduate student’s home area to face the Georgetown Hoyas Thursday evening. Tip-off from CareFirst Arena in Washington, D.C., is at 7:30 p.m. on TNT and TruTV.
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