Geno Auriemma believes he’s starting to see this year’s UConn team play like the ones that took home 11 national championships.
The seventh-ranked Huskies used depth and their trademark stifling defense Sunday to cruise past No. 5 seed Marquette, 71-51, in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament.
“It’s taken a long time to get back there,” Auriemma said. “We’ve never taken it for granted, but I know it when I see it and I know a lot of people watching were like, ’this is what I’m used to. This is what I’m used to seeing UConn do.”
Evina Westbrook scored 14 points, and Christyn Williams and Dorka Juhasz each had 13 to lead the way for the the Huskies (24-5), who will play Sunday for a ninth straight conference tournament championship, including the seven they won while members of the American Athletic Conference.
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The Huskies didn’t need much help from reigning national player of the year Paige Bueckers, who played 18 minutes and finished with two points, two rebounds and two assists. The sophomore was playing her fifth game since returning from a left-knee injury that kept her out more than two months.
Karissa McLaughlin had 15 points and Jordan King added 12 for Marquette (21-10), which must hope they have done enough to get an NCAA Tournament bid.
Marquette was held to just 31% shooting from the floor, after hitting a tournament-record 65.7% in a 105-85 win over DePaul on Saturday. But, they scored more points than each of the Huskies last four opponents, who were all held under 40.
Dog House
“Our defense is looking really good,” Westbrook said. “We’re being really aggressive and a lot of the mistakes we’re making on defense, we’re covering them up pretty good.”
UConn scored this game’s first seven points and never trailed. Williams, who had 13 first-quarter points in the Huskies quarterfinal win over Georgetown, put up eight points in the first 10 minutes on Sunday, helping the Huskies to a 22-6 lead.
Marquette, which had 54 first-half points on Saturday, didn’t reach 10 points until Antwainette Walker hit a pull-up jumper midway through the second quarter to cut the UConn lead to 33-10.
“It was the highest of highs yesterday, we were making everything and in that first quarter we were definitely very cold,” coach Megan Duffy said. “And that led them to getting kind of anything they wanted in that first quarter — downhill attacks, open 3s, they had some open back cuts and kind of after that we couldn’t quite recover.”
The Huskies led 39-18 at halftime and 59-32 after three quarters.
BIG PICTURE
Marquette: The was the sixth consecutive appearance in the semifinals for the Golden Eagles. They won their only Big East Tournament title back in 2017 and had lost in the championship game in each tournament since, including to UConn last season.
UConn: The Huskies will be appearing in their 25th Big East championship game, looking for their 20th Big East Tournament title. They have been to 18 straight conference finals. The Huskies improved to 14-0 all-time against Marquette, a team they swept last month, 72-58 in Milwaukee and 69-38 in Hartford.
DEPTH
UConn, which has had eight players miss at least two games with illness or injury, is now mostly healthy. Nine Huskies played at least 15 minutes on Sunday.
Juhasz said that means they are fresher than the opposition.
“You can feel sometimes that [the opponent] is getting a little tired,” Juhasz said. “So, if I can run the floor a little harder, I think that shows on our offense and our defense too.”
STATS OF THE GAME
Connecticut dominated underneath. The Golden Eagles, who had 60 points in the paint Saturday, were outscored in the lane by UConn 36-10 and were outrebounded 41-33.
UP NEXT
UConn will play No. 2 seed Villanova for the Big East championship on Monday night.
