Against a team consistently ranked No. 1 in the country that has averaged a win margin of 47 points in the Big East this season, the Georgetown University women’s basketball team never stood a chance against the defending national champions, the University of Connecticut Huskies (UConn).
The Huskies’ (20-0, 10-0 Big East) Head Coach Geno Auriemma, the most successful college basketball coach of all time, easily added his 55th career win against the Hoyas (11-8, 4-6 Big East), after a dominating 83-42 victory in CareFirst Arena on Jan. 22.
Auriemma said playing Georgetown used to be a contest.
“Coming down here was always, always a challenge,” Auriemma told The Hoya during a postgame press conference. “They had some terrific players and some really good teams, and playing in McDonough was really tough back in those days.”
In the 41 years Auriemma has been at the helm of UConn, things have changed; the Georgetown women’s basketball team of today does not offer the same competition.
From the jump, the Huskies dominated, winning the tip and going on an 8-0 run that forced the Hoyas to call a timeout just over three minutes into play.
Back from the timeout, UConn’s domination continued as they extended their run to 14-0.
With just over five minutes remaining in the first quarter, junior forward Brianna Byars, who came off the bench a minute prior, put Georgetown’s first points on the board with a pull-up jumper.
UConn responded with a triad of buckets, including 2 fast break layups, to extend their lead to 20-2. With 3 minutes left to play in the quarter, Georgetown took the reins and went on an 8-0 run, securing 2 free throws and sending up 3 jumpers. The Hoyas, showcasing more of an early rotation than they have in recent games, ended the quarter with 5 players holding a pair of points each.
The second quarter started much like the first, with the Huskies going on an 11-0 run, extending their lead to 31-10 before junior forward Cristen Carter found the ball on a fast break for a layup. UConn responded by putting up 10 more points in the span of a minute, buoyed by 2 Georgetown turnovers.
In the final five minutes of the half, the Hoyas found their way again, holding the Huskies to a 10-8 finish to the quarter. Georgetown put in buckets, but UConn was always ready to respond.
UConn forward Sarah Strong came up big for the Huskies in the first half, going 8-for-9 from the field for 21 points and adding 3 steals.
UConn shot 58.3% from the field in the first half; Georgetown shot 33.3%.
The third quarter played out differently than the first two, with neither team scoring for over two and a half minutes, until Strong converted off of a steal for the Huskies. Five minutes in, sophomore guard Destiny Agubata put in a second-chance layup for the Hoyas’ first points of the quarter. The third quarter saw a combined 17 points, with the Huskies retaining a large lead 60-28.
In the third, the “Nightmare on M Street” finally found its way across town to CareFirst Arena. The Hoyas held the Huskies to just 9 points, their second-lowest scoring quarter of the season, topped only by the then No. 7 University of Michigan Wolverines (16-3), who held UConn to 4 points in a quarter Nov. 21.
Strong said the team struggled to pick up its offense in the third quarter.
“I feel like our defense didn’t really carry into our offense,” Strong told The Hoya during a post-game press conference. “We weren’t really getting stops; we weren’t able to get out in transition and get things going that way.”
Georgetown Head Coach Darnell Haney said the team’s zone defense put more pressure on UConn in the third.
“We got some deflections,” Haney told The Hoya after the game. “We were able to get our hands on some basketballs. We forced them to take some tougher shots. I think the zone kind of changed it up on them, and they weren’t as comfortable.”
“So I mean, that’s a bright spot for us defensively,” Haney added.
Despite the Hoyas’ improved performance in the third that held the Huskies to 4-for-15 from the field, the team’s fate was all but certain as they entered the fourth quarter down 32 points.
With just over two minutes remaining in regulation, sophomore guard Khadee Hession hit a huge 3-pointer to cut the lead to 41 — the only one of the Hoyas’ 19 attempts to land.
The Hoyas struggled throughout the course of the game. Georgetown had 28 turnovers, which UConn scored 35 points off of. The Huskies also recorded 27 points from fast breaks, compared to the Hoyas’ 4.
When the final buzzer sounded, one of the only silver linings for the Hoyas on paper in their 83-42 loss was the rebound column. Georgetown outrebounded UConn 36-32. Agubata recorded 9 of the Hoyas’, more than any Husky.
UConn guard and Arlington, Va. native Azzi Fudd, whose mother Katie Smrcka-Duffy Fudd played for the Hoyas from 1998 to 2001 and is the seventh all-time leading scorer in Georgetown women’s basketball history, drew a large crowd of UConn supporters to CareFirst.
Fudd said the crowd in the sold-out stadium — 125 seats of which were occupied by her friends and family — fueled her performance.
“It’s an incredible feeling to be away from home and still have it feel like a home game,” Fudd said after the game. “And just feel that support and that love and that energy and get to feed off that.”
Despite a game that felt more like it was taking place in Storrs, Conn., graduate forward Brianna Scott, who led the Hoyas in scoring with 8 points, said the team did not let the crowd affect them.
“We know that we’re a sisterhood and no matter if we have zero fans in there or 100,000 people against us, we’re with each other, so it really doesn’t matter,” Scott told The Hoya after the game. “Of course, it’s great to have a packed building for Georgetown as a home game, having people come out to see us.”
“So, I feel like it’s a good thing to have people watching women’s basketball in general,” Scott added.
The Hoyas will return to action Saturday, Jan. 24, as they travel to Cincinnati to take on the Xavier University Musketeers (10-9, 3-7 Big East), looking to avenge a 1-point loss earlier this month.
