UConn women’s basketball added another top-25 win to its resume on Saturday, handling the No. 11 Iowa Hawkeyes 90-64 in the Women’s Champions Classic at Barclays Center.
The Huskies’ two stars each owned a half. Sarah Strong dominated the first 20 minutes with 20 points en route to a final line of 23 points, seven rebounds, six steals, four assists and a block. In the final two quarters, Azzi Fudd put up 21 points as part of a 27-point, four-steal, three-assist day.
Beyond the pair, Blanca Quiñonez
did a little bit of everything with 10 points, five assists and four steals while KK Arnold, Serah Williams and Allie Ziebell all had seven points apiece.
As a team, UConn lost the rebounding battle (34-25) but came out ahead in pretty much every other category: Second chance points (14-13), turnovers (26-9), points off turnovers (41-9), points in the paint (40-24) and fast break points (18-2).
The Huskies used separate runs of 7-0 and 9-0 to take a 14-point lead in the opening quarter, though they didn’t just cruise from there. The Hawkeyes battled back to within six early in the second period before UConn answered with an 11-2 burst. Again, Iowa cut it down to single-digits late in the frame, only for Fudd to hit a jumper just before the buzzer that sent the Huskies into the locker room with an 11-point lead.
Out of the break, UConn finally started to create some distance, out-scoring Iowa by 10 in the third quarter. Fudd led the way with eight points, though all seven Huskies who saw action in the period found the basket. Fudd kept it rolling in the fourth, putting together an 8-0 run by herself to give UConn a 76-48 lead.
In the end, the Huskies walked out with a 26-point victory.
With the win, UConn improves to 12-0 on the season and 4-0 against ranked competition. Next, the Huskies will take the week off to celebrate the holidays before returning to action with a trip to Butler on Dec. 28.
