Aaliyah Edwards and Dorka Juhász were unstoppable in the paint as the Huskies routed the second-best team in the Big East.
Despite being shorthanded, No. 8 UConn women’s basketball returned from the holiday break with a resounding 72-47 road victory over the No. 21 Creighton Bluejays.
The Huskies had just seven players available with Azzi Fudd still out with a right knee injury, Aubrey Griffin home after testing positive for Covid-19 over the holiday break and Amari DeBerry unable to join the team due to travel issues. SNY also reported that Inês Bettencourt needed stitches after being hit in the nose during practice, though that didn’t prevent her from playing four minutes.
UConn took full advantage of their size advantage — the Bluejays didn’t have a single player taller than 6-foot-1 on the roster — by winning the rebound battle 59-27. Aaliyah Edwards and Dorka Juhász both recorded double-doubles and set career-highs on the boards. Edwards finished with 23 points and 20 rebounds — the first Husky to reach the 20-rebound mark since Maya Moore in 2010 — while Juhász totaled 22 points and 18 rebounds.
Lou Lopez Sénéchal notched 10 points, which continued her streak of reaching double-figures in every game this season, while Caroline Ducharme added 11 points. Nika Mühl chipped in a team-high eight assists to go with six points and five rebounds.
Creighton shot just 24 percent from the floor and went 3-28 from 3-point range.
UConn put Creighton in a chokehold early and never let up. The Huskies started on a 10-0 run and followed it up with another 7-0 spurt soon after. On the other end, the Bluejays’ high-powered offense couldn’t get anything going. They made just four buckets in the opening quarter and missed their first 11 shots from beyond the arc.
It didn’t get much better for the hosts in the second period. Creighton finally hit its first 3-pointer with 5:52 left in the half, but then failed to score again before the break. That helped UConn open a 35-16 lead at the midway point.
The Huskies kept cruising out of the locker room. They put together a 12-0 run — seven of which came from Edwards — to push the lead over 30 points. The Bluejays didn’t put up much of a fight the rest of the way and UConn walked away with a 25-point win.
Next, the Huskies will return home and close the book on 2021 with a New Year’s Eve matchup with Marquette at 2:00 p.m. ET in Storrs.