Late rally lifts UConn WBB past Tennessee

Entering the fourth quarter, Tennessee had UConn women's basketball on the ropes. The Huskies had made just one three in the final five minutes of the third, couldn’t get seemingly anything to fall from three – making just 3-16 to that point – and had only hit 8-19 from the free-throw line.

To make matters worse, star freshman Paige Bueckers had only hit one shot all night, Olivia Nelson-Ododa was mostly a non-factor on offense, and Aubrey Griffin was on the bench with foul trouble.

Despite everything going wrong for the Huskies, they found themselves down only four points and had a whole quarter to alter the game's outcome.

“I can't think of one thing that we did well those first three quarters,” Geno Auriemma said postgame. “We just hung around.”

As the fourth quarter began, so did UConn’s comeback. On Tennessee’s first possession, a Nelson-Ododa steal led to a Christyn Williams 3-pointer that got the Huskies within one. After a Vols free-throw on their next sequence pushed the deficit back to the two, Aaliyah Edwards tied the game with an elbow jumper.

The two teams went back and forth before Evina Westbrook hit a three to put the Huskies ahead. After Bueckers forced a turnover on the next Tennessee possession, that sent the Vols into a 3:13 scoreless drought. With the defense providing a lift, UConn rattled off nine straight points to go ahead 61-52.

“I asked [the players] after the game: ‘What were some of the big moments?’ and they kept saying the stops that we got,” Auriemma said. “So we got some big stops in the fourth quarter and then some shots started to drop.”

It was at this time that potential disaster struck, as Bueckers rolled her ankle in transition on the final play of that run and hobbled off the court during the next timeout. Though she stayed in the game, she visibly struggled to move around. Auriemma called another timeout to pull Bueckers, who limped underneath the bleachers and got her ankle taped by athletic trainer Janelle Francisco.

She returned to the bench in time for another stoppage, setting the stage for the wounded hero to return and save the day. Except Auriemma didn’t put her back in the game.

“She wanted to go back in, I wasn't completely sure yet,” Auriemma said. “She basically said, ‘Put me back in’ and the other coaches were yelling ‘Put her back in.’ So it was a no brainer, really. I mean she was going to go back in if she could and if she got the okay to go.”

Bueckers finally re-entered with 1:16 left to play and soon after, Tennessee went down and scored to draw within two with 55 seconds remaining on the clock.

Holding onto a narrow lead, UConn drained as much time as it could. Then with five seconds left on the shot clock, Williams tried to drive to the basket but got swallowed up by three white jerseys. She threw it out to Westbrook with three seconds to shoot, who found Bueckers with two seconds.

The freshman didn’t even blink and launched a shot from well beyond the three-point line. As the shot clock expired, the ball hit nothing by nylon and sent UConn’s bench into a frenzy as Bueckers let out a scream.

“When that one came off her hands we all knew it was going in,” Westbrook said. “She knew it, the bench knew it, I felt like the crowd knew it. We instantly knew.”

Bueckers, who had shot 2-13 to that point, went 1-1 when it mattered.

“I told her after the game, ‘I don't care that you missed a bunch of shots tonight. You made the one that counted and that's all that matters,’” Williams said.

UConn held strong over the final 24 seconds and walked away with a 67-61 victory, one that was far from guaranteed just 10 minutes earlier. The Huskies did just enough to hang close until crunch time and when the opportunity presented itself, they made their move.

“Those first three quarters, it would have been really easy for us to just let it get away and leave here with an L,” Auriemma said. “Maybe that's what you have to do to learn how to grind it out. ”

Evina Westbrook returns

When the final buzzer sounded, Westbrook let out a sigh of relief.

“One of the first words that came out of my mouth, I told my team ‘I’m just glad it’s over,’” she said.

As the only player ever to transfer to UConn from Tennessee, Westbrook returned to Knoxville for the first time and had to deal with boos, cries of ‘traitor!’ and other taunts from the 3,553 fans in attendance. Auriemma knew it would be a difficult game for the redshirt junior to handle, so he made a point to say something to her during shootaround.

“I tried to point out the difference between playing with a lot of emotion and not being emotional and not letting your emotions get in the way,” he relayed.

Westbrook had a quiet first quarter with no shots or points but came alive in the second, dropping eight points – including UConn’s final six points of the half. Though she didn’t take a shot in the third period, the Huskies’ entire offense sputtered with just 11 points total.

Safe to say Westbrook made up for it down the stretch. While UConn erased Tennessee’s four-point lead from the start of the quarter, the teams found themselves knotted at 52 apiece with roughly seven minutes remaining.

Westbrook quickly changed that. On an inbounds play from under the basket, she found herself wide-open on the three-point line and drained a triple. Just over a minute later, Westbrook connected again from deep to put the Huskies up by six – their first two-possession lead of the second half.

Westbrook finished the game off with a free throw in the closing seconds and ended up with 15 points, five rebounds, and four assists on the night.

“I thought she was unbelievably good,” Auriemma said of Westbrook’s performance. “She made some really clutch, clutch, clutch shots. Really just big, big, big moments in the game.”

Westbrook admitted it wasn’t an easy game for her but credited her teammates for helping her push through it all.

“[My teammates] were just all talking to me throughout the whole game. Just positive, ‘We got you,’” she said. “That means a lot. Coming back here and playing was tough, a lot of emotions but they really just kept me level-headed throughout the whole trip.”

While some players would’ve used this type of game to settle old scores, Westbrook didn’t want the focus to be on her, She was only concerned about getting the win. So with both things accomplished, she can finally put the past behind her.

“I want it to be about us coming here and getting the job done,” she said. “For me, that was a statement. I didn't want to come in here and prove people wrong, I wanted to prove people who believed in me from the start right. That's my team, that's my coaching staff, everyone who's been supporting me and my team from the start. So I think that's what we did by getting this W tonight.”

Find out what UConn fans had to say after the game in our Forum and look for more UConn women's basketball coverage on StorrCentral later this weekend!