For much of the first half, the No. 2 UConn women’s basketball team looked like they would run over the No. 18 Ole Miss Rebels.
UConn led 37-18 at halftime and held the Rebels to just a 5-32 clip from the floor. All but one of the Huskies’ 16 field goals in the first 20 minutes came in the paint. Connecticut outscored Mississippi 30-2 in that area and outrebounded them by five.
But the Rebels roared to life early in the third quarter. Ole Miss followed Ashlynn Shade’s turnaround second-half starting jumper with a 20-4 run. The Rebels’ 15 unanswered points alone cut their 19-point halftime deficit down to three.
Each bucket Mississippi made set the stage for a massive comeback in the Baha Mar Championship Game. The Huskies increased those odds with more than just the mistakes they committed. Connecticut turned the ball over five times, snagged two rebounds and took just one shot during that span.
Nothing, not even a Geno Auriemma timeout, could seemingly stop the Ole Miss express.
But then Azzi Fudd reintroduced herself to college basketball. Fudd hit a wide-open corner triple, just her second of the season, that ended the Rebels’ 3.5-minute run. The Virginia native followed it up with a jumper 39 seconds later.
Paige Bueckers’ jumper with one second left gave the Huskies a 52-46 lead after three quarters. Fudd began the fourth with a traditional three-point play that stretched the advantage to nine. When Mississippi pulled within single digits, both former No. 1 recruits and 6-foot-5 center Jana El Alfy provided a response.
All three players scored the Huskies’ final 34 points of the game. Yet it was the 2022 Big East All-Freshman Team guard’s two-way efforts that calmed the team down. Fudd shot 5-6 from the floor in the second half as Connecticut captured the Baha Mar Championship 73-60 over the Rebels Wednesday night.
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“She made Azzi Fudd plays,” Auriemma said about the Class of 2021 No. 1 recruit postgame. “People know that she is a great shooter, but I do not think they realize what a terrific basketball player she is."
While Fudd delivered in the second half, Bueckers lit up the court for most of the contest. Playing all but two minutes, the two-time WBCA All-American dropped a season-high 29 points with four rebounds, three steals and four assists. All of those numbers came despite Bueckers committing a season-worst five turnovers.
El Alfy, meanwhile, finished one point and two rebounds shy of her second-career double-double. The Egyptian native shot a perfect 3-3 from the floor for eight points and hauled in nine rebounds off the bench.
“She did not do anything that is hard for her to do,” college basketball’s winningest coach commented about El Alfy. “She stayed within the context of who she is.”
Three-time Big East Freshman of the Week Sarah Strong supported the 6-foot-5 center’s outing with 10 points and six boards. Every other Husky who played scored two points apiece. Princeton transfer Kaitlyn Chen dished out four assists. Shade started UConn’s scoring in the second half. Ice Brady and KK Arnold combined for seven rebounds.
Despite their third quarter lull, the Huskies still finished with a 58.5% mark from the field and a 30-point edge in the paint. Connecticut actually shot better in the second half than they did in the first.
So too did the Rebels, who shot 47.2% in the second and 15.6% in the first. Four out of Ole Miss’ five starters finished in double figures and recorded all 10 of the team’s steals.
Arkansas-Pine Bluff graduate transfer Starr Jacobs spearheaded the Rebels’ defense with four of those takeaways and seven rebounds. Only fellow graduate student Madison Scott had more boards at seven, and she showed up everywhere on the floor. In addition to her seven rebounds, Scott recorded six assists and scored 10 points.
Both she and former Florida Gator KK Deans took over the scoring in the second half. 14 of Deans’ 17 points and 15 of her 18 attempts came in those final 20 minutes. Once the graduate guard got going, so did Mississippi’s offense. Former North Carolina Tar Heel Kennedy Todd-Williams, meanwhile, had a more balanced attack with two triples in each half.
Todd-Williams’ first two triples made her the only Rebel with more than one first-half field goal. She did not get Mississippi on the board, though; Scott did with a jumper just outside of the paint. Bueckers answered with a layup in transition that set up an 8-0 Connecticut run.
The Rebels scored that many points at a 14.3% clip in the first quarter. That number improved just 2.4% over the ensuing 10 minutes. While Ole Miss’ offensive woes mounted, the Huskies consistently punished the paint. All but two of UConn’s 18 points in the second quarter, and 30 of their 37 in the first half, came from that part of the floor.
The senior guard in Todd-Williams broke her team’s 0-for-11 shooting drought with a three-pointer four seconds before the halftime buzzer. It significantly sparked the Rebels’ offense, especially in those first five minutes of the third quarter. Mississippi played like the team that stuck around with the then-No. 3 USC Trojans in Paris in the season opener.
Once Fudd banked her lone bucket from downtown, however, the Rebels never made it closer than a three-point game. El Alfy and Bueckers ended the third with jumpers on consecutive possessions.
The Minnesota native’s turnaround floater in the final frame put the Huskies back up double figures. No matter what shot they made, Ole Miss could not pull within eight points the rest of the night. Bueckers’ layup with 34 seconds remaining sealed Connecticut’s second victory over a ranked opponent this season.
The Huskies head back to the Nutmeg State with a fearsome row of non-conference foes looming on the horizon. Before UConn faces any of those opponents, the Holy Cross Crusaders come to Storrs next Tuesday, December 3. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. on SNY.
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