UConn Women Gain No. 1 Ranking, Then Prove It With 11-Point Whooping of Notre Dame

Gabby Williams (15) had 19 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists for the Huskies.

By Bob Phillips

 It’s officially a legitimate question: Will this team will ever lose another game?

One month into a season in which the four-time defending champion UConn women’s basketball team was thought to be somewhat vulnerable, the answer to that question seems to be “Ummm… Doesn’t look like it!”

Two days after leaping over their most heated rival, Notre Dame, and ascending to their all-too-familiar No. 1 ranking, the Huskies jumped on plane, flew to South Bend, Ind., and easily defeated the Irish, 72-61 in what can be described as nothing less than a statement game—and could very well be a preview of the 2017 national championship game.

It was the 83rd consecutive victory for Connecticut, which improved to 8-0 on the young season.

Napheesa Collier led the Huskies with 20 points—14 in the second half. The 6-1 sophomore forward from O'Fallon, Missouri, played just nine minutes in the opening frame because of foul trouble. Gabby Williams turned in a typically solid performance, scoring 19 points, hauling down 12 boards, and adding and six assists for good measure. Katie Lou Samuelson added 18 points for the Huskies.

Brianna Turner led the Irish, who fell to 8-1, with 16 points and 12 rebounds, while Lindsay Allen chipped in with 11 points.

Irish head coach Muffet McGraw saw little to take from the crushing loss.

“Just really, really disappointed in pretty much everything,” a dejected Irish head coach Muffet McGraw told ESPNW.com after the game. “Execution, inability to get the ball to [All-American Brianna Turner]. Just completely ineffective offensively.”

Notre Dame knotted the score at 42 points apiece with just under two minutes to go in the third quarter. But the Huskies applied their trademark defensive clamps, forcing a pair of key turnovers that were converted into transition layups by Samuelson and Williams. After Collier added a pair of free throws, the Connecticut advantage had grown to a comfortable seven-point margin, 50-43, headed into the fourth stanza. UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said that stretch was the key.

“In that moment when it could have gone into the fourth quarter differently, I think it kept our confidence level high and may have put a damper on them,” the Husky Hall-of-Famer said.

As huge as this win may have been, Auriemma doesn’t want to acknowledge its importance, less his young team get too full of itself.

“This is [just] Dec. 7^th,” he said. “There's a long way to go between now and the end of the season.”