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| Megan Walker led the charge with a 26-point, 13-rebound effort to lead the No. 4 UConn Huskies over arch-rival Notre Dame on Sunday. |
STORRS—While it may not be what it once was, that is to say the defining rivalry in collegiate women’s basketball, whenever the UConn Huskies play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, it is still a big game. On Sunday, before a raucous, jam-packed crowd at Gampel Arena and a national television audience, the No. 4 Huskies made a statement by running roughshod over the Irish and coming away with a 81-57 victory. With the win, the Huskies improved to 8-0, while the Irish fell to 5-6.
Megan Walker led the way by scoring 26
points, going 10-for-18 from the floor and grabbing 13 rebounds, to lead the
Huskies’ attack. Olivia
Nelson-Ododa also put up a double-double (16 points, 10 boards) and added three
blocked shots for good measure, while Christyn Williams
had 12 points and Crystal
Dangerfield, who returned to the starting lineup after missing two games
with back spasms, chipped in with 10.
“This game meant a lot to us
as far as the history and we wanted to prove something,” Walker said. “Just as
a team (we heard) we're not the typical UConn team or we’re not this or we’re
not that. We wanted to play together and prove that we're capable of doing
those things.”
Anaya Peoples had 17 points
and 11 boards to lead Notre Dame, which has a losing record for the first time
in 16 years. Katlyn Gilbert scored 15 and Marta Sniezek added 14 for the Irish.
UConn never trailed, and
dominated the boards, out-rebounding the
Irish by a 48-32 margin. That helped the Huskies put in 21 second-chance points, while
holding Notre Dame to just five.
“That was one of the key
points that coach had made coming into the game was just get on the offensive
and defensive boards and just attack them,” Nelson-Ododa said.
Kyla Irwin opened
the scoring with a 3-pointer from the left baseline and the Huskies sprinted
out to an early 12-2 lead, capped by a layup from Nelson-Ododa.
"We just have to figure
out how we are going to score, because we're not a great defensive team" Notre
Dame head coach Muffet McGraw said. "Going into the season we knew we
weren't going to be able to score, so we worked a lot on our defense and we
haven't been able to play great defense."
Sniezek kept the Irish in the
game early, scoring nine of her points in the first quarter. But a putback by Aubrey Griffin just
before the buzzer gave the Huskies a 29-13 lead at the first turn.
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| Sophomore forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa added a double-double of her own (16 points, 10 boards). |
A steal and conventional
3-point play from Walker gave UConn its first 20-point lead at 46-25. The,
junior forward had 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists in the first half
and UConn led 52-25 at the break.
Graduation, transfers and
injuries have no doubt taken their toll on the Irish. No one who appeared for
Notre Dame in last year's national semifinal win over the Huskies played on
Sunday. And one has to go all the way back to December 2003 to find an Irish
team with a losing record. (Notre Dame
started off 3-4 that season.) While this was the 11th game of the season for
the Irish (they were 5-5 coming in), the last time a Notre Dame team had a
losing record after 10 games was in the 1992-93 season—a veritable lifetime ago
in NCAA basketball terms.
“This team wasn't ready for
our schedule, so we've put them in a really bad situation,” McGraw continued.
"Iit's not going to get any easier, so we just have to continue
improving."
Overall the Huskies improve to
38-13 against Notre Dame. However, they are 3-5 against the Irish in the NCAA
Tournament. This was not the most lopsided victory in the series. That came in
January, 2002 when UConn won by 27 points, 80-53 in Hartford.
Coach Geno Auriemma said
to be consistently successful, he needs to have two players in each recruiting
class who have the potential to be All-Americans. He said that Walker is
beginning to realize her potential.
“Megan is playing like she's a first-team Äll-American
player,” said the Hall of Fame coach. “ I don't know anybody who is playing
better than her. I haven't seen anything.”
The Huskies can now cool their jets for a week with some
well-deserved time off before traveling to Chicago where they will challenge
their once and soon-to-be Big East rival DePaul on Dec. 16. That game will be
televised on Fox Sports 1 and broadcast on 97.9 ESPN Radio. It can also be
heard via the TuneIn app. Notre Dame’s next game is also with the Blue Demons
on Wednesday night.
—with staff reports
#uconn #uconnhuskies @UConnWBB #uconnnation #huskies #BleedBlue
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