No. 3 UConn women defeat Duke 78-50 in first game of Phil Knight Legacy tournament

Head coach Geno Auriemma jokingly quipped that he was a little upset he couldn’t be his “normal, cranky self” when he walked into UConn women’s basketball’s locker room after its first game of the Phil Knight Legacy tournament.

The reason why? Auriemma didn’t have much to complain about defensively following the No. 3 Huskies’ 78-50 victory over Duke at the Chiles Center Friday.

“I thought our defense was terrific,” Auriemma said postgame. “We had some things we wanted to accomplish defensively and I think we got those done. And I’m pretty happy with our group. That’s four games in a row now where our defense has been pretty stellar.”

Auriemma credited Nika Mühl with leading the charge to set the tone for the team, but he’s been pleased with how every player on the roster is bought into what they have to do to make the Huskies’ defense better. They held the Blue Devils to 32.8% shooting from the field and 25% from deep. They also scored 17 points off 14 Duke turnovers, had a 42-26 rebounding advantage and a 30-12 scoring edge in the paint.

“We were really focused on defense, and that’s why I think me and and other players, especially the post players, tried to step up and get as many boards as possible,” Lou Lopez Sénéchal said. “I think that’s a big part of why we won today.”

On offense, up against one of the best defenses in the country, UConn (4-0) shot 50% from the field and 46.2% from 3-point range. Entering the game, the Blue Devils had held opponents to an average of 47.4 points per game and 29.8% shooting from the floor. They managed to slow the Huskies’ offensive movement at times and hold the, to a season-low in scoring, but ultimately couldn’t keep up.

Lopez Sénéchal led UConn in scoring with 23 points on 4 of 5 shooting from deep while also adding six rebounds. Aaliyah Edwards recorded her third double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Azzi Fudd added 14 points and three assists. Nika Mühl had double-figure assists for the second consecutive game, finishing with 10 assists, six points and six rebounds.

“Lou is just a scorer,” Auriemma said. “She just gets the ball and knows what she wants to do, there’s no hesitation. And she’s a terrific shooter and her mid range game is really, really good. and she has a mature game. You can’t even say she’s a compliment to Azzi, you know, it’s like they take turns.”

The Huskies were without graduate forward Dorka Juhász for the second consecutive game. She suffered a broken thumb in UConn’s win over Texas on Nov. 14 and will be out for at least one more game. Auriemma elected to start Aubrey Griffin down low alongside Edwards, as he did in a win over NC State last week. Also on the injury front, Caroline Ducharme (neck stiffness) played a season-high 22 minutes and finished with four points and three rebounds.

It was a back-and-forth game to start, though UConn had a slight edge. Duke guard Elizabeth Balogun drained a mid-range jumper to tie the game at 13 with 2:49 left in the first quarter. The Huskies went on a 10-1 run from there to end the quarter, jumpstarted by a reverse layup from Mühl and capped off by a 3-pointer from Fudd, who was left wide open in the corner.

The Huskies didn’t allow the Blue Devils to score a field goal for nearly three minutes to end the first and led 23-14 at the end of the opening frame.

With 6:44 left in the second quarter, Mühl fought to secure a defensive rebound and started the fast break for UConn. The Croatian point guard found Griffin in the paint for an easy layup to put the Huskies up 30-17 with 6:43 left. That was Mühl’s seventh assist on the day already as she put on a strong first-half performance.

UConn didn’t allow Duke to shorten its deficit to single digits for the rest of the first half and held a 41-29 lead at halftime. The Huskies had the edge inside, outrebounding the Blue Devils 22-11 and outscoring them 20-6 in the paint. But they did allow Duke, which entered the game shooting 21.2% from deep, five 3-pointers on 35.7% shooting — though that would be cleaned up to one 3-pointer on 10% shooting in the second.

Meanwhile, UConn shot 51.6% from the field and 50% from deep in the first half.

“I think defensively Duke tries to get you to play a little bit faster than you want to play and take you out of rhythm a little bit,” Auriemma said. “I thought the first half was kind of more played the way they want to play and I thought the second half was played the way we wanted to play.”

A little over two minutes into the third quarter, Fudd dribbled to the free-throw line, surveyed the defense and quickly passed the ball out to the right wing, where Lopez Sénéchal drained her fourth 3-pointer of the day. That triple was part of a 7-0 run for the Huskies to open the second half, allowing them to jump out to a 48-29 lead and force a Duke timeout.

Edwards made a pair of free throws to put the Huskies up by 20 shortly after that. Off to a strong start in the second half, she made a jumper on UConn’s next possession as well. However, by the end of the third quarter, Duke had managed to trim that lead to 60-43.

In the first minute of the fourth quarter, Mühl found Lopez Sénéchal cutting into the paint for a layup. Lopez Sénéchal drew a foul in the process and made the shot at the charity stripe. Fudd drained a 3-pointer after that, putting the Huskies firmly in control, up 66-45.

Those baskets were part of an eventual 16-0 run for the Huskies to put the game away. But it was defense that led the way as UConn held Duke to 17.6% (3 of 17) shooting from the field and 0% (0 of 5) from deep in the fourth.

“Coach always tells us, ‘Fourth quarter, we gotta go out the strongest,’” Mühl said. “Everybody’s tired, both teams are tired, the game is coming to an end, so we just tried to make that run and  finish the game quickly.”

The Huskies will face either No. 9 Iowa or Oregon State in the tournament championship 1 p.m. ET Sunday at the Moda Center.