STORRS — KK Arnold wasn’t the UConn women’s basketball team’s leading scorer against Villanova on Thursday night, but she was the soul of the 99-50 rout at Gampel Pavilion.
Maybe it was the pregame hug Arnold got from Moriah Jefferson, her favorite Huskies player of all time, or perhaps just the extra motivation to show out in front of so many legendary alumni in attendance for the 10-year reunion of the program’s 2015 and ’16 NCAA Championships. But every time UConn needed a spark against the Wildcats, it came from the junior point guard.
“Kids come into two forms: Those that give you energy and those that suck the energy out. She’s an energy giver,” coach Geno Auriemma said postgame. “You can plug into her. She’s like a battery, and everybody else feeds off of it. Every team needs that, and she inspires other people to be like that.”
Arnold’s most game-changing moment came midway through the second quarter while Villanova was in the midst of a 10-0 run. The team got out of sorts at both ends of the floor, giving up four turnovers over a three and a half minute stretch and allowing the Wildcats to hit four straight field goals after they had made just four in the entire game previously.
But after Villanova finally missed on a 3-point attempt, Arnold brought the ball up the floor and took matters into her own hands. She danced through the paint for a layup to snap the team’s scoring drought. Then she knocked a steal off the hands of Wildcats star Jasmine Bascoe that she dished to redshirt senior Azzi Fudd for a quick 3-pointer that reopened UConn’s 20-point lead.
Arnold went on to finish with 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting to tie her season best, and she matched a career high with seven assists. She also added four steals with a single turnover in 22 minutes on the court.
“I was asked by the the TV people doing the game who I thought was our most improved player up to this point, and I would say KK from last season to now (in) her court awareness and her confidence in herself and just the way she carries herself,” Auriemma said. “You’re not born with that. It’s a lot of time spent, and KK has put the time in.”
Star sophomore Sarah Strong also had a huge performance, coming one rebound shy of a double-double with 24 points and nine rebounds plus four assists, five blocks and three steals. Fudd added 14 points and a pair of steals, and freshman Blanca Quinonez scored in double digits for the eighth time in nine games with 13 points shooting 5-for-9 on top of four rebounds and two steals.
The Huskies improved to 18-0 with the win and 9-0 in Big East play.
Fudd opened the game by nailing a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer, and it looked like UConn was going to run away with another massive victory by the end of the first quarter. The Huskies forced nine turnovers and held Villanova to just 3-for-15 from the field while shooting 57% as a team. Bascoe, who averages almost 18 points per game, hit a single shot in the first and started 0-for-2 from 3-point range.
But after entering the second quarter with a 26-8 lead, UConn’s offense abruptly devolved into sloppiness. The team turned the ball over five times after allowing just two in the first, and though Huskies were still efficient from the field, they struggled from 3-point range hitting just 1-for-5. Villanova kept the score even, 19-19, in the second behind its 10-0 run.
After the lapse, the Huskies returned to their usual dominance out of the halftime locker room. An early Wildcats 3-pointer cut the lead back under 20, but senior center Serah Williams quickly kicked off a hot streak for the Huskies with five straight points. Arnold then injected energy into the team once again, knocking down a fast-break shot from the perimeter, then forcing a steal on Bascoe and converting on the transition layup over just 12 seconds. After the 12-0 run, UConn never led by less than 24 for the remainder of the game.
The Huskies forced a season-worst 26 turnovers against Villanova, converting them into 36 points. Though they shot just 30% from beyond the arc, they held the Wildcats to 25% on 3-pointers and another season-worst 27.7% from the field. Bascoe finished with eight points for just her second single-digit scoring game this year, and she shot a season-low 3-for-13.
“I’m surprised that we were able to do defensively what we did today against a team that makes it hard for you to guard them,” Auriemma said. “I thought the communication on defense was the best it’s been all season, and I told them after the game that we could hear on the bench every single person and how they were communicating and how they were helping each other … I think it was a pretty complete game by us both physically and mentally.”
Auriemma went deep into the bench in the fourth quarter as he has in every Big East game to date, and all 11 players who saw the floor scored points. UConn’s reserves combined for 39 points, and they out-scored Villanova 23-6 in the final frame.
“A lot of times that group goes out in the fourth quarter and they just kind of throw away everything that we work on and it’s like ‘Oh, here’s my chance to show coach and remember how good I am,’” Auriemma said. “I think today we really had a plan out there. We knew what we wanted to do. We know how we wanted the ball, and we played like a really good team in the fourth quarter, which doesn’t happen very often.”
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