UConn women’s basketball loses 79-68 to rival Notre Dame

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The UConn women’s basketball team suffered its third straight loss to longtime rival Notre Dame, 79-68, on Thursday night at Purcell Pavilion. This is the first time in over a decade that the Huskies have lost three straight games to the Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame sophomore Hannah Hidalgo had a top performance against UConn for the second straight year, finishing with a team-high 29 points, plus 10 rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Hidalgo shot 6 of 11 from 3-point range and was perfect at the free throw line on seven attempts. The All-American guard also recorded a double-double with 34 points in the Irish’s 2023-24 victory over the Huskies in Storrs.

“Her talent is obvious. Even if you’re not a basketball player, you can tell her talent is pretty unique,” ​​UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “But I think more important is the way she attacks everything she does. The way she attacks your defense and then, when she’s on defense, attacks your offense, the way she leads her team in so many different ways, I think you put all three of those things together , and it’s really, really, really tough matchup.”

Huskies superstar Paige Bueckers paced UConn with 25 points, shooting 11 of 20 from the field and also adding three rebounds, two assists and two steals. Freshman Sarah Strong led the team with seven points and added 14 points, making two of UConn’s three points all game. The Huskies were ultimately doomed by abysmal shooting performance from beyond the arc. Bueckers went 0-4 and the team finished shooting just 18.8% of Notre Dame’s 10-18 mark.

“They just did a lot of denial, a lot of switching, just made it difficult and didn’t get a lot of open looks,” Bueckers said. “We will obviously learn from it and grow from it… and use this as an opportunity to evolve and get better.” We will take the loss as a lesson, but also use it as fuel. They beat us and deserved to win. They played harder than us and wanted more that we couldn’t have.”

UConn immediately looked out of shape in the first half despite a close opening quarter, struggling to find its usual offensive rhythm and ball movement. The Huskies entered the game shooting nearly 35% from 3-point range, but started 0-7 against the Irish and recorded just three assists on 14 made field goals before halftime. Despite forcing six turnovers to go along with five steals, UConn struggled to capitalize on Notre Dame’s turnovers while trailing by just four points.

Despite a mediocre shooting performance on the field, the Irish quickly gained dominance from 3-point range. UConn took a 10-9 lead late in the first quarter, but after starting the game 0-3 from the field, Hidalgo hit back-to-back three-pointers that reopened Notre Dame’s two-point lead.

The sophomore superstar stayed hot in the second quarter, entering halftime with 17 points after shooting 4-for-6 from long range. The Irish shot 66.7% from 3-point range as a team, offsetting a 41.7% field effort, and UConn couldn’t close the gap even after outscoring Notre Dame 18-6 in the game.

Bueckers came along well in the second period with 10 points and 71% shooting, but sophomore KK Arnold was the only other UConn player to make more than one field goal in the quarter. The Huskies were also swallowed up by the boards, out-rebounding 25-16 in the first half and allowing 11 second-chance points to the Irish.

Strong finally sank UConn’s first three-pointer early in the third quarter and the Huskies slowly began chipping away at Notre Dame’s lead. With less than three minutes left in the third period, they got within two points with a 6-0 run, started by a pull-up jumper from Bueckers on a textbook screen from Strong. Strong played the entire second half with three fouls after picking up her third foul early in the second quarter, and she spent more minutes on the floor than anyone except Bueckers.

Bueckers then grabbed a steal and assisted Strong on a layup, and Arnold added a jumper to force an Irish timeout. Bueckers and Arnold hit two layups in the final seconds to cut the Irish’s lead to a single point, but Hidalgo sank her sixth 3-pointer of the game at the buzzer to keep the Irish ahead by two points.

“I thought the fouls in the first half really set (Strong) back a little bit,” Auriemma said. “This is the first time in her career that she has faced an environment like this and she will only get better. I thought there were times when she was a little more passive than she could be. Other times this year she really took on an aggressive mentality. I don’t know if the fouls might have made them a little more passive, but we need them.”

UConn couldn’t find any momentum after Hidalgo’s buzzer-beater, allowing Notre Dame to open a double-digit lead less than three minutes into the fourth quarter. The Huskies allowed two steals in as many minutes, and both led to points for the Irish. Notre Dame star Olivia Miles, who played only 27 minutes after injuring her ankle in the first quarter, scored nine points in the fourth quarter alone and finished the game 6-9 on 16 shots.

“Every game you take something away that you can use in your next game plan, but every game is also different,” Auriemma said. “So there are a few things that we need to revisit and that are certainly within our control. Part of it is youth. Some of it is just undisciplined. Part of it is carelessness, so we have to do it, we have to do a better job as a coaching staff and as players… And you know, we could have very easily been 25 points less, and instead we cut it down to two, so that’s it is that tells us something.”

Originally published: December 12, 2024 at 8:58 pm EST