UConn 'punks' South Carolina in stunning blowout: 'We played to win'
40 minutes before UConn and South Carolina tipped off on Sunday, Geno Auriemma delivered an eyebrow-raising comment on ESPN’s College Gameday.
“I think we're gonna be a tremendous NCAA Tournament team. I really do," he declared confidently.
Through the Huskies’ first 26 games, they hadn’t shown much to justify such a strong endorsement. Despite all their talent, they’d developed a habit of beating up on bad teams then wilting under the bright lights. In their three losses, they were consistently dogged by the same intangible problems.
UConn just didn’t have that “it” factor.
Perhaps Auriemma expected to fall to the Gamecocks and wanted to get ahead of it by re-emphasizing that the Huskies are all about what happens in March, not the regular season.
After all, few expected UConn to come out of Columbia with a win. The Huskies were on a three-game losing streak against ranked competition, had dropped seven straight regular season contests to top-10 opponents and had suffered four consecutive defeats to South Carolina.
Meanwhile, Dawn Staley’s program established itself as the gold standard in women’s college basketball. The Gamecocks went undefeated and won the national championship in 2023-24. This season, they had only lost twice and owned a 71-game home winning streak — the fourth-longest in the history of the sport.
All four panelists on ESPN’s College Gameday picked South Carolina — and were justified in doing so.
Or maybe Auriemma knew something everyone else didn’t. When he spoke to the media ahead of the showdown on Friday, he no longer seemed defeated, worn down by a team that had the talent but couldn’t put it together. The coach didn’t say anything that revealed his inner thoughts feelings but he exuded a reserved confidence — almost as if he were trying to hide it.
Auriemma knew his team was capable of being great, “and it came out today,” he said.
That it did. In one of its most impressive and stunning performances in recent memory, UConn clobbered South Carolina, 87-58. The Huskies dominated in every facet of the game: They shot 46 percent from three, won the rebounding battle 48-29, assisted on 22 of 31 baskets (compared to seven of 23 for the hosts) and out-scored the Gamecocks 31-12 in transition.
“We just got punked today,” South Carolina’s Te-Hina Paopao said. “It's very much embarrassing.”
“They had their way with us,” Staley said. “There's no trying to find a silver lining to it. We got beat. We got beat bad.”
Yet as impressive as all those numbers are, they aren’t the main reason UConn won. Just as the Huskies’ previous losses went deeper than the stat sheet, the victory came as a result of the intangibles.
“I think the collective mindset when we came down here, there was just a really, really good vibe about everything,” Azzi Fudd explained. “No one really spoke about it but if you had asked me before, I felt great about the game. I think everyone felt really great about going into this game.”
Auriemma put it into more concrete terms.
“More than anything else, it was evident today that we played to win,” he said. “There wasn't any, ‘I hope I don't miss this shot. I'm not going to take the shot because I don't want to miss it,’ or ‘I'm not going to go after that rebound because I'm tired,’ or whatever the case may be. This was a play to win game.”
UConn translated that into a near-flawless team effort. On the offensive end, the Huskies were a well-oiled machine that created high-quality looks all day long. Defensively, they turned every South Carolina possession into a slog.
“To me, the idea of perfect basketball is more about decision making, making sure that we're connected and playing five-on-five — that players are in tune with each other, that you're getting contributions from a lot of people at key times,” Auriemma said. “That’s as close to perfect as we’ve been all year.”
There were still individual standouts — none more than Fudd, who finished with 28 points. Early on, it looked like she may be a non-factor yet again — just as she was at Tennessee — when she missed her first four shots, including a wide-open 3-pointer.
That didn’t faze her, though. She kept attacking and eventually got herself on the board with an aggressive take to the basket.
“There were times in the past when Azzi would be affected by [the early misses],” Auriemma said.
Still, Fudd only made 2-10 from the field in the first half. It didn’t get much better coming out of the break, either.
“I missed all my shots when we came out after halftime (in warmups),” she revealed.
Fudd apparently just got all the misses out of the way then. In the third quarter, she went 7-9 overall and 4-5 from three en route to 18 points. It was her third straight takeover in the third quarter after putting up 17 points in each of her last two games.
“This was a big moment for her,” Auriemma said. “She hasn't played in a long time, hasn't been in this scenario in a long time. For her to have the kind of game that she had, this was big. It really goes a long way towards pushing her forward. I'm sure she had some doubts whether, ‘Do I still have it in me?’ So I was really proud of her.”
Elsewhere, Jana El Alfy flashed the potential that her coaches and teammates have raved about from the moment she stepped on campus. She set the tone with physical and aggressive play in the post from the jump but also showed off some skill by crossing up a defender at the free throw line and driving in for the layup.
The redshirt freshman finished with eight points, six rebounds and a heaping of praise from her coach.
“Today, Jana played the best game that she's played since she's been at Connecticut, for sure,” Auriemma said. “That's something to build on.”
One of the most remarkable aspects of the thrashing that UConn handed South Carolina is that it did so with just a so-so performance from Paige Bueckers. While she had a double-double with 12 points and 10 assists to go with seven rebounds, she made just 3-12 from the field.
Still, Bueckers didn’t let the poor shooting derail her entire day.
“Games like today show how valuable she is even when the ball is not going in,” Auriemma said. “I do believe that when the moment comes and we need a bucket, it doesn’t matter what her shooting percentage is, she's going to make it… That's a perfect example of play great and not shoot the ball well.”
Over the last half-decade or so, UConn’s mystique had faded. Though partly due to injuries, many of the Huskies’ most iconic streaks had ended. In 2022-23, they dropped back-to-back games for the first time in 30 years then missed the Final Four for the first time in 15 years.
Last season, UConn fell all the way to No. 18 in the AP Poll, its lowest ranking since 1993. The Huskies’ three-game losing streak against ranked opponents was tied for their longest such drought since 1995.
On Sunday, UConn turned back the clock and put together a vintage performance. But instead of Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore and Tina Charles, or Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck being responsible for it, the Huskies were led by Bueckers, Fudd and Sarah Strong.
“We needed to prove that to ourselves that we could never let up for 40 minutes,” Fudd said. “We haven't done that yet and so it was really, really good to see us do it. It felt good.”
It was the type of beatdown that UConn used to hand out regularly. The Huskies claimed the largest road victory for any team over a top-five opponent since 2009, when they themselves obliterated then-No. 2 UNC. They also handed the Gamecocks their worst home loss since 2008 — which was also their handy work, beating Staley in her first season.
For itself, UConn hadn’t beaten a top-five team on the road since the 2018-19 campaign. It last won against South Carolina in 2021 and hadn’t done so in Columbia since 2018.
Now the trick is taking this performance and doing it again. And again. And again. Not just on Wednesday at Seton Hall or in March. The Huskies need to replicate Sunday’s effort every single day in practice.
“Paige said it best in the locker room: Now that we've done it, we can't get complacent. This has to be our standard here on out,” Fudd relayed. “We can only get better from here. We can't let this win be the best thing we do the rest of the season.”
That won’t be easy. That might not even be possible. But regardless, UConn sent a clear message to the rest of the country and let everyone know what it’s capable of.
“This is in them,” Auriemma said. “Can it come out every day? I don't know. But now we know it's in them.”
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