UConn women’s basketball advanced to its 32nd consecutive Sweet Sixteen by walloping the 9-seed Syracuse Orange, 98-45. The Huskies led by 53 at halftime.
In her final game at Gampel Pavilion, Azzi Fudd went off with 34 points on eight 3-pointers — both of which tied career-highs — to go along with five assists, four steals and three rebounds. Sarah Strong added 18 points and nine rebounds while Blanca Quiñonez also put up 18 points. Kayleigh Heckel chipped in with nine points and Ashlynn Shade did a little bit of everything with six points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
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Defensively, UConn held Syracuse to 1-18 shooting from deep and forced 20 turnovers.
Strong got the Huskies off to a quick start by scoring seven of their first nine points. UConn piled up 7-0 and 8-0 runs to take what seemed to be a commanding 14-point lead.
Then the Huskies flipped a switch. They scored 31 unanswered points, keeping Syracuse off the board for 10:26 seconds while forcing 10 straight misses. Six different players scored for UConn, led by 11 points from Fudd and nine points from Quiñonez during that stretch. By the time the Orange scored again, the Huskies were ahead 53-8.
As if that wasn’t enough, UConn closed the half with nine straight makes as well as a 9-0 run. It went into the break with a 53-point lead. Three different Huskies — Fudd (26), Strong (14) and Quiñonez (13) — had more points than Syracuse through the first 20 minutes.
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UConn didn’t keep the momentum going through the break. The Orange stacked up an 11-0 run in the third quarter, though that only cut the gap down to 45. The two teams tied each of the final two periods, which meant the Huskies came away with a 53-point victory.
With the win, UConn improves to 36-0 on the season. Next, the Huskies will advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where they’ll take on 4-seed North Carolina in Fort Worth. They’ll play on Friday, March 27 at either 2:30 p.m. ET or 5 p.m. ET.
