Paige Bueckers leads UConn women’s basketball past Marquette in Big East semifinal without Aaliyah Edwards

UNCASVILLE — The UConn women’s basketball team entered Big East Tournament semifinal against Marquette on Sunday with only seven healthy players after Aaliyah Edwards broke her nose in the quarterfinal Saturday.

But UConn, more accustomed to navigating injuries than perhaps any team in the country, didn’t miss a beat moving to a six-man rotation. The 1-seed Huskies toppled 5-seed Marquette 58-29 at Mohegan Sun Arena, advancing to the Big East championship game Monday for the fourth year in a row.

Paige Bueckers didn’t flinch when she lined up to take the tip off against All-Big East center Liza Karlen, tapping it to freshman KK Arnold and finishing the opening possession with her first points on an assisted layup. Redshirt freshman Ice Brady never showed fear, making her second career start in her first-ever conference tournament, even with the pressure of replacing Edwards’s average 17.8 points and 9.3 rebounds. She played all 40 minutes and logged 10 points, five rebounds and two assists.

“Sometimes you put together a plan with your team, and we think that if we can execute some of this plan, we’ll be in pretty good shape and give ourselves a chance to win. Every once in a while, it kind of comes out exactly how you imagined it could,” Auriemma said. “The way we carried each other was probably the most impressive thing for me. Obivously Paige did Paige things, but today was really a team triumph.”

As she was in the quarterfinal against Providence, Bueckers was practically unstoppable for the No. 9 Huskies from the beginning. She was one rebound shy of a double-double at halftime with 11 points and nine boards plus three assists and two blocks. Meanwhile, UConn held Marquette scoreless for the first six minutes of the game, allowing just five points on two field goals in the entire first quarter.

Bueckers finished with 27 points and 12 rebounds shooting 11-for-16 from the field and 3-for-5 from 3-point range, including a buzzer-beater from several feet behind the arc at the end of the third quarter. She also logged all four of UConn’s blocks and three of its five steals.

“My mindset was really focused on rebounding. With Aaliyah out, that’s a huge piece that we’re missing because Aaliyah grabs every single rebound that comes to her,” Bueckers said. “We wanted to start the game aggressive and sort of set the tone for what the rest of the game looked like … I thought we did a great job of that, balancing being aggressive and being smart.”

Even after Arnold picked up her third foul with more than seven minutes left in the half, fellow freshmen Ashlynn Shade and Qadence Samuels stepped up to fill her shoes. Shade shot 4-for-7 in the first half for nine points, and Samuels hit her long field goal attempt while adding a rebound in just eight minutes on the floor.

“That’s why they’re the best program in college basketball history, because those kids are ready to step up,” Marquette coach Megan Duffy said. “What Geno has done with all the injuries early in the season to kind of transform these young kids, I try to take a little bit of a lesson every time of how do you get your kids to step up differently? I thought (Brady) was great. She didn’t have to do too much, just be solid, and sometimes that’s enough.”

Even without Edwards, the Huskies had their best performance against Karlen in three meetings with the Golden Eagles. Marquette’s star forward finished with 12 points, well below her season-average 17 and the 21 points she scored in her first game against UConn this season. The Huskies dominated the lane, scoring 26 points in the paint to Marquette’s six, and they also comfortably led the rebounding battle 37-30.

“There have been teams we’ve had here where it wasn’t that big of a deal when we held someone to five points in a half, because we’d just overwhelm people,” Auriemma said. “Today was different in that it had to be that way without the ability to replace (players) when fatigue set in or with foul issues. To play that hard for that long a period of time without the chance to get a breather, to me, was about as impressive as anything we’ve done … It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything like that.”

UConn kept its momentum rolling into the second half, forcing four turnovers over five minutes in third quarter even as the teams combined for a nearly three-minute scoring drought. Naturally, it was Bueckers who ended the cold streak with a long 3-pointer at the third quarter buzzer that send the Huskies into the fourth with an 18-point lead and the energy of the crowd fully behind them. An 11-0 fourth quarter secured UConn’s return to the Big East championship game for the 27th time in coach Geno Auriemma’s 39-year career.

The Huskies had a poor shooting performance, making 47.9% from the field, 38.9% from 3-point range and 50% at the free-throw line. Defense fueled the victory as UConn held the Golden Eagles to their lowest-scoring game of the season, and the Huskies created 12 turnovers for eight points. Marquette is only the opponent that UConn has held under 30 points this season.