The South Florida Bulls may call Tampa home, but the city belongs to the UConn women’s basketball team this year.
Just a few miles down the road from where they won the 2025 NCAA Championship in April, the No. 1 Huskies continued their undefeated start to the 2025-26 season with an 85-51 rout of South Florida at the Yuengling Center on Tuesday. It was the program’s 56th consecutive win over an unranked opponent and the 35th straight in their series with the Bulls.
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Four different Huskies scored in double digits for the second straight game, led by the fourth double-double of the season for Sarah Strong. The sophomore forward finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds plus four assists and two steals, and she shot 50% both from the field and from 3-point range.
After a quiet game at Xavier on Sunday, freshman forward Blanca Quinonez bounced back against South Florida with 13 points shooting 62.5% from the field and 3-for-4 from the perimeter. Her three made 3-pointers tied a season best, and she also matched her season low in turnovers with just one. Azzi Fudd and Ashlynn Shade added 10 points apiece in the victory, and Fudd logged three assists with two steals.
UConn opened on an 8-0 run against the Bulls with four different players finishing on four straight field goals over the first two minutes of play. South Florida found a response after the Huskies finally missed their first shot nearly three minutes into the game, scoring six unanswered points to make it a two-possession game. But Fudd stepped up to hit three consecutive shots of her own for UConn, and Quinonez added her first bucket of the game to give the team its first double-digit lead.
The Huskies’ defense smothered the Bulls late in the first, holding them without a field goal for nearly five minutes to end the quarter. Quinonez found her 3-point shot with back-to-back makes in the final two minutes, and Shade nailed a quick release from beyond the arc at the first-quarter buzzer to give the Huskies a 19-point lead.
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UConn’s momentum rolled into the second quarter, and South Florida went nearly nine minutes without a field goal including its drought at the end of the first. Though the Huskies’ offense also struggled for stretches, they limited the Bulls to just six points in the quarter. They also had one of their best performances to date guarding the perimeter holding USF to 0-for-8 on 3-pointers in the half.
The Bulls managed to keep Fudd scoreless in the second after her eight points in the first quarter, but UConn entered halftime shooting 50% beyond the arc as a team with five different players scoring at least six points.
South Florida began to break down the Huskies in the second half, hitting six field goals in the third quarter after entering halftime shooting 6-for-27. UConn’s defense remained disruptive, finishing the game with 20 forced turnovers, but the team outscored the Bulls just 17-13 in the quarter.
The Huskies’ third quarter offense thrived off of ball movement with assists on their first four made shots of the half. Strong dished a no-look bounce pass to Shade for the layup that got the junior guard to double digits, and she also connected with KK Arnold for the shot that gave her her first points of the game. UConn’s balanced attack saw five different players record points in the third, and sophomore Allie Ziebell came alive off the bench scoring five of her eight points in the game.
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Coach Geno Auriemma emptied the bench in the fourth quarter, and the Huskies got contributions from 11 of their 13 available players. Redshirt senior Caroline Ducharme was the only player who saw the court that didn’t record points, but she finished with a pair of a assists. UConn’s reserves combined for nearly half of the team’s offensive production with 41 points.
