ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Though the 79-66 final score didn’t show it, the UConn women’s basketball team had stretches that could have been disastrous during its season opener against No. 20 Louisville on Tuesday night.
After dominating the first quarter to open a 25-9 lead, the No. 1 Huskies began the second on three straight missed field goal attempts, giving up a turnover and four unanswered points in less than 25 seconds.
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But that was as far as the Cardinals got before sophomore phenom Sarah Strong took over.
Strong put up 11 points in the second quarter, assisting on UConn’s first basket with an impressive pass across the court to a wide-open KK Arnold in the right corner. She then took a defensive rebound coast-to-coast, floating in a layup and drawing the foul against Louisville center Elif Istanbulluoglu. She added a jump shot, a pair of assists and another layup over the following four minutes, pushing the Huskies out to their first 20-point lead of the game.
In the crowd, former UConn superstar Paige Bueckers was on her feet screaming alongside her younger brother Drew after the and-1, both flexing as the sophomore forward knocked down her free throw. A year ago, Bueckers would have been the one on the court controlling the game when the Huskies’ offense stymied.
But with the WNBA Rookie of the Year looking on, the torch was officially passed. The Sarah Strong era had begun.
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“We played a little bit slower at times last year to accommodate Paige, because we wanted to make sure the ball was in her hands and that she and Sarah could play a lot of two-man game,” coach Geno Auriemma said after the win. “Now, (Sarah) is going to have it more often, and we’ll find her more often. It’s incumbent on her to take the ball and make something great happen … She’s a playmaker, and we’re going to put the ball in our best playmaker’s hands.”
As far as Louisville coach Jeff Walz was concerned, UConn was already Strong’s team last December when the Cardinals faced the Huskies at Barclays Center in Brooklyn as part of the Women’s Champions Classic. The then-freshman was the team’s leading scorer in that matchup, logging 21 points, eight rebounds and three assists on 80% shooting to power UConn to an 85-52 victory.
“Sarah is the one that kind of runs that whole show, and I think she showed that last year towards the end,” Walz said. “No disrespect to Paige, because she’s fantastic, but Sarah, because she can pass it the way she can, she handles it, she’s got great size, she can back you down and she can shoot the three, she’s a matchup problem … She’s got great body control, a very good touch, and she’s a willing rebounder that, at 6-foot-2, she can get the rebound and take it, and that’s where she’s continued to develop her game.”
Strong didn’t make a single 3-pointer on Tuesday night, going 0-for-3 behind the arc, and the misses were almost meaningless in the grand scheme of her impact on the game. She finished just shy of a double-double with 21 points, nine rebounds and five assists, also adding two blocks and two steals. She shot 64% on two-point attempts and accounted for three of UConn’s five made free throws, giving up a single turnover in 38 minutes on the floor.
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The Cardinals mounted a late comeback to cut UConn’s lead from 25 at the start of the fourth quarter to just 10 in the final two minutes, and it was Strong the Huskies relied on in the clutch. The sophomore ended a nearly four-minute scoring drought with less than 90 seconds on the clock, and she forced a turnover on the next defensive possession that she took herself for a fast break layup to put the game back out of reach.
UConn women’s basketball opens 2025-26 season on 79-66 rout of No. 20 Louisville
The rest of UConn’s frontcourt struggled against Louisville — Wisconsin transfer Serah Williams had eight rebounds but only four points, while Jana El Alfy and Ice Brady saw the floor for just eight minutes apiece — but a good night from the guards gave Strong plenty of opportunity to show off her expanded role as a facilitator. Her five assists were a team high, and she fed all three of the Huskies’ other double-digit scorers at least once.
It’s a unique skill that the sophomore forward will continue to hone in her second collegiate season, and it already puts her conversation with some of UConn’s all-time greats.
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“When you have a player like Sarah that can rebound the ball like she rebounds it and then start the break and bring the ball up the floor, I think that’s a whole new dynamic,” Auriemma said. “We’ve had some of those guys in the past, whether it was (Breanna Stewart) or Maya Moore that could be great rebounders and just bring the ball up the floor, so I really believe it adds a different dimension to our offense. Because she’s such a gifted passer, there’s a lot of opportunities.”
