STORRS, Conn. — Defense usually doesn’t go into slumps or droughts and, if you have enough players, it doesn’t get tired.
And the way the UConn women’s basketball team is playing defense these days, it’s not getting old.
The Huskies, using their size advantage and ever-fresh legs, smothered Mercer, 83-38, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before 5,000 on Saturday at Gampel Pavilion.
“Last year we played our best basketball in the Big East tournament and the NCAA Tournament when we really had our defense figured out,” said sophomore Paige Bueckers, who had 12 points and five assists. “So I think we just tried to get that from the start this year instead of waiting until the tournaments to play really good defense. So just a shift in mindset and putting that first. When our defense is great, our offense is going to come naturally.
“Also having that depth just to be able to full-court pressure like we did today. Whenever guys get tired, we have a new group or subs come in and they apply the same pressure. So I think that also affected it.”
Mercer (23-7), the Southern Conference champ from Macon, Ga., played its own brand of scrappy defense early in the game, but shot 23.2% and, with top scorer Amoria Neal-Tysor out with an injury, drew a blank in the third quarter, outscored, 20-0.
Christyn Williams led UConn with 13 points, shooting 5 for 14, and had five rebounds, four steals and three assists. Continuing their recent trend, the Huskies were not depending on any one player, but got production from their nine regulars, especially in rebounding, with a 53-30 advantage. Dorka Juhàsz had 10 points and 10 rebounds in her first NCAA Tournament game.
“I would say [the commitment to defense] is typical of the best teams we’ve had,” coach Geno Auriemma said “You can’t win with just playing really good defense. You still have to be able to put the ball in the basket, right? But the best teams that we’ve had over the years have been really hard to score against, really hard to run their offense against. But not every team wants to play at this level defensively. Not every team wants to play this hard. For a young team, I think it’s pretty unusual, for as many young players as we have, that they want to be that good defensively.”
UConn (26-5), riding an 11-game winning streak and holding six of its last seven opponents to 40 points or fewer, will play UCF in the second round Monday for the chance to advance to the Sweet 16 in Bridgeport next weekend.
Bueckers, in her sixth game back from knee surgery, returned to the starting lineup in place of Big East defensive player of the year Nika Mühl. Auriemma used all nine of his starter-caliber players in rotation. Bueckers, in 24 1/2 minutes, did show more of her old self, putting it on the floor and driving through traffic for an early basket, later hitting a pair of 3-pointers.
When Mühl came into the game, UConn’s defense put still more pressure on Mercer. Williams and Azzi Fudd each hit a couple of 3s, and Caroline Ducharme (10 points) made a couple of steals and turned them into buckets as the Huskies built their lead steadily despite a lot of disruptive defense by Mercer. At a large disadvantage in size, the Bears kept getting in passing lanes. UConn built a 43-23 lead at the half, but it wasn’t easy.
“First-round games tend to take awhile to get settled into,” Auriemma said. “And I thought the first half was kind of choppy and a little bit disjointed in trying to find that rhythm. And our defense was good and our offense I thought was a little bit out of sync. I think changing the starting lineup and putting a ‘sub’ in the starting lineup affected us more than I thought it would.”
That was a joke, typical of the mutual needling that goes on in Auriemma’s relationship with his star player. Bueckers stared up at the ceiling.
“Ever since the end of the Big East tournament I’ve just tried to lock in mentally and physically and trying to do whatever I have to do,” said Bueckers, who went 5 for 7 from the field. “Cut certain stuff out and just really lock in these next, this next month. Just getting my body prepared, my mind prepared, and I think in the last 10 days I really locked in on that.”
Mercer’s leading scorer, Neal-Tysor, was 2 for 10 in the early going, then hit the floor hard in the second quarter and came out, making it that much harder for the Bears to hang around.
With Neal-Tysor on the bench wearing a sling on her left arm, Mercer did not score in the third quarter, while the Huskies continued getting points from all nine regulars to open up the lead to 63-23.
“That third quarter, really, absolutely was just a nightmare,” Mercer coach Susie Gardner said, “because, we didn’t play awful the first half, but we didn’t really handle the third quarter at all. And I think what UConn did was, they amped up their defense pressure. Their defense was amazing.”
Piath Gabriel and Amari DeBerry entered the game in the fourth quarter. Gabriel added a couple of baskets to make it 10 players in the scoring column for UConn.
“Whoever is coming off the bench, they’re coming to play,” Juhász said. “They’re coming to be aggressive and kind of give that second wind and everything when that new player is in and be aggressive. ... We’re just taking pride in that.”
