From the opening tip, the UConn Huskies left little room for doubt. Geno Auriemma’s team overwhelmed USC Trojans early, holding them to single-digit scoring in both first-half quarters and building a 39-17 lead by halftime. The Trojans knew the game was slipping away and leveled up their game, but the damage had already been done. Still, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma won, but addressed the press in a rather subdued mood.

“I’ve got this cold, I can’t even yell. I can’t even yell at them. Yeah, coaching isn’t as fun as it used to be,” said Auriemma as he struggled to speak.

However, the team’s performance would surely provide him comfort in this moment of distress. UConn came all guns blazing, leaving USC huffing and puffing with their pressing play. Fudd, yet again, was the star of the show, accumulating 17 points, along with her 4 assists and 3 rebounds.

Ashlynn Shade scored 15 points, and Bianca Quinonez hit another 12 to play spoil sport at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. But there was another performer who hit it out of the park despite suffering from a stomach ailment. Sarah Strong.

“She’s been a little bit under the weather; she had a stomach issue. She’s not used to the fresh fruit out here in California. It probably bothered her stomach, so she wasn’t herself at shoot around, or to practice yesterday,” Geno Auriemma said about Sarah Strong’s health. However, he did touch upon how her mood remains during such stretches.

“She was really pressing, trying a little bit too hard, and when she gets a little bit disappointed at herself. Her body language changes like not that she’s mad at anybody and not that she’s mad at herself, that I can’t believe I missed this shot, I can’t believe I threw that P. She fell down twice earlier,” Geno Auriemma further added. So the suggestion? “So stop trying so hard. That’s stop trying so hard.”

Sarah Strong is averaging 17.5 points, 8.7 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and a 57.9 FG% this season. In this game against the Trojans, she averaged 14 points and 7 rebounds, proving yet again why she is such an invaluable asset for the team.

Sarah Strong Gets Praised by the Opposition

Despite not being at her very best, Sarah did justice to the family ground by standing on her business, that too against a competitive team, against the Trojans. Kennedy Smith, who was entrusted with the task of containing her, spoke honestly about her opponent.

“Yeah, she’s very strong, very competitive. She can shoot the three mid-range, get to the basket. So my goal was just to mess her up like push her out so she is not deep selling me and just kind of like frazzle her or do what I can to make it difficult for her and I think it worked a little bit,” she said.

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Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb also stated Sarah Strong’s presence, along with Fudd’s, was hard to play against.

“They put so much pressure on you to guard actions, right? Especially with Fudd and Strong, and then it just opened it for some other people just to get to the rim, like we gave up too many points in our paint, so I thought those were all the things that really changed,” Gottlieb said about how Strong and Co. forced her team to make errors on the paint because of their fast gameplay which is a signature style of the great Geno Auriemma.

So with a productive campaign at Los Angeles, UConn will now set its eyes on a new target- Marquette. Let’s just hope Strong makes a full recovery during that period, so the team has no more health concerns to deal.