Like 'caged animals', UConn unleashes on Arkansas State in NCAA Tournament opener

As Azzi Fudd sat in the locker room in the moments before UConn’s first game of the NCAA Tournament, she realized just how long it’d been since they’d last taken the court in a competitive setting.

“It started to hit me, and I'm like, ‘I can't wait to get out there because I'm sick of our practice guys, sick of each other. I can't wait to have a different opponent to beat up on,’” she said.

12 days had passed between the Huskies’ victory over Creighton in the Big East Tournament championship and their first round matchup with Arkansas State — the longest break of the entire season. They hadn’t gone more than eight days without playing and since Christmas, no gap that stretched longer than six days.

It’s not as if UConn took it easy over the last two weeks, either. With the NCAA Tournament looming, the intensity ratcheted up during practice. As the sessions piled up, the Huskies started to get sick of doing the same things over and over. They were eager to back to game action.

“This is the only time in a year where you have two weeks off,” Geno Auriemma said. “When game time does roll around, there's been a lot of pent-up frustration and waiting. You know it's going to come out. I could see it yesterday at practice, shoot-around today. There's a different look, a different vibe when game time is right here, right now.”

“Practices have been intense, obviously, with the sense of urgency of being in March, us wanting to be our best. So practice is a lot at times,” Paige Bueckers said. “When we get the chance to take it out on somebody, which is usually the opponent, that’s what we want to do.”

Arkansas State had the misfortune of being in their way. Like “caged animals”, as Ashlynn Shade put it, UConn unleashed its frustrations on the 15-seed Red Wolves from the jump. After the visitors scored the opening basket, the Huskies came back with a 22-point run, then closed the first quarter on a 12-0 run to lead 34-5 through 10 minutes.

UConn went into the half up by 50, scored 19 straight in the third quarter and walked out with a 69-point victory — its largest since the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament when it beat Saint Francis by 88.

The gap should’ve been even wider, too. The Huskies led by 72 in the final seconds — which would’ve been tied for the eighth-widest margin of victory in program history — only for Arkansas State to hit a half-court three at the buzzer.

Still, this was a thrashing — even for UConn standards.

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