Sarah Strong went 1-for-9 in the first half. The defending national champions trailed a Marquette team that had lost its last two Big East games. Al McGuire Center was rocking, and for the first time since November, No. 1 UConn looked beatable.
The Huskies still won, 71-56, on Saturday in Milwaukee, improving to 27-0 overall and extending their winning streak to 43 games. But the final score obscures a more revealing truth: Marquette ended UConn’s historic 21-game blowout streak, the longest by any Division I program over at least the last 25 seasons.
Strong’s Second-Half Takeover Masks Early Struggles
Marquette jumped out to a 5-0 lead and held UConn scoreless for the first four minutes, the longest the Huskies have gone without scoring to start any game this season. When Skylar Forbes completed a three-point play to tie it at 20-20 midway through the second quarter, Geno Auriemma stood stone-faced at the bench, arms crossed, watching his team look genuinely uncomfortable.
Strong, who entered shooting 60% from the floor this season, couldn’t buy a bucket in the first half. She finished with just three points on 1-of-9 shooting before halftime. Auriemma revealed afterward that his star sophomore was under the weather. “She’s been hacking and coughing, so every shot was short,” Auriemma told reporters. The Huskies needed someone else to carry the load.
Azzi Fudd answered. The redshirt senior poured in 17 first-half points, shooting 5-of-8 from three, giving UConn enough breathing room to take a 36-24 lead into the break. But even that 12-point cushion felt fragile against a Marquette team that outrebounded UConn, 42-29, and refused to wilt.
Then Strong flipped a switch. She scored 15 of UConn’s 21 third-quarter points, shooting 6-of-7 from the field. She finished with 22 points, three steals, and three blocks for the game. By the time the Huskies opened the fourth quarter with an 8-0 run, the outcome was no longer in doubt. Fudd led all scorers with 25 points.
The 15-point margin represented UConn’s closest game since Michigan pushed the Huskies to the wire on Nov. 21, when UConn escaped with a 72-69 win at Uncasville, Connecticut. In the 21 games since, no opponent had gotten within 25 points.
What This Means for March
KK Arnold added 10 points and a career-high nine assists in her return to Wisconsin, where she was a three-time Associated Press Wisconsin state player of the year at nearby Germantown High School. Her ball movement in the second half helped UConn find its rhythm after a sluggish start.
Auriemma has been preaching defensive intensity and rebounding all season, even during blowouts. Now there’s film of a team actually testing those priorities. Marquette’s Lee Volker, Skylar Forbes, and Jaidynn Mason combined for 40 points, and the Golden Eagles’ physicality on the glass created second-chance opportunities UConn rarely concedes.
Meanwhile, Auriemma made history off the court. When UConn stayed No. 1 in Monday’s AP Poll, he tied Tara VanDerveer’s record with 654 poll appearances over his 41-year career. The Huskies have been ranked for 621 consecutive weeks, dating to the preseason 1993-94 poll.
The win also extended UConn’s Big East winning streak to 63 games, counting regular-season and tournament matchups. The program’s dominance within the conference remains absolute. What Marquette showed, though, is that the Huskies can be slowed, forced into tough possessions, and made to work for wins they’ve been sleepwalking through since November.
For UConn, the takeaway should be clear: March opponents will watch this tape. They’ll see a team that needed its best player to shake off illness and score 19 second-half points just to pull away from a struggling Big East squad. They’ll see rebounding vulnerabilities and offensive stretches without rhythm.
None of that changes the fact that UConn remains the prohibitive national title favorite. Strong and Fudd are a devastating one-two punch. The depth is real. The coaching is elite. But Saturday in Milwaukee offered a reminder that undefeated doesn’t mean untouchable.