UConn is now 2-0 at home against the NC State women’s basketball team in 2022.
In a rematch of the epic Elite Eight duel from last March, the No. 5 Huskies (3-0) dominated the No. 10 Wolfpack (4-1), using a 19-4 run that spanned from the third quarter into the fourth to win 91-69.
NC State trailed by as many as 12 in the first half after falling into an early 9-0 hole, but the Pack didn’t go away, closing the deficit to seven at halftime and getting as close as five in the third quarter.
After a 6-0 run by the Pack made the score 51-45 with 4:40 left in the third, the Huskies turned it on to end the quarter on a 15-2 run — outscoring NC State 40-24 the rest of the way.
Four players combined to score 88 of UConn’s 91 points: Azzi Fudd with a game-high 32, Lou Lopez Senechal and Aaliya Edwards with 20 each and Aubrey Griffin with 16. The Huskies shot 50% from the field and had no points from their bench.
Meanwhile, four NC State players scored in double figures: junior guard Diamond Johnson with 13, senior wing Jakia Brown-Turner with 12, and senior forward Jada Boyd and junior guard Madison Hayes with 10 each. The Pack had 18 points from its bench but shot just 37% from the field and 24% on 6-25 from 3-point range.
A big difference in the game was in turnovers as UConn scored 27 points off 19 NC State turnovers, and the Huskies also outscored the Pack 38-26 in the paint. UConn moved the ball much better than NC State, recording 22 assists as a team to the Pack’s nine.
One bright spot for NC State was graduate center River Baldwin’s performance, who grabbed a season-high nine rebounds. The Pack is still trying to figure out who will be the team’s consistent post player, and Baldwin’s play against the Huskies was encouraging.
Simply put, this isn’t the kind of performance NC State is used to — it hasn’t lost a game by more than 20 points since 2019. If this is any evidence, the team has much work to do to get back to the championship level that the program expects to play at.
Luckily, it’s only November, and the Pack has a whole lot of time to get better before games start to really matter in March. In fact, it’s good that NC State got a taste of elite competition early in the season so it knows where to improve.
Next up, the team travels to Cancun, Mexico for back-to-back games against Vanderbilt on Thursday, Nov. 24 and West Virginia on Friday, Nov. 25. Both games are set to begin at 4 p.m. each day.
