The Huskies won by 39 points despite sitting the first of its starters for good about halfway through the third quarter. The first wave of reserves came in to make sure that the lead stayed out of reach for Nova, and then the deeper reaches of the bench took over from there, same as they did against Georgetown and Creighton in the two previous routs UConn had in the tournament. Sophomore forward Sarah Strong, the Big East player of the year and defensive player of the year who also won tourney honors as the top player, scored 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting with 8 rebounds, an assist, 2 steals and a block in 22 minutes. Fifth-year guard Azzi Fudd had a game-high 19 points on 8-for-13 shooting in 27 minutes, and picked up 3 steals while playing her usual aggressive on-ball defense. The bench did so much of the heavy lifting here, playing 91 combined minutes, scoring 33 points with 18 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. The largest lead of the night, 42, was still mostly in place by the final buzzer — this is a deep team that can wait until things are well in hand to deploy a 6-foot-5 rebounding machine like sophomore center Jana El Alfy, while letting another sophomore, guard Kaleigh Heckel, play the role of high-energy defensive wizard KK Arnold, with 6-foot sophomore guard and sharpshooter Allie Ziebell in place to take over as a source of offense, too. And it’s freshman forward Blanca Quinonez that allows the Huskies to sit the likes of Strong and senior forward Serah Williams both early on and late: Quinonez had 13 points on 5-for-10 shooting with 3 steals in 18 minutes off the bench.

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