It was a sold-out crowd as undefeated, No. 1 ranked UConn (27-0, 16-0 Big East) came to town to take on Marquette women’s basketball (16-10, 10-7) Saturday afternoon at the Al McGuire Center. The Huskies would keep their undefeated season alive, but not without the Golden Eagles going toe-to-toe with the top dogs in women’s basketball.
UConn has routed almost every opponent on its ledger, save for now-No. 7 Michigan, whom it squeaked out a three-point win against back in November. The last time that the two teams faced off in Storrs, on Dec. 17, Marquette struggled to get the ball rolling as UConn cruised to an 89-53 victory.
Even against a Creighton team that Marquette lost to in Omaha last Sunday, UConn beat them last Wednesday by 50 points before making the trip to Milwaukee. But this was a different chapter, as the Golden Eagles fell only 71-56.
“I think we did a lot of things today that should help us build our confidence, through what’s been a lot of adversity to be able to finish this season strong,” Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra said. “We’re looking forward to that.”
Marquette secured the tip and even led for over three minutes of game time in the first quarter after senior guard Jaidynn Mason scored the opening five points. But graduate student guard Azzi Fudd — one of many Husky stars — nailed an open three that would get her team on the board and gather their bearings.
Two quick free throws from Germantown, Wisconsin native, junior guard KK Arnold tied it at five, and the Golden Eagles would never lead again. They did stay competitive, though, trailing only seven early in the second quarter.
After UConn successfully challenged an out-of-bounds call, Marquette would give the reigning national champions all it could handle as it secured a stop and Lee Volker transition jumper, before junior forward Skylar Forbes joined the thousand-point club — in less than three full seasons.
“That’s something super hard to accomplish, so doing it as a junior is super exciting, and I think it’s cool to have been able to watch her do it for all three years,” Volker said.
Forbes swished the back end of the and-one to knot the game at 20-20 with 5:12 left in the first half as the crowd, filled with all shades of blue, echoed its loudest roar of the season.
“Playing in that type of environment, that’s what women’s basketball should be about,” Consuegra said. “I think we were excited about that, I thought our kids thrived off of it.”
This would be as close as the Golden Eagles would get to pulling off the improbable upset. UConn then strung together a 14-2 run to turn the tide of the game to enter halftime ahead 36-24, their lowest first-half scoring outing of the 2025-26 season.
Marquette ensured the Huskies couldn’t have the last basket of the opening half. Senior guard Bridget Utberg stole the ball off of the UConn inbound and found Volker for a layup with seven seconds remaining, giving the blue & gold the closest thing to a halftime spark.
Marquette didn’t go away quietly, even down 14 points at the third quarter media timeout, as another one of Volker’s 3-pointers and a 3-point play from Forbes whittled UConn’s advantage to as few as eight points with 2:46 left in the period.
“When you have two players like (Volker and Forbes) that can make shots, we were switching a lot, and they caught us a couple times, both of them were pretty smart,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said.
Then, the Huskies responded strongly to pull away to another double-digit lead and keep the metaphorical cookie jar out of the Golden Eagles’ hands.
While Marquette did win the rebounding battle, 42-28, its also coughed up 22 turnovers compared to UConn’s ten, seven of which were in the first half. The Huskies’ trademark press and chaotic, overwhelming defense — which has given MU issues in the past — compounded with the blue & gold still adjusting to life without point guard Olivia Porter, were too much to take the game to the wire.
“Our biggest focus was to try beat the press with the pass rather than with the dribble, I thought we did that and it really helped us,” Consuegra said. “We also made an adjustment today to play Bridget Utberg as our backup point guard and Jaidynn Mason on the wing.
“I thought Bridget did a really good job taking the pressure off Jaidynn of having to run the point, that helped us and we’ll look to do that more moving forward.”
Marquette will go back out east for a rematch with Villanova (20-5, 13-3 Big East) on Feb. 22 at 2:30 p.m. CST. The Golden Eagles won the first matchup, 85-69, in Milwaukee on Jan. 4.
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.
