The UConn women played their first national television game this season and showed the rest of the country why they are the #1 team in the land as they doubled up the Purdue Boilermakers 100-50 at Mackey Arena on Sunday afternoon. It was the worst loss for the Boilermakers in their history.

Tina Charles led 5 Huskies in double figures as she had her 6th double-double of the season with 17 points and 16 rebounds. Brittany Hunter had a productive 11 minutes as she put up 15 points and 7 rebounds. Meghan Gardler added a career-high 14 points while Renee Montgomery added 13 points. Maya Moore rounded out the Huskies in double digits as she scored 13 points and added 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks to the cause.

Danielle Campbell led the Boilermakers (6-8) with 12 points and 5 rebounds. Lakisha Freeman scored 10 points and pulled down 5 boards as well. FahKara Malone added 9 points for Purdue in the losing effort.

This game was over as soon as Moore started the game with a 3-pointer for the Huskies (13-0) and they turned that into an 11-0 run. Purdue finally got on the board with 16 minutes left in the first half when Campell hit two free throws. UConn went on another 8-0 run before Purdue scored 2 more points on free throws. UConn went on another 11-0 run to go up 29-4 before the Boilermakers made their first basket of the game with 9:06 remaining in the half after missing their first 13 shots. The Huskies would go into the break with a 53-14 lead.

It was more of the same in the second half as Geno Auriemma was able to give his starters a break and let the reserves play. Mel Thomas and Jacquie Fernandes were the only Huskies not to score in the game.

UConn will return home on Wednesday night to take on the West Virginia Mountaineers in a Big East game. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 PM and the game will be shown locally on CPTV.

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The UConn Huskies have lost two players off the roster this past season as backup QB Dennis Brown and backup tight end Derek Rich have decided to transfer from the program. Brown has decided to transfer to Norfolk State and it’s unknown where Rich will transfer to.

The Huskies will also lose 11 seniors from this year’s roster as well.

UConn did make use of one of the scholarships already as they received a commitment from a quarterback, Casey Turner, from Chesapeake, VA. Turner may enroll for the spring semester and would be eligible to participate in spring practices if he chooses to enroll early. Turner has enough credits already to graduate from high school.

If he did participate in spring practices, he would be competing with incumbent starter Tyler Lorenzen, Notre Dame transfer Zach Fraser and redshirt freshman Cody Endres for the starting QB1 job.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were able to hold off a strong second half comeback by the UConn Huskies as they defeated them 73-67 behind Kyle McAlarney’s career-high 32 points at the Joyce Center on Saturday night. The win was Notre Dame’s 30th straight at the Joyce Center, which is good for third longest in the NCAA.

Notre Dame (12-2, 2-0) also got double-doubles from Rob Kurz and Luke Harangody. Both of them each had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Harangody was only 5-of-23 from the floor. Tory Jackson added 7 rebounds and 11 assists for the Fighting Irish.

UConn (10-3, 1-1) was led by Jeff Adrien who had a double-double of his own. He finished the game with 16 points and 11 rebounds. A.J. Price and Jerome Dyson, who were a combined 7-of-23 from the floor, both finished with 13 points. Hasheem Thabeet nearly missed a triple-double as he finished the game with 8 points, 9 rebounds and a career-high tying 10 blocked shots.

Notre Dame started out the first half on a 29-10 run in the first 9 minutes of the game behind four 3-pointers by McAlarney. Notre Dame pushed the lead to 21 points at one point in the first half. UConn was able to cut the lead to 15 points at the half, going into the locker room trailing 47-32.

The first part of the second half was the polar opposite of the first half. UConn came out firing on all cylinders and kept cutting down the Irish lead. On the strength of an 8-0 run, the Huskies took their first lead of the game at 58-57 with just over 6 minutes to go in the game. It was a shortlived lead though as the Irish got a tip-in and a 3-pointer from Kurz to pull ahead by 3 points. McAlarney stuck the dagger in the Huskies as he hit his sixth 3-pointer of the night.

Unfortunately for the Huskies, their poor first half was too much to overcome in the game. The Huskies return to the friendly confines of Gampel Pavilion on Tuesday night as they will host the St. John’s Red Storm at 7 PM. The game will be covered locally in Connecticut on MyTV9.

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