In its first game since losing at No. 8 Baylor on Thursday, top-ranked UConn bounced back with a 81-61 victory over Houston on Sunday. The Huskies, who had won 126 regular-season games before Thursday's upset, shot 55.9 percent from the field Sunday after shooting 29.4 percent against Baylor.
HOUSTON -- For the first time in more than four years, UConn took the court just days after a loss.
It was uncharted territory for this group of Huskies -- the only losses any of them had suffered were in the Final Four -- and although coach Geno Auriemma had expectations as to how his team would react, nothing was certain until they stepped on the floor in Houston's pristine Fertitta Center to take on the Cougars.
The good news for Auriemma?
"I thought our response was exactly what I thought it would be," he said.
Following some "intense" practices, the top-ranked Huskies dismissed the Cougars 81-61 on Sunday afternoon, less than 72 hours after their 11-point loss to No. 8 Baylor on Thursday, a defeat that snapped the team's 126-game, regular-season winning streak.
Sunday's win showed some resilience under the unfamiliar circumstances, and several things that didn't go well in Waco were much better in Houston. The Huskies (12-1) did a 180 with shooting the ball (they hit 55.9 percent from the field after a lowest-in-20-years 29.4 percent effort against Baylor). They dominated the paint, scoring 42 points inside to Houston's 16 (Baylor's bigs won the interior battle on Thursday). And UConn flowed better offensively.
More importantly, the Huskies were mentally where they needed to be, keeping their streak of regular-season games without back-to-back losses intact (938, since 1993).
"Our team doesn't have a lot of highs, and it doesn't have a lot of lows," Auriemma said. "We didn't get down in the dumps, it seemed like. We didn't get pissed, either, which bothered me."
That echoed a sentiment Auriemma expressed following the Baylor loss, when he opined that current-day players aren't bothered by losses the way the previous generation was. Regardless, it worked for UConn.
"I feel like there's a lot to it," sophomore guard Megan Walker said. "You can take it one of two ways. It's just the personality, I feel like, of our team. We all kinda took it a different way, but I felt like tonight we made a step forward."
The practice days following the Baylor loss were "intense, challenging," freshman guard Christyn Williams said. Walker called the team "engaged, locked in." This group was even-keeled, and although the emotions in the Ferrell Center on Thursday night were down, the Huskies were able to turn the page with apparent ease.
"They expect a lot from us, so losing, that's tough," Williams said. "Our energy level has to be higher. Things have to change because we don't want to lose again ... of course, immediately after the game we were down, but you can't just sit and mope about it."
They didn't. Though the Cougars (6-8) traded buckets with them for a quarter and were within three points of the Huskies 11 minutes into the game, they quickly separated with an 11-0 second-quarter run and broke open the game by halftime. Houston, though having its best performance all time against UConn -- the Cougars' previous single-game high against the Huskies was 42, and Sunday's 20-point margin of defeat was the smallest they've had in seven tries -- never truly threatened in the final two quarters.
"We actually ran our stuff," Williams said. "That let us get into the flow of our offense. [Against] Baylor, we kinda got frazzled a lot of the game. We were just throwing up stuff instead of getting rhythm shots like we usually do in practice. That was definitely the difference today."
Senior forward Katie Lou Samuelson bounced back after a rough shooting performance against Baylor, finishing with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Samuelson and Napheesa Collier (18 points) each were a rebound short of a double-double and gave the Huskies a needed boost as they moved to 97-0 all time in American Athletic Conference play.
"Our team doesn't have a lot of highs and it doesn't have a lot of lows. We didn't get down in the dumps, it seemed like. We didn't get pissed, either, which bothered me." Geno Auriemma on UConn's resilience following Thursday's loss to Baylor
Though the lack of anger might have bothered Auriemma, he was pleased with how his team handled itself mentally after the loss.
"I think they're more realistic than people that aren't in the program," he said. "The last time I checked, we didn't have any players come up and say that we want to cancel the rest of the season because we lost the game."
There are still some issues to shore up as UConn returns home for a game for the first time since Dec. 8. Auriemma, whose team played four straight road games across Oklahoma, California and Texas, wants to get his bench more involved. Sunday broke a three-game scoreless streak for the reserves, and the team could use some time back in familiar surroundings after so much travel.
"We're pretty tired, I think, physically and mentally," Samuelson said.
The Huskies "got better at some things that we weren't so good at the other night," Auriemma said, and the players learned a little bit about themselves in recent days. With Cincinnati coming to Storrs, Connecticut, on Wednesday, this not-too-high, not-too-low group is focused on moving forward.
"The goal here is to win," Walker said. "Things happen, but we just need to keep pushing."