STORRS — The No. 2 seed UConn women’s basketball team put together one of the biggest routs in NCAA Tournament history on Saturday at Gampel Pavilion, beating No. 15 seed Arkansas State 103-34 to advance to the second round.

UConn moves on to face the winner of the first-round matchup between 7-seed Oklahoma State and 10-seed South Dakota State at Gampel Pavilion on Monday night.

In her first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2023, star guard Azzi Fudd had one of the best performances of her college career. The redshirt junior finished with a postseason career-high 27 points shooting 77% from the field, and she went 6-for-9 on 3-pointers for just her fifth game of the season with at least five makes. Fudd also led UConn with seven assists and six steals.

Behind Fudd, freshman Sarah Strong made a statement in her March Madness debut with her fourth consecutive double-double dating back to the Big East Tournament. She finished with 20 points on 90% shooting from the field with 12 rebounds plus five blocks and five assists. Sophomore Ashlynn Shade added 20 points of her own shooting 3-for-6 from 3-pointer range, and superstar Paige Bueckers became the fourth Husky in double-digits with 11.

Fudd established dominance immediately, hitting three 3-pointers before the first media timeout to lead the Huskies on an early 22-0 run. She and Strong accounted for all of UConn’s scoring on the run, and they each ended the first quarter with 13 points shooting a combined 11-for-14 from the field. Fudd was also a force defensively tying her career-best two blocks in a single quarter, and she led the Huskies with three of their seven team steals in the first.

UConn held the Red Wolves to just five points in the first quarter, and three Huskies players were outscoring Arkansas State as a team midway through the second. Fudd continued to find her shot with a team-high 21 points at halftime, tying future Hall of Famer Maya Moore’s program record for points scored in a half of an NCAA Tournament game. Strong added 15 points with another 12 from Shade as Fudd also emerged as UConn’s best facilitator with a career-high seven assists less than five minutes in the the second quarter.

The Huskies led 66-16 after the first half largely powered by their pressure on the defensive end. The team had 27 points off 16 Arkansas State turnovers at halftime and created more than half of its first-half scoring on fastbreak opportunities. The 50-point halftime lead was the second largest ever in an NCAA Tournament game, second only to UConn’s 63-point lead over St. Francis in its 2018 first-round game.

UConn went to its bench early in the first half, giving Caroline Ducharme her first minutes of the season before the fourth quarter. The redshirt junior, who has appeared in just six games since recovering from lingering head and neck injuries, scored four points in her first three minutes on the court and brought down two rebounds. She finished with six points and three boards for her highest-scoring game Nov. 8, 2023.

Most of UConn’s starters came off the floor by the end of the third quarter, and sixth-year forward Aubrey Griffin saw her first minutes since sitting out the Big East Tournament with knee soreness. The Huskies had 10 different scorers in the 69-point rout, and they finished shooting 58.8% from the field and 46.4% from 3-point range as a team. They also broke a program record for team blocks with 13, which was previously set in the team’s 2018 win over St. Francis.

Originally Published: March 22, 2025 at 2:54 PM EDT