

The perfect regular season is complete for No. 1 UConn.
The Huskies (31-0, 20-0 Big East) defeated St. John’s 85-49 on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden in the first-ever standalone game for the Red Storm women in the famed arena’s history.
It was against such a prominent background that the Huskies won their 67th consecutive Big East game, including conference tournament contests. The last Big East team to defeat UConn was St. John’s, a 5-point victory on Feb. 21, 2023.
But on this night, a repeat performance was not in the cards for St. John’s (21-10, 11-9).
The last time the Huskies were undefeated on the regular season was 2017-18, when they lost to eventual champion Notre Dame 91-89 in the national semifinal.
Six undefeated UConn teams have won the national title, however.
The Huskies, of course, are the defending champions and looking for a repeat this season. And on Sunday night, it showed.
Even with a 43-20 halftime lead, the Huskies came out of the locker room at 100% intensity, likely urged by head coach Geno Auriemma.
Heading into the half, Auriemma told TNT Sports his team could have played better to close out the second quarter.
“I thought the last maybe three or four minutes were kind of sloppy,” he said. “I thought we did a lot of dumb things, a lot of opportunities gone that we threw away. Mindless, careless mistakes we gotta clean up. “We're getting a lot of opportunities here in transition and we're just leaving a lot of points on the table.”
Auriemma did praise his team’s defense, which was stellar, as always.
The Red Storm turned the ball over 22 times and were out-rebounded 32-22. UConn stole the ball 15 times, six of them from Sarah Strong.
UConn shot 57.1% for the game and held St. John’s to 35.4%.
Azzi Fudd, playing her final regular-season game, led the Huskies with 14 points. Allie Ziebell chipped in 13 points Strong scored 11 and pulled down seven rebounds, and Brooklyn native Serah Williams added 11 points and six rebounds.
Jailah Donald posted eight points to lead St. John’s.
The Huskies are the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Big East tournament and have a bye into the quarterfinals. They will play the winner of the game between No. 8 Georgetown and No. 9 Butler.
St. John's, the No. 6 seed, will open against No. 11 Xavier.
Remember to join our UCONN on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Huskies fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!