In the opening round of the women's Big East tournament on Friday, No. 8 Georgetown trailed No. 9 Butler at the half by seven points, and the Hoyas came out of the locker room with determination, erasing the deficit to win by four.

With the victory, Georgetown earned the right to meet No. 1 seed UConn in the quarterfinal round on Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. But the Hoyas needed much more than their determination to compete with the Huskies.

Superpowers, maybe.

From the beginning, UConn (32-0) showed why it was a wire-to-wire No. 1 in the Associated Press poll in 2025-26, steamrolling Georgetown 84-39. The Huskies were up by as many as 54 in the fourth quarter before the Hoyas (14-17) took advantage of the UConn bench to score late.

UConn took a 47-18 lead into halftime, led by Serah Williams with 12 points and six rebounds. Azzi Fudd scored all 10 of her points in the first half.

Williams, a transfer from Wisconsin and a former All-Big Ten player, wasn’t part of the Huskies’ national championship team last season. Head coach Geno Auriemma has wanted her to play tougher, and she did just that.

After the game, Auriemma told NBC Sports that Williams showed “the kind of aggressiveness that I think we're gonna need as we move forward. Not just tomorrow, but, you know, when the NCAA Tournament comes around. So it was a great start by her. This is her first time in this environment, so I thought she came out ready to go and made some plays that are plays you have to work hard to make. I was really proud of her.”

And he said the entire team did what they needed to do.

“When you don't play for a week, you're not quite sure what's gonna happen, so you just want your defense to be really aggressive and you want to make sure that you're creating a lot of activity,” Auriemma said. “I thought we did that. … We got done what I what I wanted us to get done.”

UConn swarmed Georgetown defensively. In the first half alone, the Huskies forced 16 Georgetown turnovers that they converted to 32 points. For the game, UConn scored 42 points off 26 turnovers.

The Huskies committed an uncharacteristic 10 turnovers in the first half but the Hoyas managed only two points off of them.

UConn held Georgetown to just 22 points through the first three quarters, giving up 10 points, eight points and four per quarter, respectively. The Huskies were up 69-22 at the end of three.

Williams finished with 14, KK Arnold scored 12 and Sarah Strong had 11 points and six of UConn's 19 steals.

Laila Jewett led Georgetown with nine points.

In the first tournament semifinal on Sunday, the Huskies will play Creighton, the No. 5 seed, who advanced with a 57-44 win over No. 4 Marquette on Saturday. Game time is 2:30 p.m.

UConn posted two dominant wins over Creighton during the regular season: 95-54 on Jan. 11 in Omaha, Neb., and 94-44 on Feb. 11.

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