UConn women's basketball

The Huskies made yet another statement defensively today in their 80-38 rout of No. 14 Georgetown. This time it was junior Sugar Rodgers who found out how dominant they can be.

Rodgers entered the game leading the Big East in scoring (19.9). She had scored 21 points in 11 games this season and 30 points twice. And she had reached double figures in scoring in 19 straight games.

Rodgers finished with just 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting (1-of-5 3-pointers) in 31 minutes. She was 2-of-7 shooting and had five points in each half.

“Dang, she got 10,’’ UConn defensive stalwart Kelly Faris said. “That’s still 10 points. Obviously, defense is our strong point and it’s a complete team effort. No matter who their star player is or who has who, a lot of times we’re in there with four guards. So we’re constantly having to pay attention and know where everybody’s at, who’s able to switch and who’s not. So we continue to work on it, but I think (UConn coach Geno Auriemma) was pretty pleased with how we did tonight.’’

It was the first time Rodgers failed to score at least 10 points since finishing with six against Houston Nov. 19. Today marked only the third time this season that she has failed to reach double figures.

“I think they defended her just as hard as everybody else has defended her,’’ Georgetown coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “She’s probably faced tougher defenses with box-and-1s and double teams.’’

The Huskies held the Hoyas to season-lows in scoring, made field goals (14) and assists (five). They also held them to just 25.0 percent shooting from the field.

Still, Williams-Flournoy was not gushing about UConn’s defense after the game.

“I give credit to them defensively,’’ Williams-Flournoy said. “But I thought we were out of sync a lot offensively. There were people that usually score that weren’t able to score. Sometimes we didn’t cut as extremely hard as we wanted and we didn’t run our plays as efficiently as we should’ve.’’

UConn has now held the Top 3 scorers in the Big East – Rodgers, DePaul’s Anna Martin and Seton Hall’s Jasmine Crew – to a combined 22 points (7.3) on 20.6 percent shooting this season (7-of-34).

“Obviously, I think and many of the other players and coaches have said that we take a lot of pride in our defense,’’ Faris said. “And if they have one of their best players and we don’t stop them then we’re going to hear about it non-stop. Those are the types of things we focus on and we go over in film and scouting. The more and more we see it they expect us to be able to stop it every single time. For Sugar Rodgers to get 10 points, it’s not as much as she usually gets. But at the same time it’s like, `OK, dang, she still got 10 points off somehow.’ So that’s where we’re going to have to go into film tomorrow and see where we didn’t stop her. That sounds like 10 points … `Oh, that’s not a big deal.’ But in the bigger games and when it comes down to the wire those 10 points can win the game for them. So we take a lot of pride in our defense and I don’t ever think that’s the big issue for us. I think it’s more of our offensive game that we have to continue to work on.’’

Martin, who was second in scoring entering play this weekend (18.4), went scoreless (0-of-6 FG; 0-of-5 3-pointers) in 30 minutes at home against the Huskies Jan. 21. Crew, who was third at 18.1, had 12 points (3-of-15 FG; 0-of-2 3-pointers) in 36 minutes at home against the Huskies Dec. 9.

“The kids that we have on our team take it personally and they take it very seriously,’’ Auriemma said. “If we say, `Hey we’ve got to do this, this and this.’ They listen and they try to do it. I don’t think there’s been more than once or twice where I’ve come in and really questioned our team’s effort this year or questioned our intensity level or our willingness to outwork people. And maybe that’s why our defense is where it is right now. But if you’re just going to go out there and think that you’re going to get your average on Kelly Faris, you’ve got another thing coming. It’s not going to happen.’’

Today’s effort was much more than just Faris …

“It can’t be (just Faris),’’ Auriemma said. “It never is. But it’s kind of like she softens them up a little bit, gets her tired a little bit and then we bring in the other guys. Kaleena (Mosqueda-Lewis) loves the challenge. Tiffany (Hayes) is rising to the challenge. So we’ve got a number of players. I think it’s contagious. We’ve got a lot of interchangeable parts. We can do a lot more things defensively this year than we could last year. I hate to say that, but we can.’’

Rich