For a brief moment Monday evening, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team felt a glimmer of hope against top-ranked Connecticut at McKenzie Arena.
The Huskies quickly put those hopes to bed.
UConn held the Mocs to two field goals in the final 19:34 of the game, outscoring the hosts 42-5 in that span on their way to a 79-31 win in front of 6,104 fans at McKenzie Arena. The attendance figure was the seventh-largest in UTC women’s history.
Jasmine Joyner and Keiana Gilbert led the Mocs (5-3) with eight points each. Joyner added seven rebounds, two steals and four blocked shots, becoming the program’s all-time leader in blocks. The Mocs shot 24.5 percent from the field, 3-for-23 in the second half.
UTC had four shot-clock violations and a number of other possessions that ended in rushed shots as time ticked down.
“They’re good. They’re really good,” Joyner said. “In the first half we kept up with them – it was a fun game – but in the second half, if we showed weakness, they took advantage, and that’s what makes them a great team.”
UConn (4-0) outrebounded the Mocs 45-23 and finished with 56 points in the paint and 24 points off 20 UTC turnovers. They added 14 fast-break points, getting out in transition at every available opportunity, and had 23 assists on 31 made baskets.
Moriah Jefferson had 15 points and four assists to lead the Huskies, adding four steals. Two-time national player of the year Breanna Stewart had 14 points and four blocks, while Gabby Williams matched Stewart’s point total and tied for team honors with 12 rebounds.
UTC (5-3) stayed relatively close in the first half, trailing by 14 at the break. The third quarter, which had been a strength of the Mocs this season, got off to a good start with Queen Alford hitting a 3-pointer, but the Huskies scored the next 16 points.
“They almost came back and beat Tennessee,” Stewart noted. “That showed us they were a team that wasn’t going to give up, so we made sure we came out fighting in the second half and stopped any run they wanted to make. We made sure we put more defensive pressure on them and scored where we could on offense.”
Sydney Vanlandingham scored on a drive to the basket with 2:58 to play in the quarter to stop UTC’s drought, but the Mocs did not score again until a free throw by Gilbert with 7:29 to play and did not hit another basket until she scored with 1:47 remaining.
“We stopped moving the ball,” UTC coach Jim Foster said. “We weren’t aggressive. We talk about things – when you play a team at this level, you talk about what you need to do against a team of this level – but when we got in the game, we regressed.”
The Mocs don’t play again until Dec. 13 at 19th-ranked South Florida.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.