Sarah Strong Scores a Career-High 39 as No. 2 UConn Bounces Back and Beats No. 10 Iowa 91-79

STORRS, Conn. After Sunday's game, Sarah Strong admitted she had "messed up in every aspect" of UConn's loss at Michigan three days earlier. By then, her performance had already made the point for her.

The junior forward scored a career-high 39 points on 15 of 26 shooting, and No. 2 UConn beat No. 10 Iowa 91-79 on Sunday, Nov. 8, at the M&T Bank Center at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Strong also grabbed 10 rebounds, made 5 of 10 from 3, and added three assists and two blocks in 37 minutes.

Sophomore Blanca Quiñonez matched her career high with 21 points off the bench and set a career high with five steals, and the Huskies shot 54.8 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from 3 to improve to 2-1.

Here is the official box score (opens in a new tab), UConn's recap (opens in a new tab), Iowa's recap (opens in a new tab) and UConn's postgame quotes (opens in a new tab).

A celebration before tipoff

The afternoon started with a ceremony. UConn inducted Azzi Fudd into the Huskies of Honor before the game, and 2026 WNBA champions Gabby Williams and Tiffany Hayes were back in Storrs for it, along with national champions Tina Charles and Kalana Greene, according to UConn. A crowd of 10,244 was on hand.

Iowa did not look intimidated early. Ava Heiden opened the scoring with a hook shot, Dani Carnegie and Chazadi "Chit-Chat" Wright helped build an 8-3 lead, and Heiden's three-point play with 5:51 left in the first quarter made it 11-5, according to Iowa.

Then UConn took over. The Huskies closed the quarter on a 13-2 run over the final 5:04 to lead 20-14 and opened the second quarter with back to back 3s to make it 26-14.

UConn pulls away

Iowa kept answering. A 5-0 run capped by a 3 from first-year McKenna Woliczko cut the gap to seven, and 3s from Journey Houston, Wright and Taylor Stremlow kept the Hawkeyes within reach. Wright scored five straight points late in the half to get Iowa within 10, but UConn scored the last five points of the half for a 52-37 lead.

The Huskies' 32-point second quarter was the difference. UConn scored 11 fast break points in that period alone and finished the game with a 15-8 edge in transition.

Amari Whiting opened the second half with a layup for Iowa, and UConn answered with a 14-0 run that pushed the lead to 66-39, the largest of the day at 27 points. Whiting's three-point play started an 8-0 Iowa run, but UConn still led 72-51 after three quarters.

Strong's bounce back

Strong's line in the loss at Michigan was 13 points and eight rebounds before she fouled out. Sunday was a different player. She attacked from inside and outside, knocking down five 3s, and finished one point shy of 40.

"I don't know, I just felt good," Strong said, according to UConn. "If my team is gonna give me the ball and I'm open, I'm gonna shoot it."

UConn coach Geno Auriemma said he saw it coming in practice.

"I think she was really upset about what happened and how it happened," Auriemma said, according to UConn. "She had a different look about her at practice and the way she was talking to the players and the example that she was setting as these couple of days went by and how aggressive she's capable of being. I think that was evident today."

Even the opposing coach was impressed. "She will be one of the best to ever play here, and that's saying a lot," Iowa coach Jan Jensen said, according to UConn.

The supporting cast

Quiñonez was the perfect complement. She made 7 of 10 shots, 4 of 5 from 3 and 3 of 5 at the line, with four assists and five steals in 28 minutes. UConn's bench outscored Iowa's 25-15.

KK Arnold scored 14 points on 5 of 7 shooting with five assists. Freshman Jovana Popovic, who scored 25 at Michigan, had 10 points and six assists. Freshman Olivia Vukosa scored only two points but grabbed 10 rebounds, matching Strong for the team lead.

"It's a great sign of growth," Arnold said of the response to the Michigan loss, according to UConn. "It starts in practice, so just making sure that doing the same type of energy, intensity, and then you can come out in a game like this and come back stronger."

The shooting numbers told the story of the turnaround. At Michigan, UConn made 8 of 31 from 3 and attempted only seven free throws. Against Iowa, the Huskies made 11 of 21 from deep and went 12 of 16 at the line. Strong and Quiñonez combined for nine of the 11 made 3s, which gave Iowa's defense almost no room to sag into the paint.

UConn outrebounded Iowa 38-22 and had 22 assists on 34 baskets. The one blemish was ball security. The Huskies committed 17 turnovers, and Iowa scored 24 points off them, compared with 18 points for UConn off Iowa's 12 turnovers.

Iowa's fourth quarter push

Iowa did not let the game end quietly. The Hawkeyes won the fourth quarter 28-19, with Wright hitting three 3s in the period and Heiden scoring 10 of her 15 points, according to Iowa. Carnegie's fast break layup with 4:59 left cut the deficit to 12, and her basket with 3:18 left made it 82-72. UConn held off the rally from there.

Wright finished with a season-high 23 points on 8 of 15 shooting, tying her career high with five 3s, and added five assists. Heiden shot 7 of 11, Carnegie scored 12 and Whiting had 10 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Whiting reached 1,000 career points on a 3 with 15 seconds left, in her 100th career game and 100th career start, according to Iowa.

Heiden's foul trouble was the story for Jensen. She was limited to 22 minutes and picked up four fouls.

"Unfortunately, Ava Heiden got in early foul trouble, and that really changes our team a lot," Jensen said, according to Iowa. "There were a lot of things we normally would like to do that we couldn't do in the first half."

Iowa shot 49.2 percent from the field and made 10 of 27 from 3, but the 38-22 rebounding gap and UConn's hot shooting were too much.

What it means

For UConn, the response mattered more than the result. A loss in Ann Arbor ended the program's 39-game regular-season winning streak, and the Huskies answered by shooting 54.8 percent against a top-10 team. They slipped only to No. 4 in the AP poll released the next day. Read our recap of Michigan's 77-66 win over UConn.

The schedule does not get easier. UConn travels to No. 17 Ohio State on Thursday, Nov. 12, and to No. 7 Louisville on Sunday, Nov. 15, according to UConn.

For Iowa, now 2-1, the takeaway from Jensen was encouragement. "I'm really proud of how we fought, and I think we have a lot to build on," Jensen said, according to Iowa. The Hawkeyes host Northern Iowa on Thursday, Nov. 12, and face No. 8 Vanderbilt in Sioux City on Sunday, Nov. 15.

Michigan, the team that beat UConn, followed with a rout of Wright State the same afternoon. Read our recap of Michigan's 109-52 win over Wright State. On the men's side, read about UConn's 83-41 win over Wagner and Braylon Mullins' 20 points in UConn's win over Gardner-Webb.

Sources: official box score, UConn Athletics and Iowa Athletics.

Photo: UConn Athletics