UConn women’s basketball freshman Sarah Strong earned the first Big East Freshman of the Week honors of her career on Monday after a pair of impressive performances in the Huskies’ Week 1 wins.
Strong was the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2024 and lived up to her elite billing with a game-high 17 points in her college debut against Boston University on Thursday. She also led the team with six steals and added four rebounds and three assists in UConn’s 86-32 victory.
The 6-foot-2 forward then scored 13 points and led the Huskies with seven rebounds plus four assists and two steals in an 86-49 win over South Florida on Sunday. She started for the Huskies in both games and averaged 65% from the field across the blowout wins. Strong was named the preseason Big East Freshman of the Year and to the Cheryl Miller Award watchlist for the nation’s best small forward.
“Sarah is able to contribute so many different ways,” Auriemma said after the win over BU. “She’s only going to get better from here, but some of the steals she gets are ridiculous. She just has such great hands and a great feel for the game, and she’s so quick with the ball and without the ball … We just don’t have the luxury of waiting for her to be great, so we’re going to force it.”
Sarah Strong is the BIG EAST Freshman of the Week!
Sarah averaged 15.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 4.0 steals per game while shooting 65.0% in her first two games as a Husky. pic.twitter.com/hFhvWBAcG4
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) November 11, 2024
Huskies superstar Paige Bueckers was also named to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll after averaging 17.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, four assists and 3.5 steals in 26 minutes per game. She scored 22 points on 9-for-10 shooting in UConn’s victory over USF, and she gave up a single turnover over the first two games. Bueckers, the reigning Big East Player of the Year, currently ranks eighth in the country among guards in field goal percentage averaging 73.7% from the field.
No. 2 UConn faces its first ranked matchup of 2024-25 against No. 14 North Carolina in Greensboro on Friday (6 p.m., ESPN2). The Huskies are the only ranked representatives of the Big East after Week 1 saw Creighton drop from preseason No. 21 with a 76-71 loss to South Dakota State. Seton Hall forward Faith Masonius, a Maryland transfer, was named Big East Player of the Week for Week 1 logging 23 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in the Pirates’ 84-40 win over Wagner.
