The numbers that defined UConn's 2022-23 season

A couple players stood out as the clear best on the team, the Huskies lost a couple program-defining streaks and largely looked like a normal team this year.

Photo: Ian Bethune

Since UConn fell to Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen, we’ve looked at the team from plenty of angles: We broke down what went wrong, had the locker room reaction, debated how the season should be remembered, honored the outgoing seniors and looked ahead to the offseason as well as the next campaign.

But perhaps the most objective way to look at the 2022-23 Huskies is through numbers. These are the statistics that defined UConn’s past season.

Statistical leaders

Points: Aaliyah Edwards (16.6 per game, 615 total)

No surprise, UConn’s lone All-American led the team in scoring. Not only that, she and Lou Lopez Sénéchal — the only two players to appear in every game — were No. 1 and 2 in both points per game and total points. Edwards finished as the leading scorer a team-best 15 times in 37 games as well.

Rebounds: Dorka Juhász (9.9 per game); Aaliyah Edwards (332 total)

Because Juhász missed eight games with injury, her 9.9 rebounds per game weren’t enough to surpass Edwards’ total of 332. Still, Juhász’s mark ranks eighth in the program’s single-season history.

Edwards and Juhász both reached double-digit rebounds 15 times on the season.

Assists: Nika Mühl (7.9 per game, 284 total)

Mühl shattered UConn’s assists record with 284 total — 53 more than the previous mark set by Sue Bird in 2001-02. For reference, the difference between Bird in second and 10th place on the single-season assists list is 41. Mühl put herself in a class of her own this year.

The gap is even more stark looking at assists per game. Mühl averaged 7.9 dimes per contest — exactly 2.0 more assists more than Bird had in 2001-02.

She also set the single-game assist record with 15 against NC State, surpassing Paige Bueckers’ mark of 14 from 2021. Later in the year, Mühl had a 14-assist day down at Tennessee meaning in one season, she recorded two of the three top assist games in program history.

Field goal percentage: Aaliyah Edwards (58.9 percent)

After leading the nation with a 68.9 field goal percentage as a freshman, Edwards regressed to make just 52.1 percent the next season. She bounced back in a big way this past year, ranking in the top two percent of the country at 58.9 percent.

3-point percentage: Lou Lopez Sénéchal (44.0 percent)

Despite hitting a rough patch late in the regular season, Lopez Sénéchal still led UConn from behind the arc. For reference, Azzi Fudd only made 42.6 percent from deep in the first seven games of the year before getting hurt.

Free throw percentage: Azzi Fudd (88.2 percent)

For the second straight season, Fudd led the team from the charity stripe, going 15 of 17 on the season. Among players with more attempts, Lopez Sénéchal paced the Huskies at 85.4 percent (76 of 89).

Steals: Dorka Juhász (1.5 per game); Aubrey Griffin, Nika Mühl (50 total)

While Juhász led the way in steals per game, she only finished with 43 total — fourth-most total Griffin, Mühl and Aaliyah Edwards (44). Behind those four, nobody had more than 20.

Blocks: Dorka Juhász (1.4 per game); Dorka Juhász, Aaliyah Edwards (41)

Edwards and Juhász both had a team-high 41 blocks. Amari DeBerry was third with 18.

Minutes: Nika Mühl (36.5 per game, 1,316 total)

Mühl was UConn’s most indispensable player this past season, so she only sat for a total of 164 minutes all season — including the game (meaning all 40 minutes) that she missed due to a concussion at Maryland.

---

Broken streaks

The 2022-23 season will go down as the year the program’s major streaks ended.

Back-to-back losses for the first time 1,083 games

After dropping a hard-fought contest to South Carolina on Feb. 5, UConn traveled out to Marquette three days later and fell again — the first time the Huskies suffered back-to-back losses since 1993, snapping a streak of 1,083 consecutive games.

The streak nearly went down earlier in the season, too. On Dec. 4, UConn lost to Notre Dame in a game where Azzi Fudd suffered a right knee injury and returned home to host Princeton. Already without Fudd and Dorka Juhász (broken thumb), the Huskies built a 15-point lead with seven minutes left. But after Nika Mühl left with a head injury and Lou Lopez Sénéchal followed with a foot problem, the gap dwindled to as little as two points with 46 seconds left.

With only Caroline Ducharme and freshman Inês Bettencourt left in the backcourt, UConn struggled to break the Tigers’ press and turned it over 14 times in the fourth quarter. The Huskies eventually held on thanks to three made free throws from Bettencourt in the closing seconds.

Later in the season, UConn almost lost back-to-back games again. First, the Huskies were stunned by St. John’s at the XL Center on Feb. 21 and on Feb. 25, they traveled out to DePaul. Despite little going right, UConn erased a five-point lead with five minutes left and eventually went ahead by five. The Blue Demons fought back to within one and then stole the ball to get a chance to take the lead, only for Dorka Juhász to force a jump ball, which gave the Huskies possession. Mühl sealed the win with a pair of free throws as UConn escaped, 72-69.

The Final Four run ends at 14

For the first time since 2007, UConn failed to make the Final Four. In fact, the Huskies failed to advance to even the Elite Eight after being upset by 3-seed Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen.

UConn couldn’t handle the Buckeyes’ press and a second quarter in which the Huskies failed to even attempt a shot until midway through proved to be the difference.

---

Advanced statistics