Park-Lane Breaks Assist Record; Pirates Fall

Wednesday, December 21

Hartford, Conn. / XL Center

12:00 PM

Seton Hall University

9-4,2-1Big East

#9 Connecticut

9-2,2-0Big East

Seton Hall

UConn

Lauren Park-Lane takes a shot against Connecticut on Dec. 21

Photo by: Matt Kipp

12/21/2022 2:43:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score BOX SCORE - UConn (.pdf)

Park-Lane broke Seton Hall's career assists record, but the Pirates fell at No. 9 UConn, 98-73.

HARTFORD, CONN. – Senior Lauren Park-Lane (Wilmington, Del.) became Seton Hall's all-time assist leader and Sidney Cooks (Kenosha, Wis.) had a team-high 18 points, but the Pirates fell to No. 9 Connecticut, 98-73, at the XL Center on Wednesday.

Park-Lane entered the contest needing just two assists in her 100^th career game to set the impressive career mark, and collected her second with a dish to Cooks with 13 seconds left to go before halftime.

The Hall, winners of seven straight games entering Wednesday, fell behind early by virtue of a 15-2 start by Connecticut, and never recovered as the Huskies led wire-to-wire.

Cooks had 18 points on 8-for-15 shooting, which included a pair of made three-pointers. Park-Lane finished with 17 points and a team-high four assists.

THE STORY:
Cooks hit a turnaround jumper for The Hall's first points of the game, but Connecticut scored the next 10 consecutive points to take a commanding 15-2 lead to start the contest. The Huskies stretched their run to 20-4 over 6:40 to extend their lead to 25-6 with 2:00 left in the opening quarter. The Hall scored the final two buckets of the opening stanza, but still shot just 4-for-19, while UConn was 5-for-7 from three-point range alone.

Connecticut scored seven of the first nine points to open the second quarter, which boosted their advantage to 32-12 with 7:50 to go before halftime. Down 39-18, The Hall scored six straight, and a three-point play by Mya Bembry (West Orange, N.J.) cut its deficit to 39-24 with 4:12 to go prior to the break.

UConn took a 53-31 lead into the break. The Huskies shot 63.6% from the field in the first half and had nine made three-pointers, while the Pirates shot 34.3%.

In the second half, The Hall battled, but couldn't get their deficit below 20 points.

With an assist on Sidney Cooks' three pointer before the end of the first half, 𝗟𝗔𝗨𝗥𝗘𝗡 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗞-𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗘 became Seton Hall's all-time career assists leader!!

5️⃣6️⃣3️⃣ and counting!#HALLin @bigeastwbb @marchmadnesswbb pic.twitter.com/1OOXEizOwn
— Seton Hall Women's Basketball (@SHUWBB) December 21, 2022

THE NUMBERS:

Seton Hall was 25-for-69 (36.2%) from the floor for the game, while Connecticut was 38-for-63 (60.3%). The Hall was 9-for-29 (31.0%) from three-point range, while the Huskies were 11-for-21 (52.4%).
Cooks finished with a team-high 18 points on 8-for-15 shooting, which included 2-for-4 from three-point range. She also had three rebounds.
UConn out-rebounded The Hall, 44-to-26. Offensive rebounds were tied 11-to-11.
Park-Lane had 17 points on the strength of three made three-pointers to go with four assists.
Seton Hall was 11-for-12 (91.7%) from the free-throw line, while Connecticut was 14-for-17 (82.4%).
Jala Jordan (Philadelphia, Pa.) was 3-for-5 from three-point range for nine points and four rebounds.
Seton Hall forced 22 turnovers, while UConn forced 14.
Kae Satterfield (New York, N.Y.) had nine points and a team-best five rebounds.

THE NOTES:

Seton Hall drops to 9-4 overall and 2-1 in the BIG EAST, while Connecticut improves to 9-3 overall and 2-0 in BIG EAST play.
With the loss, the Pirates snap a seven-game win streak and have now dropped 36 consecutive games to the Huskies.
With four assists today, Park-Lane passed Pirates legend Ka-Deidre Simmons to become Seton Hall's all-time leader in career assists. She now has a remarkable 565 assists in exactly 100 career games.
Today was also the 100^th game played for Bembry.
UConn shot 60.3% from the field today, it's the first time since Jan. 26, 2020 that a team has shot more than 60.0% against the Pirates.
Seton Hall forced at least 20 turnovers in a game for the sixth time this season. They're 4-2 in those games.

UP NEXT:
Seton Hall will return to action on Wednesday, December 28 when it returns to Walsh Gymnasium to host BIG EAST rival Georgetown. Tip is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. ET. The contest will be streamed live by the BIG EAST Digital Network and available for FloHoops subscribers. It'll also be available 89.5 FM WSOU or wsou.net.