According to UConn coach Geno Auriemma, DePaul coach Doug Bruno, a longtime friend, is so excited that he would play Sunday's game at midnight instead of noon if you asked him.

No. 3 UConn and No. 17 DePaul will make history when they play the Big East Conference rematch at Chicago's Wintrust Arena, with the top 25 matchup being televised on Fox at 1 p.m. It will be the first women's basketball game in history televised by the network.

"I think anything that we can do that's going to bring a lot of attention to the game, a lot of attention to people who don't normally see the game ... I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that are Fox viewers that have never seen a (women's basketball) game on Fox," Auriemma said. "They're going to turn it on and they're going to, I think, be a little impressed by it and they're going to want to know when the next one is."

"For Fox to identify that women's basketball deserves to be on the big stage is really, really ... I consider it an honor to be a part of it," Bruno said earlier this month.

The Fox broadcast team of Lisa Byington and Sarah Kustok will certainly have enough to talk about.

UConn (10-1 overall, 8-0 Big East) lost its last time out, a 90-87 drag race at No. 19 Arkansas, in which Arkansas fifth-year senior Chelsea Dungee finished with 37 points. Dungee's total was only one point shy of the highest single-game total a player has ever scored against the Huskies (Amy O'Brien of Holy Cross scored 38 on Nov. 14, 1997).

UConn was allowing just 48.3 points per game when it arrived in Arkansas and, at times, the Razorbacks were shockingly wide open.

Arkansas scored 31 third-quarter points against the Huskies and led by 13 at one juncture before a UConn comeback. Arkansas hit 13 3-point field goals.

"I thought there were a lot of defensive breakdowns, an awful lot," Auriemma said. "When you have a team that shoots from the 3-point line as well as they do, there’s a tendency to extend your defense because you don’t want to get caught late getting to a shooter. If there’s a drive, you can’t rotate down there fast enough. They caught us a bunch of times on those. And man-to-man, just being able to guard your man."

UConn beat DePaul 75-52 on Dec. 29 in Storrs, holding the Blue Demons well under their scoring average of 88.3 points per game, leading Bruno to heap praise on the UConn defense.

Now the Huskies will need to regroup defensively in time to stop a DePaul team which averages 85.3 points per game, the same as UConn, and averages 9.3 3-pointers per game.

DePaul, the defending Big East champion, is 9-3 overall, 6-1 in the conference.

"I think the biggest emphasis is just really going to be keeping people in front of us ... whatever the game plan is, to execute that every time, not just once or twice," UConn junior guard Evina Westbrook said. "We played them before. They love to shoot 3s as Arkansas did, so we’re really going to have to contain that."

UConn has not lost back-to-back games since March 7 (Providence) and March 17 (Louisville), 1993, making a span of 1,004 straight games.

Auriemma addressed that mind-boggling stat earlier this season when the Huskies were approaching 1,000.

"I've coached a lot of kids that get (ticked) off when we lose," Auriemma said by way of explanation. "I don't know if that's the way it is today in the world. But all these years that I've coached at Connecticut, when we lose a game, guys are really (ticked). When we lose a game, everybody takes it personally."

Freshman Paige Bueckers leads UConn in points (18.1 per game), assists (5.3), steals (2.6) and 3-point field goal percentage (.514). Bueckers scored a career-high 27 points against Arkansas, 15 in the fourth quarter, after missing the previous game due to an ankle injury.

DePaul, on a four-game winning streak, is led by 5-foot-10 junior guard Sonya Morris with 18.3 points per game.

v.fulkerson@theday.com