Storrs — It was the first career NCAA tournament game for Dorka Juhasz, officially termed a graduate transfer but now a full-fledged member of the UConn women's basketball team.

"Even though she's been here for less than a year, it feels like she's been here for four years, which is crazy," UConn sophomore Nika Muhl said recently of Juhasz. "She's really become a part of the family in such a short amount of time."

Now, Saturday afternoon, Juhasz was sitting in the interview room, smiling, owner of her first career NCAA tournament double-double after finishing with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

"I mean, it was very exciting," Juhasz said. "As you said, as a senior, that was my first game, so obviously I was a little nervous. Excited to be here and it felt good. It felt good that I was out on the court with this team and I'm happy that we got this win.

"Obviously it wasn't perfect and personally my play wasn't perfect either. But it was definitely a good experience for me."

Juhasz, a 6-foot-5 forward from Pecs, Hungary, played previously at Ohio State. She has an additional year of eligibility remaining after this season but has not made an official decision whether she will return. She averages 7.9 points and 6.0 rebounds per game for the No. 2 Huskies (26-5), who advanced to the second round with an 83-38 victory over No. 15 Mercer.

Juhasz started 15 games but currently comes off the bench, playing 17 minutes Saturday.

"Dorka's a competitive kid and I love how hard she plays," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "I love how competitive she is. It never surprises me how hard she works defensively, how hard she works rebounding the ball. That's probably been the biggest contribution that she's made to our team.

"The points have been great, yeah, but passing the ball, rebounding the ball, playing defense. I think all those things have been really, really solid for the majority of the year, more so now."

The Sunshine State

• The second game of Saturday's first-round doubleheader was played between No. 7 Central Florida from Orlando and No. 10 Florida from Gainesville. Central Florida advanced to the second round to meet UConn with a 69-52 victory. There were six women's teams from Florida to make the tournament, including Florida Gulf Coast, Florida State, South Florida and Miami.

That meant a lot to UCF senior Diamond Battles, who is originally from Florida, hailing from Winter Haven. 

"Florida teams, we feel like we don't get enough respect as a state of Florida, so seeing Florida teams compete against each other, it gets more spotlight on us ... just opening up women's basketball to see how we play and how Florida plays and just a battle of two great teams in Florida."

Battles said the family atmosphere created by coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson at UCF made it possible for her to stay close to home.

"Just going to UCF and staying close to home, I knew I would have a family supporting me throughout everything (in college) and that's what they've done," Battles said. "So being able to stay home and my family can come to every game, that's why I chose UCF."

It's all about the chest bump

• Muhl originated the chest bump as a form of celebration for UConn players — "I don't know, I feel like as we said, it's better than the high-five, high-fives are boring," Muhl said. "We're trying to bring something new."

The high-energy move has now spread to all the members of the team; for instance when Juhasz made a basket and was fouled in the second quarter Saturday, resulting in a three-point play, teammate Paige Bueckers greeted her with an enthusiastic chest bump.

"Everybody," Juhasz said. "If somebody's around me and gets an and-one, I'm running over there chest-bumping. We're all different, so everbody has different characteristics. Like talking about Caroline (Ducharme). Like she doesn't really show any emotions. And then now, you know, everybody is showing more emotions.

"I think more people are going to be ready to chest bump each other. I'm excited about that."

v.fulkerson@theday.com