Despite 40 years of experience, it’s been a season of firsts for UConn coach Geno Auriemma. He and associate head coach Chris Dailey celebrated their four decade tenure at UConn on the same night that Auriemma became the winningest coach in college basketball. Later he saw his team hand South Carolina an 87-58 loss that ended a 71-game home winning streak. Auriemma also looked on as two UConn alums, Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, launched Unrivaled, and as another, Diana Taurasi announced her retirement after 20 seasons in the WNBA.
Now, Auriemma is ready to move on.
“I’m glad we got it out of the way,” he said. “It’s awesome to relive all of those memories, but you can’t celebrate every week. There has been a lot of really great stuff that has happened to the UConn brand over the course of the season. I hope we can make a deep run into the tournament and add to all of it.”
It’s been almost a decade since UConn last won an NCAA Tournament championship. That came in 2016, on the back end of four straight titles, which made 11 total for the program. UConn made the Final Four last season and remains one of the sport’s top programs, but a 12th title is starting to feel elusive.
Auriemma believes his team has what it takes to finally win another championship, but with the current state of women’s basketball, he knows it will take a near-perfect performance in the tournament. Four different teams have been atop the AP poll this season, just the sixth time that has happened since the poll’s inception in 1976.
“In some years, you may be able to not play your best and still sneak by,” he said. “But this year, there are a lot of really good teams. There are more variables this year, more teams that are capable of knocking someone off in a one-game situation.”
And despite dominant performances from several teams this season, including UConn’s win over South Carolina, Auriemma doesn’t see anyone as a runaway favorite.
“If somebody said, ‘This team is going to win the championship,’ I could show you five or six other teams that could also win,” he said. “That’s unusual, but that’s kind of where the game has gotten to.”
UConn is one of those teams. Senior guard Paige Bueckers is having arguably the best season of her career, which is impressive considering she won National Player of the Year as a freshman. Bueckers is averaging 19 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, while leading the country in assist to turnover ratio. This is her last chance to win a title and if she does, UConn will need contributions from other players.
Freshman forward Sarah Strong will be vital to UConn’s success in March Madness. At 6-foot-2 with the ability to stretch the floor and handle the ball, Strong has been a mismatch for most of UConn’s opponents. She’s averaging 16 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.6 blocks per game this year, doing a little bit of everything for the Huskies.
“She has a tremendous amount of composure, way beyond someone playing their freshman season,” Auriemma said. “She doesn’t get rushed, she doesn’t let people speed her up and for the most part, she plays with the same pace for the entire game.”
Azzi Fudd, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, was the catalyst in UConn’s big win over South Carolina, finishing with 28 points on 6 of 10 shooting from beyond the arc. Fudd came to UConn as the country’s top player in 2021, but struggled with injuries throughout her career. She’s never played a full season but has appeared in 28 games this year, the most of her four-year career. A healthy Fudd changes the complexity of UConn’s offense. Earlier in the year, Auriemma was just happy to see her on the court again, but now, Fudd can be a real difference maker. The guard is averaging 12.8 points per game, while shooting 43.4 percent from the three-point line and 91.7 percent from the free throw line.
“There’s a dimension that she adds when she’s in that zone that is difficult to find anywhere else,” Auriemma said. “Having her be healthy, be confident, trust herself and be aggressive, that is something that we are going to need more of.”
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Injuries have been the unfortunate reality for UConn in recent seasons, as players like Bueckers, Fudd, Caroline Ducharme, Jana El Alfy and Aubrey Griffin have all missed significant time. It’s been a challenge to navigate, but Auriemma says it has brought his players closer together.
Ducharme, a 6-f00t-2 junior guard, has battled concussions and neck stiffness throughout her career. She made her season debut on February 22 against Butler. Ducharme has only played 18 minutes over six games and her availability boosts the overall morale for the Huskies. When she entered the game against Butler, it was an emotional moment for the team.
“We have been through so much,” Fudd told reporters after that game. “We have been rocks for each other, pillars to lean on and only we know the stuff we’ve been through and how we got through it.”
El Alfy, a 6-5 redshirt freshman from Egypt, missed her freshman year after tearing her Achilles tendon over the summer. Midway through the season, El Alfy worked her way into the starting lineup and Auriemma expects her to be an impact player during March Madness.
“We need a big presence inside, offensively and defensively,” Auriemma said. “We got that against South Carolina, but now we are trying to get it consistently from her.”
The South Carolina game can be used as a reference point for what UConn looks like when it plays its best basketball, but Auriemma isn’t taking much stock in the lopsided outcome.
“That game was probably an anomaly in the sense that we probably played a perfect game for us and they played well below what they are capable of playing,” Auriemma said. “But it was a big confidence booster for us. We played one hell of a game. Now we have to figure out how to replicate that as many times as possible.”
