Fairfield will face Indiana in first round
UConn, Fairfield, Sacred Heart representing state in NCAA Tournament
When Carly ThibaultDuDonis took over for retired Joe Frager as coach of the Fairfield women’s basketball team 20 months ago, no rebuilding process was necessary. Under Frager and behind the play of Lou Lopez Sénéchal, the 2021-22 Stags swept the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles and earned their first NCAA Tournament berth in 21 years.
So while there would be a transition — bringing in her players to play her style of ball — there was a foundation laid for her that many first-year coaches don’t have.
“Sometimes when you take over a program you have to kind of start over, revamp, and change the culture,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “I was fortunate to take over a group of great women. Coach Frager’s been very supportive. You see it all over the place with the Lou effect and what they did.
“One of my thoughts in taking this program was they weren’t starting from zero and had just won a championship. Now how far can we take this and how can we build on this? That will be the start of what we want to do here.”
After a 15-15 season a year ago, Thibault-DuDosentation in the NCAA Tournament, the Constitution State is among the best.
With Big East champion UConn, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion Fairfield, and Northeast Conference champion Sacred Heart, the state has three teams in the NCAA field for the second time overall and first time since 2006.
California (Cal Baptist, Stanford, UC Irvine, UCLA, USC), Texas (Baylor, Rice, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi), and Tennessee (Chattanooga, Middle Tennessee, Tennessee, UT Martin, Vanderbilt) have the most at five apiece.
“I would say Connecticut is a women’s basketball state,” said Fairfield coach Carly ThibaultDuDonis, whose father Mike Thibault coached the Connecticut Sun. “Growing up in the Midwest, I played basketball, but was heavSTORRS into gymnastics. We moved to Connecticut when I was in seventh grade and there was such a bigger emphasis and more opportunities for girls in basketball. I was introduced to AAU basketball, packed UConn games, and the reason we came here was for the newly-added WNBA team Connecticut Sun.
“The women’s game is alive and thriving in our state and we’re proud to be a part of it.”
Sacred Heart (24-9) opens the tournament Wednesday against Presbyterian in an Albany 1 Regional play-in game in Columbia, S.C., with the winner going against host and top-seeded South Carolina on Friday. Fairfield (31-1) is the No. 13 seed in the Albany 1 Regional and will play at No. 4 Indiana Saturday in firstround action. UConn (29-5) is seeded third in the Portland (Ore.) 3 Regional and entertains No. 14 Jackson State for a firstround game at Gampel Pavilion