Unfamiliar territory
After disappointing loss to Arizona, where does UConn go from here?
SAN ANTONIO — On April 6, 2008, a younger Geno Auriemma, then with just five national championships to his name, walked across the floor at St. Pete Times Forum in Florida to congratulate Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer. Her No. 2 seed Cardinal had just eliminated the No. 1 Huskies from the NCAA Tournament and positioned themselves one win away from a national title.
The Huskies led for just 17 seconds before the Cardinal imposed their will. Senior Candice Wiggins, the hottest player in the tournament, scored 25 points. UConn had a budding superstar of its own in freshman Maya Moore, who finished second in Associated Press player of the year voting, but her team-high 20 points came off an inefficient 19 shots and 3-for-11 3-point shooting.
Thirteen years and six national titles later, Auriemma tipped his cap Friday to another Pac-12 coach, due to COVID-19 protocols waving to Arizona’s Adia Barnes from afar after her No. 3 seed Wildcats had stunned the No. 1 Huskies at the Alamodome. Arizona set the tone from the start, star senior Aari McDonald continued her remarkable run in San Antonio by going off for a game-high 26 points. Freshman phenom Paige Bueckers, recently named AP player of the year, had 18 points, but her quiet first half and mere five field goals were not enough to overcome the Wildcats.
Auriemma knew one thing for certain that night in 2008, he gave the same assurance he evoked Friday when his youthful Huskies fell to Arizona in the Final Four.
“I said, ‘We’ll be back,’ ” Auriemma recalled. “And we went back and we were undefeated the next two seasons.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen [next year]. But we’ll be back here sooner rather than later.”
The 2008 loss was all the most disappointing because of the seniors the Huskies would lose. But the Huskies’ personnel situation this upcoming fall presents the exact opposite scenario.
Redshirt junior Evina Westbrook has the option to leave for the WNBA Draft, but otherwise the seniorless Huskies are expecting their other 11 players back. And, of course, they’ll bring in the remainder of the second-ranked recruiting class in the country, headlined by Bueckers’ best friend, Azzi Fudd, a player who’s considered similarly as uber-talented, potentially generational.
Adding three news faces into the mix will come with its own challenges, but it can’t be harder than what the Huskies just experienced. They incorporated eight newcomers (seven freshmen plus Westbrook) in a COVID-19 disrupted season that, at one point, left them short two coaches.
Storrs may measure its success by championships, but aren’t there worse foundations off which to build than a 28-2 season, Final Four berth and what could be the entire roster returning?
Christyn Williams’ postseason play was a huge step forward from where she was in February (don’t forget she had only six points at South Carolina and zero the next game), a promising sign that she’s headed in the right direction.
Alongside classmate Bueckers, Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Muhl emerged as fixtures in the rotation by the season’s end. For the first time in awhile, Edwards looked like a freshman against Arizona, but also a freshman that’ll learn from the experience. Muhl wasn’t her full self after missing three games with a high-ankle sprain, but the way she stood gazing at the Huskies’ basket as the buzzer sounded suggests she won’t take the loss lightly, either.
Bueckers will be another year older, and if Auriemma gets his way, wiser. If anything, her brilliance, in retrospect, probably masked many of UConn’s flaws. Though the team made strides toward becoming more balanced, in its biggest games against the tough teams and with high stakes, they struggled to get much more from anyone other than Bueckers and Williams, sometimes Westbrook.
The backcourt will remain fairly crowded with Fudd, Caroline Ducharme and Saylor Poffenbarger — all sharp-shooters and potential mismatch problems — in tow. The biggest question UConn may face is in the front court. Where does junior Olivia NelsonOdoda (0-for-7 shooting against Arizona) go from here after her continued struggles? Can Edwards, or incoming recruit Amari DeBerry, compensate as needed?
Next year, the overarching goal will be to surround Bueckers with more consistent help, which seems feasible with a year of experience under everyone’s belts and the much-anticipated addition of Fudd.
Bueckers may have made history in the image of Moore, as both were the only players to be named Big East player and freshman of the year and were AP first-team All Americans as freshmen. But for as incredible as Moore was her four years in Storrs, she won her two titles alongside Tina Charles, and one with Renee Montgomery. She, too, had a two-loss freshman year that concluded in a Final Four heartbreaker.
“You’re only as good as the team around you,” Auriemma said. “As good as Paige was this year, and she carried our team through most of the season, that’s not how you win championships, with one player having to do everything.”
And then the Huskies will have to mature in how they deal with adversity. Auriemma had described this freshman class as “competitive as hell” in the preseason, and throughout the year they showed a grittiness and edge that UConn teams of late had lacked. After the embarrassment of their one regular-season loss to Arkansas, the players held themselves accountable and committed to the defensive end of the floor, a turnaround that took their defense to new heights. But when dealt with punches from Baylor or Arizona in San Antonio, the Huskies lost their mojo, stumbling across the finish line against the Bears, but not getting so lucky against the Wildcats.
It’ll take more work in the offseason, some reflection and maturing. After all, even with all the right pieces, a repeat of the post2008 years won’t happen on its own.
“We have to take this, when we get back into the gym, just learn from it and do what we need to do and just really, really, really refocus as individuals and as a collective,” Westbrook said.
Auriemma’s been around long enough to know that they can build something better, perhaps special, off of this.
“I believe that what we learned this year, through all the ups and downs, is going to really benefit us through the next couple of years, for sure,” he said.