Geno wants to ratchet up defense
In the first half of Thursday’s game, UConn’s defense held Creighton to 12 points and 16.1 percent shooting. Similar story, different team on Saturday, this time with the Huskies’ defense stifling Xavier and securing a 38-7 lead after the first 10 minutes of play.
No matter how dominant they’ve looked in stretches over the last two games, nor what the numbers say, Geno Auriemma insists the Huskies’ defense has a long way to go.
“We’re not a great defensive team,” Auriemma said following Saturday’s 106-59 win over Xavier. “I keep telling people this and they go, ‘Oh yeah, you know you held them to 12 [points].’ We’re not a really good defensive team.”
What constitutes a less than stellar defensive team by Auriemma’s standards is still one that would make most coaches envious. Per Her Hoop Stats, UConn’s defensive rating (i.e., opponent points scored per 100 possessions) is 62.6, the best rating in the country out of teams whohave played at least four games. Opponents have managed a 32.4 effective field goal percentage against the Huskies, and UConn has also dominated on the defensive glass, corralling 77.6 percent of missed shots.
Granted, UConn hasn’t been truly tested yet by a high-powered offense. Early season games against Mississippi State and Louisville would have been great for evaluating that end of the floor,
but those games were wiped from the schedule due to the program’s November COVID19 shutdown. The Big East opponents UConn has played so far are a combined 7-9 on the season, and UMass Lowell was significantly overmatched.
“I think we’re really starting to take a lot more pride in our defense,” Evina Westbrook said Thursday. “That’s been a big emphasis just in UConn basketball, period. We obviously score a lot of points, but we take down teams by not letting them score a lot of points on us. So really just taking pride in that, individually keeping your man in front of you, we worked a lot on that in practice. We’ve talked as a team about it, how important it was going to be especially for this game.”
Look beyond the final scoring margin, and it’s clear UConn’s defense hasn’t been flawless. The Huskies struggled to contain Seton Hall’s speedy backcourt earlier in the week, allowing guard Lauren Park-Lane to score 19 firsthalf points and 29 overall. Still, UConn executed its game plan of getting Creighton to rush its 3-point attempts beautifully in the first half of that game, and Xavier didn’t stand a chance when UConn started trapping in its press.
With the Huskies’ toughest opponents awaiting them in January and beyond, the defense remains a work in progress, and that’s largely due to having so many newcomers, Auriemma said.
“The problem is that we have a team right now of some young guys, some older guys that just don’t communicate well,” Auriemma. “The other thing that I’m finding difficult is getting kids to communicate, talk, open their mouth and listen, more importantly.”
Auriemma pointed to a play at the end of the first half of Saturday’s game where Paige Bueckers tried to call out one of Xavier’s actions, but it “went in one ear and out the other.”
The good news for the coaching staff is that it’s only four games into the season, giving this team ample time to grow in those areas as they play more together.
“As that gets better, we will be a better defensive team,” Auriemma said. “And I’m not looking to score. I could care less what the score is.”
UConn’s greatest defensive teams also tended to have someone who was a national defensive player of the year or of that caliber (Kia Nurse, Gabby Williams and Moriah Jefferson all fit that mold). It remains to be seen whether one of those players is on this roster, but Westbrook and Aubrey Griffin have shown promise and Olivia Nelson-Ododa has capably patrolled the paint behind them. Auriemma has also been pleased with the defensive potential of freshmen Nika Muhl, Mir McLean and Aaliyah Edwards.
Tuesday poses the biggest challenge yet. Villa nova, the only other undefeated team in the conference, boasts the Big East’s top scorer and rebounder in Maddy Siegrist,w ho averages 24.4 points and 12.6 rebounds. Following a 34-point outing against Creighton, Siegrist is shooting 53.2 percent from the field.
“She is really talented,” Auriemma said. “She’s got a lot of ways to beat you. And that’s going to be really good for us because we have to be able to identify who’s going to guard who, and we have to identify who can shut down somebody on the other team without needing help every time down the floor. I don’t know that we’ve identified that yet.”