Will peaking at the right time be enough vs. Bears?

SAN ANTONIO — As a fixture in the NCAA Tournament since 1989, Geno Auriemma’s mantra in the postseason is that “you can’t be better than you are.”

“All of a sudden, you’re not going to be a lot better than you’ve ever been, because at some point, you would have been that already,” Auriemma explained Sunday. “You’re just going to have to be as good as you are.”

Coming off a convincing 92-72 win over Iowa in the Sweet 16, Auriemma’s No. 1-seeded Huskies looked as good as they have all season, firing on all cylinders offensively and holding the nation’s top scorer, Caitlin Clark, to 21 points on 21 shots. Monday in the Elite Eight against No. 2 seed Baylor,

they’ll aim to come out just as strong as they have been — and hope that’ll be enough to secure the program’s 13th straight Final Four appearance.

Pretty much anyone you ask would say Baylor isn’t your typical No. 2 seed, and Auriemma and KimMulkey proclaimed this matchup would’ve been better suited for the Final Four or national championship than as a quarterfinal. In typical Mulkey fashion, the three-time national champion coach has propelled her team to a strong postseason position behind stellar defense, rebounding and the Next Great Baylor Big in NaLyssa Smith (18.2 points and 8.8 rebounds per game), a junior national player of the year candidate.

Aside from its interior defense, Baylor boasts DiDi Richards, the defending national defensive player of the year and the sole starter remaining from its 2019 title-winning team.

“They’re long, they’re athletic, they’re physical, they really try to intimidate you and impose their will on you defensively,” Auriemma said. “They rebound the ball. They get involved with their hands, with their feet, their arms. They’re a very athletic, very physically intimidating team. I don’t know that anybody would ever call us that. They remind me of when we had Tina [Charles], Maya [Moore], Renee [Montgomery], Kaleena [Mosqueda-Lewis].”

Last season when the two teams met — a 74-58 Baylor victory at the XL venter — the Huskies kept up with Baylor just fine until they went scoreless for a six minute stretch in the fourth quarter.

UConn is a different team, though, and certainly has more offensive firepower to ensure that won’t happen

again.

For starters, the Huskies have Paige Bueckers. You may have heard about her. The freshman sensation is a Naismith Trophy and Wooden Award finalist, AP and Wooden first-team All-American and has a penchant for showing up in big moments. Junior Christyn Williams and redshirt junior Evina Westbrook are also coming off strong offensive performances, Williams nearing to a career high with 27 points against Iowa and Westbrook finishing with 17 points and only one rebound shy of a triple-double. UConn also had a season-high 30 assists on 40 baskets.

On both ends of the floor, UConn’s frontcourt is in a better spot than it was last season: Then-sophomore Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Kyla Irwin went 0-for-12 from the field in 2020, Baylor winning the battle in the paint 32-18. This season, the Huskies have an improved Nelson-Ododa, who knows how to play to her strengths, and a dazzling freshman, Aaliyah Edwards, who’s playing her best basketball entering Monday. Behind that duo, UConn has won the battle in the paint 146-70 across its first three NCAA Tournament games.

“Having somebody like Aaliyah, that’s an element that we didn’t have last season,” Auriemma said. “And that allows Liv an opportunity to be more of a distributor for us and be someone whocan occupy one of their defenders at the high post and gives us some defensive flexibility. Last year, the entire defensive assignment was pretty much Liv versus the rest of them. So I think we’ve got a little more to work with, but that’s not going to make beating Baylor any easier.”

Only Williams and Nelson-Ododa have played in an Elite Eight game before: Westbrook never advanced past the second round at Tennessee, and the team has seven freshmen and

two sophomores who are entirely new to the tournament. Though with only Richards and Smith (off the bench) seeing meaningful minutes on Baylor’s 2019 championship team, Mulkey said she doesn’t consider her team to have much of an edge in experience.

Players like Bueckers and Edwards — the latter of whom should earn a third consecutive start with Nika Muhl (sprained ankle) unlikely to play — haven’t shown their youth so far this tournament. Bueckers has averaged 20.7 points on 47.7 percent shooting, 6.0 assists and 7.7 rebounds per game in San Antonio. Edwards is a remarkable 22-for-26 from the field, averaging 18 points throughout the tournament and emerging as a physical but disciplined defender that avoids getting into foul trouble like she did earlier in the season.

“If you’re good, you’re good,” Mulkey said. “I don’t think Paige is concerned about it being her first time in an Elite Eight. I don’t think Aaliyah is.”

Nonetheless, the Huskies will rely heavily on their juniors, a trio that have awed Auriemma with their leadership all season. They’ve been steady so far, and certainly came through huge against Iowa. But when everything’s on the line against one of the best teams in the country, Auriemma will look to them once more — not asking them to do anything they’re incapable of doing, but to play to the level he believes they can play.

“The three of them [[inlinenote] Sunday Saturday], in their own way, were as good as they are,” Auriemma said. “And there’s probably a little more in them and hopefully, because they may need a little more [Monday] night.”