New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Postseason a new test for young Huskies
UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, for his part, is doing what he always does this time of year: getting his team in the postseason frame of mind.
Or at least he’s trying.
The truth is, Auriemma really has no idea whether a team of predominantly freshmen is mentally ready for March. The topranked Huskies will play St. John’s Saturday at noon in the
Big East quarterfinals at Mohegan Sun Arena.
“You just never know with a young team,” Auriemma said.
UConn (21-1, 18-0 Big East) has seven freshmen, three who play significant minutes, including star point guard Paige Bueckers. The class, as you can expect, factored heavily into the Huskies’ run to another regular season Big East title, accounting for more than 44% of the team’s scoring.
If history is any indication, Auriemma figures their first tournament experience will go one of two ways.
“They can go in not even knowing what’s at stake,” Auriemma said. “They can go in, ‘Hey, we’ve got three games this weekend, let’s go.’ How are they any different than the three games we played last week? Ignorance is bliss, right? They have no idea. They could go in and go, ‘Let’s just play.’ Why should it be any different than anything else?”
Or they could hit the panic button.
“It could dawn on them,” he surmised, “that, ‘Oh my God, now you’re in a one-and-done situation and if we lose, we’re out.’ ”
At the very least, Auriemma figures it’ll take the Huskies time to settle in, either because they’re nervous or they’re trying too hard.
“You just try to be honest with them and lay it out there: ‘This is
what we’re going to do. This is what we did all year, this is how we got here,’ and we’re going to have the same scouting reports, the same film sessions, everything’s the same,” he said.
Stick to your role. Don’t change the process.
It’s the same message,
more or less, that guard Christyn Williams received from program stalwarts Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson when she was a freshman in 2019.
“It was truthful,” Williams said. “That’s what I did, and so that’s the advice I’d give to (our freshmen).
Because of COVID-19, Auriemma suggested this postseason will be a battle of the mind as much as skills and stamina. The
Huskies arrived in Uncasville Thursday night and, assuming everything goes to plan, won’t leave until following Monday’s Big East final. In between they’ll practice, play three games, and be holed up in their hotel rooms.
When asked how he’s preparing his team for such unique circumstances, Auriemma noted that players have essentially been in a bubble since July.
“They’ve been kind of confined to an area, they go to practice, they go back to their apartments, maybe they’ll go out and pick up some food, come back or buy some groceries, so they’ve been in some form of a bubble all this time,” he said. “This is going to be a little more intense, a little more concentrated. You’re not in your apartment. You’re in a hotel room, and you’re confined to a floor. …
It’s a huge sacrifice just to play basketball.”
Albeit one they’re willing to make.
“I think we’re ready to sacrifice whatever we have to do to play,” said Bueckers, the Big East’s player and freshman of the year. “Obviously it’s going to be different. We’re either going to be at the practice gym, the main court or our hotel, so there’s really only three locations. … It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be different.”
Note: Junior Olivia Nelson-Ododa is one of five finalists for the Lisa Leslie Award, given to the nation’s best center. The other four: Elissa Cunane (NC State), Aliyah Boston (South Carolina), Charli Collier (Texas) and Elizabeth Kitley (Virginia Tech).