New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Auriemma: Young team brings joy to coaching
Before the usual lateseason surge came to be or even seemed possible, before Geno Auriemma began to appreciate that this UConn team would rejuvenate the program with its stubborn innocence, there was a long winter stretch of dark and seemingly helpless moments.
That, in part, is why the Huskies’ latest of 13 consecutive Final Four appearances is so rewarding. Because Auriemma couldn’t always see it on the horizon.
That is why this collection of relatively inexperienced players has been such a breath of fresh air. Because it first threatened to suck the life out of him.
“Every day was excruciating,” Auriemma said. “And maybe because of that … having gone to those
depths and come out of it, I think that’s what all the fun and all the joy and the life comes from. Because I was drowning there for a long time. I’m not afraid to admit it. I was drowning. And ever since the Arkansas game, I feel like I’ve been reborn.”
Auriemma was referring to UConn’s only loss, Jan. 28 in Fayetteville, Ark. There, the Huskies hit bottom. It’s OK to lose. That’s not what really frustrated Auriemma or players. It was the way they lost, drifting from everything that was important and had been worked on for months.
UConn was embarrassed, Auriemma said. The project wasn’t in shambles but it felt like it was teetering. If the team had gone on to perform poorly three days later and lose at DePaul, too, the season might have been marked by a free fall instead of another climb to the No. 1 ranking.
The Huskies won, 10067, like a lost group rounding the dark side of the moon and suddenly headed back in the right direction. What followed were among the most uplifting couple of months in Auriemma’s 36-year UConn career.
Getting there took patience. It required Auriemma to ride out growing pains with a young team that he was close to losing.
“This is one of the tightest knit groups that we’ve had in a long, long time, off the court,” Auriemma said. “They are very, very, very close off the court. And that might be pandemic-influenced, that they’ve had to spend so much time together. On the court, in the beginning, it was lots of fun watching the newness of it. After a while, that wore off. … There were moments in December and January where I didn’t want any part of this team. Because they were so good off the court, they were so tight, they were so together — off the court. And they were everything but that on the court.
“And then you realize, everybody is trying but they’re going in 20 different directions. So every day for me was just one frustration after another. It didn’t matter what we were trying to teach, it wasn’t working. It didn’t matter what you would say. By tomorrow, it would be gone. It didn’t matter how much progress you had made in three days. The fourth day, you’d have to start at the beginning.” Until late-January. By early-March, after winning the Big East championship, Auriemma was proudly saying that this team made him change the way he coaches, adding, “They’re going to be what they’re going to be and I have to look at all the positives.” He met these players halfway and they carpooled to the
Final Four.
Auriemma was laughing Wednesday, saying of interactions with players, “No point in getting mad. They don’t listen [to me] anyway.” He’s has been laughing like this a lot lately.
“I’ve never seen him have this much fun in a long time,” Diana Taurasi said. “I think he really enjoys coaching this team. I think there’s a flare about this team and an edge about this team that he really loves. And you can tell. You can tell he’s engaged.”
The Huskies face Arizona Friday in a national semifinal having harnessed the kinetic energy of their collective personality. The national championship game is Sunday.
Auriemma needed the jolt this group has offered. He had to learn to accept it, though, learn how to accept it. He had to filter out the shake-your-head frustration that comes with coaching a team of seven freshmen and no seniors. He had to embrace all the new personalities and styles, warts and quirks and all. He seemed to figure this group out once he stopped trying to figure this group out.
He started to enjoy the ride, even the bumps. Paige Bueckers started looking more like the best player in America. Christyn Williams showed needed maturity in her game. Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia Nelson-Ododa became a formidable post duo. Nika Muhl shook off early discomfort and turned into a backcourt bull. Evina Westbrook remained a calming presence.
The team has won 18 games in a row since the Arkansas loss. They breezed through NCAA Tournament games against High Point and Syracuse. Auriemma, who missed those games while home with COVID-19, was mobbed when he arrived in San Antonio, players screaming “G!” and ruffling his hair. Down the stretch of a 20-point victory over
Iowa, Bueckers slapped an unsuspecting Auriemma on the butt.
Monday in the Elite Eight against Baylor, the Huskies were down nine.
Auriemma gathered the group, told them, “You either do the things that we do every day or we go home.” The Huskies went on a 19-0 run to hold off the Bears in a stressful game that showed the team’s inexperience, and pluck.
“The beauty is that, generally speaking, they really believe that they’re better than they are,” Auriemma said. “That’s why, sometimes, it’s hard to talk to them. So when things don’t go well on the court, there’s almost this, ‘Yeah, I got it.’ Except there was a look on their face in the Baylor game, ‘Uh, Coach, we don’t have it.’ Oh, now you need me, huh? All this other time, ‘Coach, I got this. I’m good.’ Now you’re looking at me like, ‘Coach, can you help me out here?’ Oh, I see. So I just want to be there for when they come to their senses and actually ask me, ‘Coach, can you help me out ?’ That’s basically what my job is right now.
“Because you know what? This is the worst part. I said [after the Baylor game], ‘Paige, you know you almost cost us because you didn’t wait for that screen?’ And she walked away and goes, ‘We won.’ That was her answer to everything. Didn’t argue with me, didn’t do anything. I said, ‘Paige, you could have cost us in that out-of-bounds.’ She said, ‘We won.’ She walks away.”
She walked into the Final Four as the national player of the year, the kid from Minnesota who tweaks her coach and playfully goofs her way while becoming the face of a sport.
Auriemma has won 11 national championships and been to 20 other Final Fours. That doesn’t mean there aren’t trying years or months or weeks or days or hours or minutes or even seconds.
He’s had all of that recently. Three Final Four losses to follow the 2016 championship were brutal, two at the overtime buzzer to Mississippi
State and Notre Dame, another to Notre Dame in a game the Huskies led by nine in the fourth quarter.
The death last year of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, were emotional blows. The return of the U.S. senior national team, featuring many of his former players, was strange days later, making for a melancholy reunion and exhibition in Hartford. Last season was cut short due to the pandemic. The program moved from the American Athletic Conference to the Big East. This season has been a COVID tightrope walk.
This team has provided consternation, levity, ultimately results. Youth is fascinating. Auriemma didn’t know where the team was headed until he stopped worrying about every pivot in the wrong direction. The season’s only loss seemed to get everyone on the same page.
“We were embarrassed as individuals and as a team,” Auriemma said. “I think that kind of a coming together and saying, ‘Hey, that’s unacceptable.’ To me, that’s where the change really took place.”
“There were moments in December and January where I didn’t want any part of this team. Because they were so good off the court, they were so tight, they were so together — off the court. And they were everything but that on the court.” Geno Auriemma, head coach, UConn women’s basketball team