Louisville final test before a break

STORRS — It’s been a tough two weeks for UConn.

On Dec. 5, Paige Bueckers went down in the final minute of UConn’s game against Notre Dame with a tibial plateau fracture.

Three days later, coach Geno Auriemma announced Nika Mühl was out with a foot injury, joining freshman Azzi Fudd (foot) on the sideline.

The day after Auriemma’s announcement on Mühl, the Huskies lost at Georgia Tech, snapping their 240-game win streak over unranked opponents. Two days after that, UConn turned things around and defeated

UCLA in Newark.

But the chaos continued into this week. On Monday, sophomore Mir McLean entered the transfer portal and UConn fell to No. 7 in the AP Top 25 Poll for its lowest ranking since 2007. On Tuesday, it was announced Bueckers underwent a successful surgery for her fracture and a torn meniscus and would be out eight weeks.

“It’s been a lot,” Auriemma told media Friday after practice. “It’s been overwhelming because it’s not just Paige. Because if it was just Paige and we had Azzi and Nika, that’s two guards that can take a lot of the pressure off the guards we already have. But it’s three guards, so the overwhelming enormity of it is what’s got them down. That there’s no relief. … The reality is going to sink in little by little that this is it, this is what we’ve got.”

UConn concluded a full week of practice, in between exams, on Friday with a visit from former Husky Napheesa Collier, who is expecting her first child in the spring. The visit helped lift spirits as UConn prepares to face No. 6 Louisville on Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena after coming off a stretch of four games in nine days with a depleted bench.

“It’s been crazy,” senior Evina Westbrook said. “We’re all sitting in the locker room and were like, ‘It feels like we’re in the middle of February going into April.’ It just

John Bazemore / Associated Press UConn coach Geno Auriemma watches from the bench during a game against Georgia Tech.