New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
UConn feeling sense of relief
STORRS — Former UConn women's basketball star Tina Charles ran up and down the court and played defense against the current Huskies while former UConn men's basketball star Ray Allen watched alongside Geno Auriemma from halfcourt.
It's been a long week for UConn women's basketball.
Eight days ago, the program had to postpone a Big East game after too many injuries left the team without the conference standard of seven available players. It was also without Auriemma, who stepped away from the team for about a week to focus on his health.
On Wednesday against St. John's, Auriemma returned to the team and so did Azzi Fudd, the team's star sophomore and current leading scorer.
With Charles and Allen present in practice Saturday morning, it felt as if team spirits were high again and a renewed sense of peace had finally begun to settle in Storrs.
“Having Coach and Azzi back on the same day, I feel like that gave us a little like relief,” point guard Nika Mühl said. “… I feel like finally everything's gonna be set together the way it was supposed to be.”
The Huskies, who host Georgetown on Sunday (4 p.m./SNY), still remain without Ayanna Patterson and Caroline Ducharme due to concussions. However, Auriemma said Ducharme is progressing upwards. Both Patterson and Ducharme watched practice from the sideline on Saturday.
“We're hopeful, little by little,” Auriemma said. “She tries to do a little bit more every day and every day the more she does, the better she responds.”
Fudd played 20 minutes on Wednesday and scored 15 points after sitting out fiveplus weeks due to a knee injury. Auriemma said the team had Thursday off and practiced both Friday and Saturday. He was impressed with Fudd's ability to jump right back in and not miss a beat out on the court.
“She didn't change at all,” Mühl said about Fudd. “She just came in (and) did her thing, didn't need a lot to settle in back with us. So yeah, and it's not even just her offense. It's her defense that also brings so much to our team, to our game.”
Saturday was the first time Auriemma spoke with the media in the past two weeks after taking the last week off to recover. Auriemma said Saturday he was still struggling to sleep and focus following the death of his mother in December on top of battling the lasting effects of a flu-like cold the same month.
The week off gave him some much-needed time away from basketball responsibilities. On Saturday, the Hall of Fame Husky coach said he's feeling much better.
“I had a lot of time to just focus on what I gotta do to get to get myself ready and it worked,” he said. “I feel better than I felt in the last in the last month.”
Mühl said it was a great surprise seeing Auriemma walk onto the team's bus on Tuesday before it left campus for New York
“It feels amazing,” Mühl said. “He's the leader of our team. He does so much for us. Obviously, he's the coach. So, we were all so happy to see him on the bus the first time. It really gave us hope to go forward. It was great.”
Fudd's return gives UConn eight available players and allows the team to return to a more normal practice workload.
“Especially in practice, we have more bodies,” Mühl said. “We're able to play more aggressive, run more, do more things that we couldn't do before because we had to either save ourselves or like, save our energy or like just be more careful when it comes to the amount of people that we have. So, it's definitely a big relief.”
The team was treated to a ninth healthy body this week in 6-foot-5, 34-year-old Charles.
Charles, a 13-year veteran in the WNBA, played for UConn from 2006 to 2010, helping the program win the 2009 and 2010 national championships. She won the John Wooden Award as a senior after being named the WBCA and USA Today national player of the year as a senior in high school in 2006.
She practiced with the team both Friday and Saturday. For some drills, she jumped in and did them alongside the players, while in others she played on defense with the team's practice players. On Saturday, Charles spent time talking to current Husky forward Aaliyah Edwards off to the side and demonstrated how to get around defenders in the post.
“Oh my god, that was amazing,” Mühl said. “… She has been in the WNBA for 13 years. That's a long time. You expect them (veterans) to be so good, but you know, seeing that on the court, the way she plays, the way she reads the game. You can't move her. She's literally like a rock and the paint.”
Mühl said on Friday Charles even got yelled at — jokingly—by associate head coach Chris Dailey to run harder during a drill.
On Saturday, Charles took time to high-five all the practice players and Mühl said Charles did the same with the players on Friday.
“It's funny. Even after 13 years, you know, CD (Dailey) and coach are always gonna find something to tell them,” Mühl said before laughing. “It just proves how good Tina is and how good of a job they did with her because you know, she still accepts making mistakes or like her needing to be better even after 13 years in the league, which is crazy to me.
“It just shows her growth and like, how amazing of a vet and a player she is. And that really made me think a little bit about (the) future and how I want to be, you know, after 13 years of playing somewhere.”