Finally, it’s go time
UConn ready and eager to open season against UMass-Lowell
Geno Auriemma never goes into a season following the same script. He’s always tinkering, experimenting and improvising, trying to find new ways to build on UConn’s legacy.
“There hasn’t been, I don’t think, any time over the last 25 years,” Auriemma said earlier this offseason, “where I feel like I come to practice to start a new season and said, ‘Let’s just do what we did last year. Let’s do it exactly how we did it last year.’ This is not who I am.” This year, he has no choice. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually every layer of normalcy around college basketball, forcing everyone to adapt to a new playbook in preparation for the season.
Up to this point, the thirdranked Huskies haven’t been able to do much besides practice. They’ve already had three games canceled, including a top-five showdown with Louisville, and two others postponed. Saturday’s tilt with UMass-Lowell, set for 1 p.m. at Gampel Pavilion, will be their first in more than nine months.
“We’ve been at it for so long, since the end of July or early August, that we’ve practiced too much, we’ve had way too much time on the court without any games,” Auriemma said. “I don’t know that there’s any more time that you can spend on the floor to be any more ready to play.”
That fact notwithstanding, Au
riemma — set to begin his 36th season in Storrs — is keeping his expectations relatively modest for the opener.
“My expectations are not very high, let’s put it that way,” Auriemma said. “My expectations going into a preseason exhibition game are not very high, and that’s where I am right now.”
Adding another layer of uncertainty to the equation is the makeup of UConn’s roster. Of the 11 players on this year’s squad, seven are newcomers, including six freshmen and junior guard Evina Westbrook, who sat out last season after transferring from Tennessee. There isn’t a senior on the team for the first time since 2006-07.
Fortunately, even in this peculiar season, the Huskies don’t need to be a finished product anytime soon.
“We have hopefully a full season to do that,” associate head coach Chris Dailey said. “We don’t need to win the national championship or lose the national championship on Day 1.”
There have been years, Dailey added, “where when we started the season, you didn’t know if the team was going to pass the ball to us, the other team, or the scorer’s table, or possibly you guys on media row. The ball could’ve gone anywhere. That’s where we started. In the end, we ended up going to the Final Four.”
After an extra-long offseason, the Huskies are just relieved to finally play, you know, an actual game.
“We’re going to be messing up, getting our kinks out first game, I’m sure of it,” Westbrook said. “All the excitement, especially for our young guys, it’s going to be great.”
UCONN ADJUSTS SCHEDULE FOR NEXT WEEK
The Huskies will visit Seton Hall on Dec. 15 and will host Creighton on Dec. 17, the school announced Friday. Both games will tip off at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised by SNY.
The Huskies were previously scheduled to face Butler on Dec. 15, but that game was postponed after the Bulldogs had a positive COVID-19 test within their program. Butler is now on pause.
The Seton Hall game was originally scheduled for Dec. 6, then moved to Dec. 17. Assuming no further changes, that will be UConn’s first game back in the Big East since 2012-13.