Geno Auriemma, who arrived late in San Antonio following a positive COVID test, said his return to the Huskies was seamless. “This is all about routine here,” he said. “... It’s all about the same thing, just a different day.
San Antonio — Watching his team's NCAA tournament games from home in Connecticut where he was quarantined following a positive test for COVID-19 was an "unusual feeling," UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma said.
"Knowing that you're not a part of it but you're trying to be a part of it," Auriemma said. "Then you have to sit there and watch the game. The only good thing I can tell you is that you can just get up and walk out. You can't do that during the game (when you're coaching). You're stuck.
"There were a couple times (at home), I just got up and said, 'I can't watch this,' and I just left. And (UConn) played better when I wasn't watching."
Auriemma, in his 36th season as head coach of the Huskies, joined the team on March 24 prior to UConn's 92-72 Sweet 16 victory Saturday against Iowa. UConn, the top seed in the River Walk Region, held off No. 2 Baylor 69-67 in the regional final Monday night at the Alamodome.
Auriemma said that associate head coach Chris Dailey, assistant Jamelle Elliott and interim assistant Ben Kantor were "magnificent" in his absence. He said by the time he arrived in San Antonio, UConn already had a routine.
"Pretty seamless, really," Auriemma said of reacclimating himself to the role of boss. "I really kind of let them do what they've been doing because they had a pretty good routine going. This is all about routine here. What time you wake up, what time you eat, what time you test (for COVID), what time you get to go to practice. It's all about the same thing, just a different day.
"I just kind of got in line and followed the routine. Not much changed in terms of approach of what we're doing."
Auriemma called some of the COVID-19 protocols for the tournament "absolutely beyond ridiculous."
He said, for instance, that only four players per team are allowed in the hotel elevator — "you gotta wait an hour to go down the elevator," he said — even though the teams have been quarantining and eating, practicing and playing games together. Also, the teams aren't allowed outside the hotel.
"It's kind of bizarre, right? ... You're actually being held hostage just so you can play basketball," Auriemma said. "I think the kids have handled it incredibly well. I mean, they want to play really bad so they'll put up with anything to play."
Geno on Kim
As an All-America point guard at Louisiana Tech, Kim Mulkey steered the team to four consecutive national championship games and a pair of titles, one in 1981 (AIAW) and one in 1982 (NCAA). She later became the first person to win national championships as a player, assistant coach (at Louisiana Tech) and as a head coach (at Baylor).
Auriemma said it's no surprise that Mulkey, who has won three national championship as the coach at Baylor and is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2020, has been just as successful as a coach as she was in her playing days.
"I think Kim the coach is an extension of Kim the player," said Auriemma, also a Naismith Hall of Famer. "She coaches exactly the way she played. She's tough. She's competitive. She's driven. There's an intensity level about her.
"It's been consistent that she's true to who she is. This is who Kim is. There's no act there that she's putting on. Her teams have been consistent. Each year they have the same formula. The best thing you can say about a coach is they're true to their personality. They believe in a certain way of playing and coaching and they stay with it. That's why she's had the success that she's had. It's no mystery, really."
Lucky 13
UConn junior Christyn Williams was asked this week why she wears the No. 13, when generally it's a number people might consider unlucky.
Williams, who scored 27 points in Saturday's Sweet 16 victory over Iowa and also defended Iowa star Caitlin Clark, what UConn's Auriemma called the best game of Williams' career, said the number is a family tradition.
"It was my brother's number in baseball and my sister's number in high school and it's also my sister's birthday, Dec. 13," said Williams, who has five older siblings. "So I wear it because me and my sister are really close and just to keep the number in the family."
Quotable
Auriemma on his symptoms from having COVID:
"I lost my taste and smell so what do I care what (the food) tastes like? I think the food has great texture though. And you know what? I think your mind tricks you, too. I was telling somebody, when I look at something and I taste it, I go, 'Wow, yeah, that tastes really good.' Because in my mind I'm tasting a piece of bacon or something. So I'm tasting bacon even though I can't taste it."