The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn women face test tonight against No. 7 Texas
UConn to play non-conference game at No. 7 Longhorns
AUSTIN, Texas — Two seasons before leading the UConn women’s basketball team to the first of its 18 Final Four appearances, Geno Auriemma offered a glimpse into his scheduling philosophy.
Auriemma agreed to play in the 1988 Cardinal Classic even though it meant facing national powerhouse Stanford on the road.
Auriemma certainly could have arranged for his Huskies to stay at home and get a couple of easy wins to push the team’s record to 10-1. Instead, he knew the best way to prepare for the upcoming Big East schedule would be to get his players outside of their comfort zone. Losses to No. 9 Stanford by 19 points and to Virginia Tech by two the following day in addition to one three weeks earlier to Duke at the VCU Classic toughened his team up. The Huskies would win the Big East regularseason and tournament titles to secure the program’s first NCAA tournament bid.
Fast forward to Monday night and once against Auriemma has found a way to step away from the conference portion of the schedule to test his team as UConn will play at No. 7 Texas (7 p.m., ESPN2).
UConn has already played five non-conference games against ranked teams, but Auriemma didn’t hesitate in agreeing to play the starstudded Texas team. The Huskies also have February non-conference games on the road against defending national champion South Carolina and at home against a Louisville team that might take away some of UConn’s first-place votes in the two national polls after the undefeated Cardinals trounced
No. 2 Notre Dame on national television.
“Those are three pretty good teams and two of them are on the road. I know coaches have this idea of our conference is so tough that we don’t want to play anybody outside of our conference. I think it is the most bogus thing I’ve ever heard,” Auriemma said. “We played in the toughest conference in women’s basketball before our (Big East) conference broke up and we loved playing non-conference games in January and February. You just get out and play in somewhat of a meaningless game. If you are in a conference where you are trying to win a championship, this game means nothing, it is just a game. It generally has nothing to do with NCAA seeding either, nobody’s seedings are going to get hurt, somebody can help themselves.
“I love games like this. I especially love them on the road and I especially love them on Monday night after a Saturday game because when you get to the NCAA tournament this is exactly what you get with a game on Saturday or Sunday and a game on Monday or Tuesday. And the game after this one is usually harder than the one that you just played so to me there is absolutely no downside.”
UConn has spent more weeks at No. 1 in the Associated Press poll than any other program, but that has never been what drives Auriemma. He wants to give his team the best chance at success in the postseason.
It was why he pushed for the American Athletic Conference schedule to be cut from 18 to 16 games so he could add a couple more challenging nonconference road games. His current squad seems to embrace these kinds of challenges. If the Huskies win on Monday, it would make the first time in program history that they have won five straight true road games against teams ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press poll.
“We’ve been in this situation where teams will be fired up like this,” UConn senior forward Gabby Williams said. “It poses a different challenge every single time. It is not something that we can take lightly. I think we get excited for these games because they don’t come around that often.”