Auriemma adjusts messages awaiting return of Bueckers, Fudd

HARTFORD — Every UConn women’s basketball season since current players were at the age of Play-Doh, if not playpens, has been a road to the Final Four. The Huskies have reached a national semifinal and played in the final weekend of the NCAA Tournament every year since 2007.

Games like Saturday’s 78-41 victory over Xavier and stretches like the one the Huskies will now embark on are usually just necessary steps toward the regular, taken-for-granted destination, not necessarily events that shed light on whether the team is actually capable.

Geno Auriemma usually knows and the Huskies always go, 13 tournaments in a row now.

This year, for many reasons, is different.

“My goals for the team are much simpler than, ‘Hey, we’re trying to win a national championship,’” Auriemma said. “I don’t know that they can see that far ahead. Or, ‘We have 13 straight Final Fours. We need to go to the Final Four or it’s a bad year.’ I don’t think they can process that. So for me, the goals I’ve laid out are … I showed them a graph.”

Auriemma illustrated with his right forefinger to the air, simulating a line graph to mark the progress — or lack thereof — for two different kinds of teams, either of which could wind up representing the 2021-22 Huskies.

Through 12 games, several significant injuries and a threeweek absence due to COVID-19 issues, UConn has been a team more prone to letting struggles become prolonged drops in productivity instead of minor bumps in the road.

The Huskies now dribble into a stretch of five road games in 17

Jessica Hill / Associated Press Off crutches, UConn’s Paige Bueckers shoots before the Huskies’ game against Xavier on Saturday in Hartford.