The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Some silver linings
Auriemma pulls a few positives from frustrating loss
HARTFORD — When he had their attention in the quiet disappointment of the locker room, not long after an oh-so-close performance against the best and deepest team in the nation before front of an earsplitting sellout crowd, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma asked his players whether they felt the glass was half full or half empty.
Junior point guard Nika Mühl, whose fuse burns faster and brighter than anyone’s, was the first to speak up, saying, as Auriemma recalled, “It’s empty. It sucks. We lost.”
Auriemma acknowledged that and addressed it immediately. He agreed that Sunday’s 81-77 loss to South Carolina stung, and he reminded players that such an outcome in such a setting is supposed to. Then he shifted to a perspective that matters more in the first week of February than a final score, particularly given the current construction of his team.
UConn jumped to an early lead, didn’t fold when it was erased and relentlessly chased an outcome that simply isn’t within reach for a rotation of six or a team with so many points and minutes represented only in gray warm-ups on the bench.
“In that respect, we have a lot to feel good about, once they get past what it feels like to lose,” Auriemma said. “I told them I feel better at 3 o’clock today than I did at 12 o’clock. Because at 12 o’clock, I didn’t know how we would respond. I knew we would play hard. We’ve been playing hard all year long. I knew we would compete like hell. But I didn’t know who was going to make a big play, who was going to get a big rebound, who was going to make a big shot. I know more now than I did at noon, and I feel better about my team.”
Strange as it is to appreciate much of anything about a loss, a March-maybeApril foundation was laid for UConn during a game that drew the eyes of the nation. Ultimately, the task was too tall. It was impossible for UConn to win with what they have, and with what they were unable to do: make or even attempt enough 3-pointers, keep South Carolina off the offensive glass and prevent Aliyah Boston from hammering her way to another dominant performance.
Also impossible, however, was for the 15,564 on hand at the corner of Church and Ann to leave the building Sunday without a firm belief that the biggest postseason goals reside just on the other side of a few returns and a few corrections.
When Auriemma left the locker room, he crossed paths with Paige Bueckers (out for the season with a torn ACL) and Azzi Fud (out indefinitely with her own knee injury). They sat next to each other on the bench Sunday, with Caroline Ducharme (out 11 games and counting while in concussion protocol) and Ice Brady (out for the year with a dislocated patella).
“I said, ‘Paige, you playing in March?’ ” Auriemma said. “She goes, ‘Yup.’ I said, ‘How about you, Azzi?’ She goes, ‘A lot sooner than that, hopefully.’ Azzi was being truthful. Paige was lying her ass off.”
Truths: UConn showed on Sunday that it remains an elite team while shorthanded. UConn expects to be a much better team, with needed reinforcements, in the coming weeks. UConn, with just seven regular season Big East games remaining and a
21-3 record, looks deserving of No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
South Carolina completed the trifecta, as coach Dawn Staley called it, having finally won a game in this series on the road after previously defeating Huskies at home in Feb. 2020 and twice last season on a neutral court, including the national championship game.
“This was a national championship-like game,” Staley said Sunday. “In the whole grand scheme of things it’s really not important, but for your psyche — for us to win this game, when we beat UConn in the regular season, great things happen in the postseason. You’ve got to have some success. You’ve got to feel some success. Or else you play them again and you’ve lost that [first] game and it does give you a little bit of doubt that you can beat them.”
That’s not where UConn stands today, harboring any doubt. Frustration? Sure. “The feeling is unsatisfying,” junior forward Aaliyah Edwards said. “But I’m proud that we punched first and we came out aggressive and strong and with a lot of energy.”
Lou Lopez Sénéchal, a graduate guard, said,
“Obviously we want to get out of these games with a win, but we know we’ll see them again and we’ll get the win.”
The return of Fudd or Ducharme is not a magic panacea for an entire project or reason to ignore the need for significant improvements. And whether a March matchup with the season on the line — maybe the Elite Eight or the Final Four — is against South Carolina or another capable team is irrelevant. UConn is going to be tested like this again and will be in better position to pass that test.
Still, these equations are more complicated than having more than one players available off the bench. South Carolina reserves outscored UConn’s 37-0 Sunday. That wouldn’t happen in a normal state of affairs. But the Huskies made just two 3-pointers and were rather lucky on that front.
One came from Mühl, a shot that bounced not once of the rim, but twice, high into the air before gravity pulled it through the net for a 16-8 UConn lead. The building was buzzing. The other came from Lopez Sénéchal, who banked in a prayer at the first quarter buzzer, putting the Huskies ahead 25-14. The building was shaking.
That was it, though. UConn was 2-for-6 on 3’s in the game. That’s part of a recipe that usually leads to an ugly result. Auriemma knew South Carolina would have a rebounding advantage and figured his team might need 10 3pointers to compensate. But did he figure on the Gamecocks pulling down 25 offensive rebounds?
Time and again, encouraging defensive possessions were wiped out by a put-back. Such plays allowed South Carolina to hang around as it got more comfortable in the environment, and enabled the Gamecocks to build a 12 point lead with just over two minutes remaining.
UConn is waiting on, arguably, the best shooter in American to return (Fudd). Ducharme has sized but is more of a perimeter threat herself. There’s no 6-foot-4 post player waiting for clearance. Edwards was a force Sunday, scoring 25 points in one of the best breakthrough over her young career, but Juhász — who missed last season’s national championship game, when South Carolina had 21 offensive rebounds in a 15-point victory — struggled with five points and seven rebounds on 2-for-9 shooting.
“It’s, I would say, maybe undoable if they’re going to play where the focus of their attack is inside every single possession,” Auriemma said. “So unless you have four 6-5 guys you can throw out there ... I don’t know that we have an answer for it, completely. Now, there were 6-7 times — and this is a big play — when we’re in position and here’s the ball and here’s our hands and they come up with it and get a bucket. They’re going to get their share, but you also can’t let them have the ones that you [should] have. That’s an issue. Can it get fixed? To a certain degree, but it still comes down to you’ve got to score points against them.”
It’s borderline remarkable that UConn scored 77 points with just two 3pointers.
It’s quite impressive that the Huskies were within striking distance until the final possession.
It was, overall, a frustrating but encouraging afternoon downtown.
Before the Huskies are into games that will make or break their season, some of those players in gray warm-ups will be in uniform.
“Hopefully sooner than later,” Auriemma said.