The bar never lowers
Ultimately, success at UConn measured by national titles
They will be an uncrowned dynasty next season that must be driven by the hard truth that it hasn’t won anything since 2016.
The UConn women will have not one, not two, but three former national Gatorade high school players of the year on the basketball court in 2021-22. Senior Christyn Williams. Sophomore Paige Bueckers. Freshman Azzi Fudd.
Since Bueckers already has been declared the greatest thing since sliced bread … hey, somebody get a new loaf in here. Azzi is coming and she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
It was no surprise that many of the first things said and written Friday night after a most surprising, most unpleasant, doubledigit Final Four loss was about the once-again empire of the Huskies.
The loss to three-seed Arizona is the start of a 120-game winning streak.
It’s the last loss before three or four more consecutive national titles.
What a wonderful season of renewal with the freshman it was and a harbinger of unparalleled things to come. Those horrible trolls will be complaining the UConn women are bad for basketball by New Year’s Eve.
There’s one small problem. The Huskies haven’t won squat since 2016.
Those AAC titles and this season’s Big East title? They are like giving the Gonzaga men the championship trophy of the Spokane CYO league. The Huskies show up. They’re undefeated.
The best talent doesn’t necessarlate
ily win anything without an edge. Motivation forges a red-hot chip. “We really like each other.” That mantra is not enough. Unless Evina Westbrook decides to go to the WNBA, everyone is back. A sole determination to make up for this stinker against Arizona when they were 14-point favorites? That’s certainly a start, but it’s also a little self-centered and certainly not program all-encompassing.
No, the overarching motivation of next year’s team has to be about bringing a national championship back to Storrs. Where it belongs. Where it hasn’t happened since 2016. Not because it’s something cool to talk about and how many Instagram followers someone has, but because it is the torch of greatness they’ve been assigned to accept. If that is too much, maybe this group isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The Huskies weren’t picked to win it all this season, but without a definitive favorite, they surely found their 12th title within their grasp. They weren’t up to the moment.
I smiled amid the quiet postgame when Geno Auriemma said, “At least on my end, I’m going to be coaching in the Final Four next year on April 2, whatever that date is.”
Auriemma’s guarantee recognizes what he has on his roster. The Huskies have been in 13 Final Fours in a row and as amazing as that is, it isn’t the bar to clear for UConn women’s basketball the next three, four years.
A national championship is. There’s no shame in wanting it. There is no shame in saying it. Breanna Stewart did and she went out and ran the table.
I am now prepared to name the greatest freshman in UConn women’s history: It’s Breanna Stewart. Start to finish? No. She had some mid-season doldrums. Yet the way Stewart dominated the final three NCAA Tournament games, averaging nearly 25 points and toppling Notre Dame after losing three times to the Irish during the season … that is championship legend.
Bueckers, the first freshman to win AP Player of the Year, wasn’t the best college player in America on Friday night. She wasn’t even the best player on the court.
Aari McDonald, full of strut and overflowing with confidence on both ends, was. Paige wasn’t the best player on her team. Williams was, before the refs made a ridiculously bad call to foul her out with 3:51 left. Bueckers got 18 points but missed eight of 13 shots and was made to look ordinary.
“As good as Paige was this year, and she carried our team through most of the season, that’s not how you win championships, with one player having to do everything,” Auriemma said. “As good as you all think she is, and she’s really good, if we’re going to be here the next couple years with her at Connecticut, she needs to get a lot better. I don’t mean just on the court either.”
Arizona came out full of emotion and defiance. They were left out of the promotional NCAA Final Four video. Yet another screwup. Good grief, is someone trying to sabotage the entire operation? The Wildcats were underplayed in a video before beating Texas A&M, too. Coach Adia Barnes stuck up her middle finger in a giddy postgame team huddle at midcourt. She was saying to her players forget all the doubters. Yes, it belonged in the privacy of the locker room and Barnes should have been aware of the cameras, but let’s not get too sanctimonious. Barnes meant only for her team to see it.
The Wildcats’ defense was devastating. They did everything to deny Bueckers the ball. Did you see the way they trap and another defender steps into the gap looking to intercept a pass? The way they rush to defend high screens and hustle equally fast to recover? How they pound post players? UConn supposedly had a marked edge with its bigs, but got outscored 22-18 in the paint. Arizona rebounded with the Huskies. UConn missing 15 layups was inexcusable. Olivia Nelson-Ododa’s 0-for-7? Inexplicable.
After the men’s similar fate against Maryland in the NCAAs, let’s ditch the slam dunk and 3-point contests at next season’s First Night. Hold a layup contest.
UConn was rattled. I don’t use the word “choke” or “gag” when it comes to college kids. But I’m hard-pressed for another word to describe how the highest-assist, highest-scoring team in the nation came up with 22 points — nine turnovers, eight buckets — in the first 20 minutes.
“I think we came out with the wrong mentality,” Williams said. “I thought we thought it was going to be easy, I guess, and we got flustered. They had great ball pressure, it wasn’t like anything we’ve seen before this season.”
There’s some powder keg stuff in that quote. Did the Huskies really take Arizona too lightly? Were they under-prepared for Arizona’s defense?
“I’ve said all along this year we have a very immature group, not just young,” Auriemma said when asked. “When we’re high and when we’re on top of the world, we think everything’s great.
“When things don’t go our way, there’s a poutiness about us, there’s a feeling sorry for ourselves about us. You don’t win championships when you’re like that unless you get lucky. If that indeed is what the mindset was. Because, believe me, the scouting report on Arizona and the game plan on Arizona was way more thorough and way more involved than the Baylor one was.”
The Huskies have been in 21 Final Fours. They have won 11 national championships. They have lost 10 national semifinals. This team was, what? About the 15th best in UConn history? You add Azzi, Amari DeBerry and Caroline Ducharme to a team that’s a year older. And then Ayanna Patterson and Isuneh Brady in 2022? Pretty scary.
Auriemma was correct when he said none of this is easy. It’s also correct to say what has made UConn so good for women’s basketball is that it has spawned so much interest in the game that in a given year more teams can now knock off the top few.
It is also true this is Auriemma’s longest stretch without a title since he won his first in 1995. (UConn wasn’t winning last year. Oregon or South Carolina was). So this is very much his challenge, too. Final Four games have slipped through UConn’s fingers since 2016. Yes, two losses were buzzer-beaters by Morgan William and Arike Ogunbowale. What can you do? Yet there are nits to pick. Azura Stevens should have played more in one. The ball should have found its way into Katie Lou Samuelson’s hands late. In 2019, the Huskies blew a late nine-point lead against Notre Dame. And now Friday night’s Remember the Alamodome.
“I believe that what we learned this year through all the ups and downs is going to really benefit us for the next couple years,” Auriemma said. “I remember saying that in 2008. We played and we lost to Stanford in the semifinal. It was Maya Moore’s freshman year. I said, ‘We’ll be back.’ We went back and we were undefeated the next two seasons. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But we’ll be back here sooner rather than later.”
There already has been some premature debate about whether Bueckers is the best player in college history. With Fudd coming, I can hardly wait for the headline, “The Greatest UConn Team In History?” At any rate, let’s stop counting Paige’s Instagram followers and start counting her natties. It’s time UConn started winning them again.