For Auriemma, some normalcy returns, many unknowns remain
When the Nov. 25 start date for the 202021 season was announced, the UConn women’s basketball team gained something it had been seeking: a sense of direction.
“Before we got the notification that the season’s going to start the 25th, we really didn’t know what to do, we didn’t know how to prepare,” coach Geno Auriemma said this week in a phone interview. “We just did a few things that would help our players get acclimated.”
With a clearer timeline now set, the Huskies can begin preparing like they normally would. Players have been on campus since late July amid strict COVID-19 protocols.
All 11 of them eased back to work in small groups with the coaching staff on Aug. 4 before transitioning to larger workouts twice and then three times a week.
Full practices can begin on Oct. 14.
“We were all anxious to get into the gym,” Auriemma said. “We were all anxious just to have our players come up on campus, and everyone was anxious to get on the court and start working with them. The players were anxious to get to work.
“When that happened, there was a sense of, ‘All right, this is what we do. This is what we do for a living. The kids play and we coach.’ That’s been really good.”
For UConn’s Hall of Fame coach, who is just shy of his 36th season, time in the gym may be the closest thing he’s had to a slice of normalcy this offseason. In years past, he would spend some of his summer attending different AAU tournaments across the country, hoping to lure his next big recruit.
However, in-person recruiting visits — both on and off-campus — will remain on hold through Jan. 1 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is probably the longest I’ve not been on a plane in 40 years, to be honest with you,” Auriemma said. “Yeah, it’s been about 40 years that this is the longest I’ve not been on a plane or in a hotel room overnight. Crazy. All of a sudden it goes away.”
As for the upcoming season, scheduling remains a challenge. Teams can play a maximum of 25 games or 23 if they participate in a tournament that includes up to four games. The Huskies are slated to compete in the Hall of Fame Challenge on Nov. 28-29 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville along with Quinnipiac, Mississippi State and Maine, and that remains on track.
Big East coaches, as reported by Hearst Connecticut Media, voted in favor of playing a 20-game league schedule as originally planned. The conference is still formulating plans for when and where those games will be held, but an early December start remains likely.
Beyond that, more questions than answers remain at this point.
“We know we’re playing 20 (conference) games, we know we’re playing at least four or five non-conference games, but we don’t know what that entails,” Auriemma said. “Every day it seems like there’s more guidance to come — how many games you can play, is there a 24hour rule when you have to quarantine when you get back — and all these things are making the actual scheduling of the games really, really difficult.
“We have to try to get all of our non-conference games in before Jan. 1. That’s one of the goals that I think every conference has so you can save dates for all your conference games in case something gets disrupted. But in terms of how we’re going to get there, when the games are going to be played, are there going to be fans, no one right now has any idea about that.”