Auriemma focused on Huskies’ balance ahead of game at Seton Hall
About two inches of snow and slush fell in Connecticut Tuesday morning.
Yet as the UConn women’s basketball team was heading to South Orange, N.J. Tuesday afternoon, the goals are simple: find your balance and don’t slip.
The No. 9 Huskies play at Seton Hall Wednesday night, hoping to continue their recent success on the court while extending their win streak to 11 straight games. It will mark UConn’s fourth road trip of its first five games of 2024.
While coach Geno Auriemma is impressed with how well his team is playing, he’s now tasked with finding the right balance of preparation to keep the team on its upward trajectory without getting too comfortable.
“It’s a balance,” Auriemma said Tuesday. “If you try to stay the way you are, you’re probably going to slip, right? Natural game slippage, you know, time slippage, so you can’t stay the way you are.”
UConn is 5-2 in road games this season. Both losses were in November and came against teams that eventually moved up
NO. 9 UCONN AT SETON HALL Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. (SNY) into the AP Top 5 before recent injuries.
Yet, the way the Huskies are playing now is completely different. Despite having five players out with injury (Caroline Ducharme remains out indefinitely due to neck/ back spasms), UConn has found its groove.
Underclassmen have stepped up and produced while even the team’s most experienced guards have adapted and thrived in their new roles. As a team, UConn is second in the nation with a 51.5 field goal percentage with all five starters shooting over 50 percent.
UConn sits atop the Big East with a two-win lead and is beating conference opponents by an average of 38 points a game in five games since winter break.
“We’re playing really, really, really well,” Auriemma said. “We’ve played exceptionally well on the road at two of the teams that have gotten off to a really good start. I think the trick is to try to stay at the level that we’re at. … Right now, though, you know, small sample. I
like where we are. I like the way we’re playing. I like what we’re doing on the court, and this is one more road game tomorrow then we’ll see.”
But national championships aren’t won in January. Auriemma and his staff have organized practices with the priority of giving its starters rest. While the Huskies are always working toward getting better with each and every drill, making sure his players stay healthy and peak at the right time is the ultimate goal.
“If you try to do too much you risk, ‘Did we overdo it?’ So, every year is about finding that balance of how do we stay well-conditioned where we can play a lot of minutes if we have to without playing a lot of minutes in practice,” Auriemma said. “We’re always juggling. It’s always a juggling act. … Let’s see if we can keep those balls juggling
in the air and make sure we don’t drop any of them.”
Wednesday’s game at Seton Hall will be the first time the Huskies face the Pirates’ new look without former star point guard Lauren Park-Lane. Park-Lane spent four years in South Orange becoming one of the program’s all-time best point guards before transferring this spring to Mississippi State for her extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.
Longtime Seton Hall head coach Tony Bozzella dove into the transfer portal to make up for ParkLane’s departure and bring in new faces, including Stamford native I’yanna Lops from St. Bonaventure.
And the Pirates haven’t missed a beat with their new look. Seton Hall is 11-6 to start the season, including a handful of close games against ranked opponents. Back in November, the Pirates came within 10 points of then-No. 8 USC and pushed then-No.
25 Princeton to double overtime before losing by four points. Seton Hall defeated then-No. 23 UNLV, 84-54, in mid-December.
“I think it’s very very difficult when you’re in a situation where you gotta start from scratch almost and all the new faces that Tony has on his roster,” Auriemma said. “And yet, they’re still finding ways to have some success. I think it’s always somewhat similar when you play Seton Hall, you know, kind of what their style of play is. It’s just, you’re getting ready for a whole new team. And that’s never the easiest thing in the world.
“We’re going to play the way we play It’s not like, ‘Hey, we have a box, and we pull out a different way to play every game, you know, to suit the opponent.’ We have, ‘This is what we do. This is who we are, and this is how we’re going to play.’ And if there’s teams out there that can play that style better than us, nothing we can do about it.”