Oregon has Sabrina, and the Huskies don’t
STORRS — He’d say it and those who knew women’s basketball understood its power. Only six words and the chips were cashed, the mic was dropped, the lights went out and the party was over.
“We have Diana,” Geno Auriemma would say, “and you don’t.”
Have a good night. Drive home safely.
Years later, as the legend of Taurasi grew and the number of UConn national championships swelled to 11, those words would be paraphrased for Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart. Maybe they fit perfectly. Maybe they fit nearly perfectly.
Either way, the message was clear: UConn had the best player.
And you didn’t.
Not Monday night. Not at soldout Gampel Pavilion. Not in national flag blue. Not this time.
Oregon has Sabrina Ionescu. And UConn doesn’t.
The Huskies have had tripledouble scorers before. Five different players did it. Laura Lishness against Providence in 1989, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis against St. Joseph’s in 2014, Kiah Stokes against East Carolina in 2015,
Gabby Williams was the last to do it in 2017 against East Carolina. Stefanie Dolson even did it against Oregon with 26 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in 2013. Heady numbers.
“I haven’t had one yet,” said Megan Walker, who leads UConn at 19.7 points and nine rebounds per game. “It’s pretty hard to do. You have to be really active and talented.”
“(Ionescu) doesn’t get frazzled,” said Crystal Dangerfield, who leads the Huskies with four assists a game. “Teams throw their best shot at her night-in and night-out and she continues to do what she does.”
Since the NCAA started officially counting assists in the
1980s, Kyle Collinsworth of BYU is the only player in Division I college basketball, men or women, with more than nine triple doubles. He had 12.
Ionescu has 23.
The 5-11 guard’s latest arrived Saturday with 24 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds in only 27 minutes during the 101-53 rout at Colorado.
“Basketball, no matter how much it changes, if you have the best guards you have a chance to have the best team,” Auriemma said. “When you don’t, you’re always going to struggle against the teams that do. We’ve been fortunate over the years. We’ve had some great, great, great, great guards. They’re in that situation right now.”
All hail Sabrina! The Triple-Double Queen of Walnut Creek, Calif. Her parents arrived from Romania a few years prior to her birth, and as the daughter of parents who arrived in the U.S. from Argentina, Taurasi told ESPN recently she is impressed by Ionescu’s “immigrant mindset.”
“Maybe your parents don’t necessarily speak English really well when you’re a kid, and you may have to do some things other kids don’t,” Taurasi told ESPN. “But you see your parents just going to work every day, working hard. You take that on: You want to prove to everyone that you belong. That stuff comes out in you. I know I still have that chip on my shoulder.”
Oregon is deep, experienced and balanced. Yet it wasn’t until last season’s national player of the year announced she’d forego the WNBA to stay for her senior year did the Ducks become the favorite for their first national title.
“She’s able to conjure up whatever she needs in any particular possession to help her team,” Auriemma said when asked to compare Ionescu to guards Taurasi and Sue Bird when they were at UConn. “Whether it’s a defensive play, a rebound, an assist or a big three, some kind of play that has to be made. She knows when it has to be made. She has the ability and the great-player mentality to make that play and inspire her teammates, making her teammates even better… which is what (Bird and Taurasi) were always great at.
“There are kids who play basketball and there are basketball players. She’s a basketball player, through and through, every part of her body. She’s a tough kid. When you rebound as much as she does, that says something. She’s an emotional leader. She studies the game. She’s going to have an interesting career going forward from college, but the last four years she has redefined what’s possible for a point guard.”
After losses to Louisville and at Arizona State, Oregon has beaten Stanford, Arizona and Oregon State (twice). The Ducks are on a roll. Their disadvantages? Gampel Pavilion, with the students back in session, will be rocking. This also will be Oregon’s third game in five nights.
“I don’t think they broke a sweat in those two games (wins of 37 over Utah and 48 over Colorado),” Auriemma said. “I think they’ll be well-rested and excited.”
UConn’s angst? Christyn Williams, who has suffered with flu-like symptoms, is expected to play against Oregon.
“We need everyone to play great,” Auriemma
said three separate times.
The third time he elaborated.
“It’s pretty telling why,” Auriemma said. “Sabrina has about 100 more assists than anyone on our team. That was always us. That’s not us this year. The ball doesn’t move like it used to do. Not as many people make plays. Not as many people finish plays. A good pass doesn’t always turn into an assist.
“We don’t have that ability to methodically take teams apart. Boom. Boom. Boom. Either the players touching it are too young, too inexperienced, not used to being in that spot where they’ve got to finish. It’s more so than any year I can remember. It’s why we’ve got to play this game 5-on-5 as opposed to Gabby (Williams) or Pheesa (Collier) is going to win this game by herself.
Does Auriemma have a national player of the year-caliber player on his current roster, if not this year, next or the one after? Walker? Williams?
“That story hasn’t been written yet,” Auriemma answered. “The national player of the year types we’ve had could come into a game like tomorrow night and get 30 and get 15 rebounds or 12 assists and then defend the other team’s best player. I don’t know if we’ve had any so far show us that’s who they are. Can that happen? Maybe.
“The national player of the year types we’ve had up to this point you knew when they were freshmen that’s what they were going to be. They showed you that. The roster we have right now is more a collection of good players. I don’t know that any of our players when they were freshmen you went, ‘That’s their next superstar right there.’ They’re all in the process of becoming something. I don’t know what that is and when it’s going to happen.”
During the offseason, Ionescu, who’s averaging 17.7 points, 8.7 rebounds and 8.6 assists, helped Kobe Bryant coach his daughter Gigi’s team. So did Collier. Walker said she worked out with Ionescu over the summer. Ionescu had grown close to the Bryants and their death last weekend hit her especially hard. According to the Oregonian, Kobe and the 13-year-old Gigi, who wanted to play for UConn, had planned to attend the game in Storrs.
“If Sabrina didn’t give us the impression that she was going to make her decision her sophomore year in college on where to go to school — I’ve never seen a kid wait that long to make a decision — we might have still kept recruiting her,” Auriemma said of Ionescu who didn’t commit to Oregon until June of her senior year. “You saw her play in high school, you could see everything you see today. She just had that aura about her. That way about her. The way she carries herself. The way she drives herself and drives her teammates.”
He praises Ionescu up, down and all the way to turning down the WNBA Draft to return to Oregon.
“She values the things kids her age you hope value,” Auriemma said earnestly.
And then the mischievous look crossed his face.
“If the money was $30 million,” he said, “she wouldn’t have valued it as much.”
Sometimes Geno, the wise guy, just can’t help himself.
And sometimes they’ve got Sabrina and you don’t.