It’s the first dance for a number of Huskies.
Many on Huskies’ roster to get initial NCAA tourney experience
SAN ANTONIO — It’s been almost two years since redshirt junior Evina Westbrook played in the Big Dance.
For most of her UConn teammates, the wait has been even longer.
In fact, only three Huskies have NCAA Tournament experience, but that’ll change Sunday (8 p.m., ESPN) when the nation’s topranked team takes on No. 16 High Point at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
“It’s definitely been a long time coming,” Westbrook said this week. “We still don’t take anything for granted. Just that there is a tournament in itself is a blessing. To be able to say that we’re going dancing is a blessing.”
The Huskies arrived in Texas Tuesday and, after quarantining in their hotel rooms, practiced Thursday. Associate head coach Chris Dailey, running the team in head coach Geno Auriemma’s absence, noticed a little more bounce to their step in their return to the court.
“They were anxious,” Dailey said. “They were excited to actually play and practice. You sit around all day, and sometimes … it could be like, ‘eh,’ but it wasn’t. It was very enthusiastic right from the get-go, and they were demanding of each other.”
“It was good,” junior center Olivia Nelson-Ododa said, “just to get moving again.”
UConn has won 26 consecutive NCAA Tournament openers, dating to a loss to Louisville in 1993. Two years later, the Huskies captured their first national championship. Nothing’s been the same since.
It’s incredibly unlikely that streak ends this year, or anytime soon for that matter, even with the Huskies missing half their coaching staff. Auriemma, who tested positive for COVID-19 last Sunday, won’t rejoin the team until March 24, and assistant Shea Ralph’s return is uncertain. Ralph left the
Texas bubble after a member of her family was diagnosed with the coronavirus last Wednesday.
“We talk about there’s a different UConn team regular season and (during) the NCAA Tournament,” Dailey said. “I think they embrace that and they practiced last night like a Connecticut team getting ready to play in the NCAA Tournament.”
UConn — a No. 1 seed for the 13th time in 14 years — certainly looked the part in the Big East Tournament, dusting St. John’s, Villanova and Marquette to run their record to 24-1.
The 11-time national champions are undoubtedly one of the youngest teams in the field of 64. They have seven freshmen — three who play big minutes in AP All-American Paige Bueckers, Big East Sixth Woman of the Year Aaliyah Edwards, and Nika Muhl — to go with two sophomores in Aubrey Griffin and Anna Makurat, both of whom weren’t afforded the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament last year because of the pandemic.
Nelson-Ododa and guard Christyn Williams were freshmen on UConn’s 2019 Final Four squad. Westbrook
made it to the tournament that same season with Tennessee, losing in the first round.
What will Williams, the team’s second-leading scorer and an emerging defender, tell those who haven’t been there?
“I would tell them there’s going to be a lot of people in the stands, don’t let that get to you. But there’s not going to be a lot of people there,” Williams said. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that. It’ll be just like a practice game, really.”
Only with higher stakes, of course.
“Obviously it sucks because they don’t know what it usually is like to experience a natural (NCAA) Tournament,” Williams said of the freshmen. “It’s different. We usually have our coach here, and we’re stuck in our rooms … but we’re making the best of it and doing well just handling everything that’s thrown our way. We’re just happy to be here playing.”