The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
5 questions entering the 2017-2018 season
1. Are there enough minutes to go around?
UConn coach Geno Auriemma admits that less can be more when it comes to playing rotations. Trying to keep everybody happy can be a challenge with a deep team. With four freshmen and a pair of transfers being added to a team returning five of the six players who averaged at least 20 minutes per game, it will be interesting to see how the minutes are distributed.
2. Will Stevens be the super sub?
If Azurá Stevens had remained at Duke, it’s likely she would be a lottery pick in the 2018 WNBA draft and might have been named to the Associated Press Preseason All-American team. Now the question is where does she fit in with the Huskies? It looks like she will start the season as a reserve, and it remains to be seen what sort of impact she will have.
3. Are rookies ready to roll?
Megan Walker — who won nearly every national high school player of the year award given out last season — will be a key reserve. Can the other newcomers work their way into the regular rotation? Based on the two preseason games, it looks like Mikayla Coombs, Andra EspinozaHunter and Lexi Gordon have some work to do.
4. Is a losing streak possible?
No current UConn player was alive the last time the Huskies lost back-to-back games in 1993. With the Huskies losing in the Final Four, could the unthinkable happen and UConn actually lose consecutive games? Stanford, UConn’s first opponent, ended two of the longest streaks in UConn and NCAA history. Can Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer do it again? We won’t have long to wait, with the showdown between the teams set for Sunday.
5. Who will rise up? UConn was the unanimous No. 1 team in the country in the AP preseason poll. Is there someone capable of knocking the Huskies off? UConn plays road games against No. 2 Texas, No. 4 South Carolina, No. 8 UCLA, No. 23 South Florida and No. 25 DePaul, and also has regular-season meetings against No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 9 Louisville and the aforementioned neutral-site game against No. 10 Stanford, as well as showdowns with No. 15 Maryland, No. 20 California and No. 22 Oklahoma. So UConn should know where it stands heading into the NCAA Tournament.