The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Geno talks transfer portal, scheduling
STORRS — UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma knows the transfer portal isn’t worth much of his time at this stage of the offseason.
The Huskies got the player they wanted in April: Fairfield graduate Lou Lopez Senechal. While the roster stands at 11 and could accommodate another player, there’s no guarantee that spot will be filled.
“It’s a weird thing in the portal,” Auriemma said Thursday. “If a kid goes in the portal and doesn’t know where they’re going and they’re going to be recruited, then you’ve got to go through the whole recruiting process again. If a kid goes in the portal and two days later they sign with somebody, then you know they’ve been recruited all year long and somebody’s been cheating their ass off. So by the time you get to this point, there’s really not a whole lot of really good players available.”
Auriemma essentially said UConn takes a wait-and-see approach to potential transfers.
He has landed many valuable players from the portal, or the process that preceded the portal’s introduction, in recent years.
Lopez Senechal, who graduated after four years at Fairfield, and Dorka Juhasz, who graduated in three years at Ohio State and will enter her second and final season at UConn in 2022-23, are the latest. Before them, Evina Westbrook transferred to UConn in 2019 after two years at Tennessee, and Azurá Stevens joined the Huskies in 2017 after two years at Duke.
“To our detriment, probably, we’re not one of those schools that has one coach dedicated to the portal and calling AAU coaches around the country saying, ‘Hey, is your kid happy? Do they want to transfer?’ ” Auriemma said. “We’re not in that world. We don’t operate like that. So the transfer portal for us is, generally speaking, something that happens when kids graduate — in Lou’s case, in Dorka’s case — and they’re looking for another opportunity to go do something different.
“Some kid that’s just leaving after one year or two years because they’re dissatisfied with
their situation, I’m always a little bit leery about that. So that’s our philosophy. If there’s somebody out there who we think fits who we are and what we’re doing and fills a need that we think can help our program, that’s where we landed on Lou.”
There is room on the UConn bench for a walkon.
“If it’s a walk-on, that doesn’t significantly change anything, does it?” Auriemma said. “All that does is just add another person to our travel party who we have to pay for. So whether there’s going to be a walkon or not won’t be known until September, when a kid shows up to school and says, ‘I want to play basketball.’ The chances of that are remote. As far as the transfer portal is concerned, it’s a little bit late for that and I haven’t seen anybody who can significantly improve our program. So that’s also another remote possibility that I don’t see happening.”
With the addition of a Dec. 11 game at Maryland, announced this week as the start of a previously postponed home-and-home series due to the pandemic, the Huskies’ 2022-23 schedule is full. It also includes nonconference games vs. Notre Dame, Texas, South Carolina and
Florida State.
“Neal does that,” Auriemma said of Neal Eskin, UConn’s executive associate director of athletics. “He puts the schedule together, runs it by me, ‘You want to play these guys?’ I go, ‘Sure.’ Then that’s the last I hear about it until I see the schedule. I think starting (in 2023-24) when we can add two more nonconference games, it will get to be a lot more interesting. I think that gives us an opportunity to add two more really, really good games.”
Big East coaches have voted to decrease conference games to 18 from 20, allowing for two more nonconference games. Athletic directors must still vote to make it official.
“But it’s not as easy as people think to get really, really good games,” Auriemma said. “There are just some coaches in the country that, they talk a big game about what they want to do, what’s best for women’s basketball. But then when they get a call from TV, ‘Hey, we need you to play UConn Saturday night or Sunday afternoon,’ or whenever it’s going to be on national television. ‘I don’t know if I want to do that.’ Well then, stop talking about how you’re interested in what’s good for the game. Just say you’re interested in what’s good for me. Then everybody will believe you.”