UConn exhausted?

Coach Geno Auriemma says winning hard; plus NCAA Women’s Final Four preview

COLUMBUS, Ohio – At the first Final Four Geno Auriemma made with Connecticut in 1991, he fielded friendly questions from locals in New Orleans, where the game was played.

“People see you walk around town and go, ‘ Where you visiting from?’ ” he remembered Thursday as his team prepared to face Notre Dame in the Final Four on Friday, the 18th time the Huskies have advanced to the Final Four since that first trip.

“Well,” he would answer, “We’re here to play in the Final Four.”

More than two decades later, it’s unlikely the players would be able to walk around downtown Columbus without being spotted as the perennial team to beat in college basketball.

And that success, Auriemma said this week, makes it much harder. He even joked about getting a tattoo of a target on his back.

After all, consistently being at the top might be the biggest challenge of all.

“Well, now I know why John Wooden retired at still a young age because it’s, in some ways, it’s exhausting. It really is,” he told reporters this week. “Listen, as I’m saying this I’m going, man, you know, it’s going to be 5,000 coaches at the Final Four this week, and they’re going to read it and say, ‘Yeah, I wish I had your problems.’ I get that. But I tell you what, you wish you had my problems for like one year. You don’t want to be in this position for 25 years because it’s — it takes a lot. It takes an unbelievable staff. It takes knowing that you have to get a certain kind of player every year.”

The last time UConn lost was in the 2017 Final Four to Mississippi State, a team it could face in the NCAA final Sunday. That loss broke a 111-game winning streak.

Auriemma says he recruits players who are mentally tough enough to handle playing for the powerhouse. But it’s UConn’s practices, said ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo, who led the Huskies to Auriemma’s first title, that really make a difference.

“He develops the mental toughness. I mean it’s a process, it’s not something where you can point to little things but everything that you do from the preseason to the end of the season is physically challenging,” she said. “You get to the point of sheer exhaustion, and he makes you go further.”

Experience — senior Gabby Williams said — helps too.

“The longer you’re here,” she said, “the more you know how to handle it.”