Season remains on hold
Huskies to wait until 7 players healthy, ready to play without limits
STORRS — The UConn women’s basketball team is in uncharted territory, its season paused until there are enough healthy players to play safely.
“There’s really only one scenario,” UConn AD David Benedict said Saturday. “And that is, when do we get back to a place where we have seven available players that aren’t limited? Someone is not healthy if they can come back, but play limited minutes. So it’s up to the student-athletes, our athletic trainers and our medical team to tell us when they are healthy.”
UConn’s game against DePaul, scheduled for Sunday, was postponed on Friday night, after two more injuries, Aaliyah Edwards’ ankle injury and Ayanna Patterson, her injury undisclosed, were reported coming out of its victory at Xavier on Thursday in Cincinnati.
The Huskies (13-2, ranked fifth in the AP poll) began the season with 12 scholarship players, which is more than coach Geno Auriemma has historically carried, and no walk-ons. Paige Bueckers and Ice Brady were lost for the season with knee injuries before the season began. Numerous players have been injured since. Azzi Fudd has been out since early December with a knee injury, Caroline Ducharme is in concussion protocol.
The team took Saturday off, with several of the players coming to Gampel Pavilion to watch the men’s victory over Creighton. They will practice Sunday, and their status will be evaluated day to day. In order to play their next scheduled game, at St. John’s on Wednesday, they will need to consider how much any returning players can safely play in their first game back.
“We can’t put our kids in a position where they come back from an injury and we’re expecting them to play 30-plus minutes a game,” Benedict said.
For instance, Fudd, who is close to returning, certainly would not be allowed to play 30 or more minutes in her return. Players coming out of concussion protocol must also be carefully monitored.
Conference policies devised during the pandemic are in place here. The Big East determined a team must have at least seven players available to play a game. There is no provision or criteria for forfeiting games, a Big East spokesman said, so for now the UConn-DePaul game is subject to rescheduling, as would any other postponed games.
Benedict is working on rescheduling the DePaul game; if there are more postponed it will be difficult to reschedule them without giving players adequate time between games. There is no way of adding players to the roster at this point, Benedict said
“We only have six healthy kids who can play unlimited minutes
right now,” Benedict said. “When we get a seventh back, I couldn’t tell you. Our kids want to play, we don’t want to miss games. We’ll do everything we can and I’m sure the student-athletes will to get back on the court . ... Everyone in our league agreed that you’ve got to have at least seven available, whether they be scholarship or walk-ons. Right now we have six, and we look forward to getting back to seven-plus as soon as we can.”
Auriemma has missed four games this season, including the last two, with an illness. There is no timetable as yet for his return, with associate head coach Chris Dailey in charge during his absence.