How Auriemma’s intense March practices prepared UConn for the tournament

SEATTLE — Geno Auriemma stood on the periphery of the court as the UConn women’s basketball team began practice early Friday morning.

As his players ran through drills with the look of urgency, Auriemma strolled to midcourt and watched. It’s another March practice for a coach whose program has been to 14 consecutive Final Fours.

What’s left to perfect? “Well, leading up to March you want to practice a lot and you want to spend a lot of time on your team,” Auriemma said. “Unfortunately, this year we couldn’t.”

So this has indeed been a different March following a different season for Auriemma and his program. As UConn prepares to face Ohio State in the Sweet 16 at Climate Pledge Arena Saturday, lots of things seem the same as every other March and yet so much is different.

Practice time is always limited in the NCAA Tournament, even more this season as the regionals unfold at two sites. Time on the court is scarce because there are so many other demands — media availability, an open locker room, time at the podium, ESPN hits, more interviews and on and on.

“The biggest games of the year for your team you have the least amount of time on the game court, and you have the least amount of time for practice,” Auriemma said at a press conference after practice.

But Auriemma and Chris Dailey, perhaps more than any coaches in America, understand the tournament dance. Preparation is different, March after March.

But practice and preparation were different in January and February for this team. The onslaught of injuries prevented players from participating or limited availability for others.

Auriemma has talked about the inability to push his players or implement anything new. There were days when much of the game-planning was done off the court in an effort to preserves players.

“We had to just adjust,” Dorka Juhász said. “There were days when we’d go maybe an hour and 10 (minutes), when we used to go two and half or three hours. Just walking through defensive stuff ... it was kind of up and down. We never had 10 players so it was a challenge all season.”

Auriemma is famously demanding in practice. Conditioning is a hallmark of the program and former players often talk about the level of competition in practice exceeding anything they faced in games.

That didn’t happen this year, at least not until the regular season ended. When Azzi Fudd and Caroline Ducharme returned, as Ice Brady’s availability increased, after Jana El Alfy enrolled and settled in, Auriemma had more bodies in practice as the team shifted attention to the postseason.

“Our practices were so light and so unlike the practices we normally have because we only have seven and we can’t leave our best stuff here,” Auriemma said. “And so mistakes were coming left and right because we couldn’t just keep working on stuff it was like, OK, let’s go over the scouting report for the next game.’

“But leading up to the (Big East) Tournament that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, that was us going back and saying that’s it. we’re back to normal Connecticut practices.”

It was at Nika Mühl’s urging that Auriemma elevated practice.

“You worry too much about what we want. You need to do what we need,” she told coaches.

“So we just went at it like, ‘Hey, I don’t care if it hurts. This is how hard we’re going to go,’ ” Auriemma said.

And so the intensity at practice increased ahead and after the Big East Tournament. It was like October practice leading up to the season — physically and emotionally demanding, the famously caustic coach pushing and prodding.

“They thrived on it, they loved it,” Auriemma said. “They were like, yeah, now we’re back to Connecticut.”

Said Mühl: “We needed it. He pushed us, but we needed it. Since I’ve been here, we know in March the first thing we need to take care of is practice and everything else is second.”

Auriemma is confident that those early-March practices re-calibrated his team and prepared his players for this stretch, when prep is different. As he walked through the bowels of Seattle’s $1 billion arena Friday, Auriemma followed the precise itinerary that took the team through the media car wash before departing for a visit to the Space Needle.

On Thursday night, there was a team dinner at a steak house to celebrate Auriemma’s 69th birthday. For the record, the team sang “Happy Birthday” three times — twice in the morning and once at dinner over tiramisu cake.

The team watched the the UConn men’s basketball game Thursday night and reported for an 8 a.m. practice on Friday. It all feels like, well, a Final Four appearance when game prep is shoehorned into the schedule.

Auriemma said he loves Seattle and Climate Pledge Arena “might be as nice an arena as there is in the entire tournament.”

But ...

“I think the logistics maybe make it a little tougher with how much time you can get on the court,” Auriemma said. “You spend all your time either in this environment right here, talking with (the media), or with the ESPN people or with the radio people, and by the end of today and tomorrow, we will have spent more time with the media than we will have with the team on the court to get ready for the biggest games of the year.”

The NCAA shifted the regional to a two-site format this year. Eight teams are in Seattle, eight in Greenville, S.C., with each arena hosting two brackets of regionals.

UConn has in recent years played this round in Bridgeport or Albany, closer sites and smaller venues that all teams to move through the tournament with a semblance of normalcy until the Final Four.

“So having the eight teams, Auriemma said, “I think causes some issues for the host trying to balance all that out. I’m hoping that it works, I’m hoping it doesn’t, because I also think they’re called regionals for a reason, and there’s four regions in this country and you would like to have one in each region.

“The jury’s still out,” Auriemma said when asked about the new format. “I’m just disappointed that there’s eight teams here in Seattle and (two) of them are from west of the Mississippi River. So I hope there’s a lot of women’s basketball fans here in Seattle because I don’t know how many fans of the teams that are here are actually here. I hope they are.”

There’s expected to be strong support for UConn Saturday. And Auriemma seems confident in his team, a sharp contrast to where he stood a month ago as the Huskies crawled to the end of the regular season.

There’s been growth, on and off the court. The team was appeared flummoxed by the injuries and adversity and lack of proper preparation has seemingly found its footing as it plays 3,000 miles from campus.

“We’ve been going hard during the week and then rest before the weekend,” Mühl said. “We finally have a good balance.”