UConn women
15,564 fans at the XL Center which UConn coach Geno Auriemma said afterward gave him a good feeling about the capability of his players going forward, despite the Huskies’ thin bench.
UConn’s bench has been outscored 103-1 over the last five games, with sophomores Azzi Fudd (right knee) and Caroline Ducharme (concussion) remaining sidelined with injuries.
On Wednesday, the Huskies lost 59-52 at Marquette, committing 19 turnovers and never quite getting their bearings.
“Things change fast, you know?” Auriemma said Friday. “I think the adrenaline of Sunday (against South Carolina), the crowd, just the buildup, then for us to actually compete the way we did and have the kind of game we did.
“I don’t know if I expected or if anybody expected a carry-over, that we’re going to do the exact same thing Wednesday at Marquette. I knew that wasn’t going to be possible. You knew some kind of letdown was coming. I didn’t expect it to be that extreme.”
It’s not the losses that worry Auriemma, he said, but his team’s mental strength to keep dealing with the physical toll.
Auriemma called late January and early February “the grind of the season.”
“I don’t care how you prepare for it, how you don’t, the grind of the season catches up to you and it lasts quite some time,” Auriemma said. “And you hope that you’re good enough to fight through it.
“Then as March rolls around, everything changes. All of a sudden, you’re not tired, all of a sudden, mentally you’re not somewhere else, you’re not fatigued anymore because it’s tournament time so the adrenaline starts flowing.”
Still, Auriemma sticks by his assessment following the South Carolina game: the glass is half full, not half empty.
Headed to Georgetown (12-12, 5-10), UConn still leads the nation in field goal percentage (.516), is third in assists per game (19.6) and fourth in 3-point field goal percentage (.396).
Point guard Nika Muhl leads the nation with 8.5 assists per game, the sixth player in program history to eclipse 200 assists in a season, joining Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Crystal Dangerfield, Jen Rizzotti and Moriah Jefferson.
The reinforcements, in the form of Ducharme and Fudd, are not quite ready but on the way.
“I feel like today is the day we regroup,” Juhasz said. “We practice. We prepare for Georgetown. I think everybody’s in a great mindset. The goal is still the same.”
“We’re not looking back. We’re only looking forward from here,” Muhl said. “We’re going to try to fix as many mistakes as we can in the period of time that we have with the bodies that we have and I’m sure everybody’s going to do their best job and as usual give their best effort. I have no doubt of this team and, even after a loss like this, I feel like we’re still where we are and it’s only up from here.”