Building for the future
A look at what lies ahead in 2022 for Huskies programs
For UConn, 2021 was anything but business as usual. The past two years have been, and the future looks to be, a challenge unlike any other in the history of college athletics, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, the Huskies made it through another cycle of seasons, reached some usual goals and entered a new era of improved facilities and welcomed a generational talent to campus.
As we head into 2022, that player, Paige Bueckers, is on crutches and recovering from knee surgery, expected to resume another stellar season in time for UConn to compete at the highest postseason level. Meanwhile, construction continues to reshape a portion of campus, with a new hockey arena being erected; the NIL era is taking hold; and and the football team, with Randy Edsall’s second tenure having ended poorly, is looking to Jim Mora as the answer to years of struggles.
Here’s a look back and a look ahead at some of the major storylines that began, or continued to develop, at UConn in 2021.
MANAGING THE PANDEMIC
Looking back: As 2020 became 2021, schools and programs managed to keep seasons together through advanced protocols and improved COVID-19 testing.
UConn, like most schools, endured some disruptions, shut-downs and cancellations but completed its athletic seasons. Geno Auriemma contracted COVID just before the NCAA Tournament and watched from home as the Huskies defeated High Point and Syracuse in the first two rounds. Later in 2021, protocols were loosened with the introduction of vaccines. UConn’s vaccination rate among studentathletes is 95 percent. Fans were welcomed back to the XL Center and Gampel Pavilion after a year away.
Looking ahead: The more contagious omicron variant has become the latest complication, having disrupted everyday life and the sports world. Professional leagues across the world — from the NHL to the English Premier League and beyond — have already canceled games or paused their seasons. College sports have been disrupted, too, with football bowl games looking for replacements and basketball teams having to forfeit games. UConn will follow any state mandates that, through Christmas, did not call for reduced capacity or proof of vaccination for fans attending games. The Huskies had their first sellout since before the
pandemic for a men’s basketball game Dec. 18 against Providence. Like anything in the pandemic, there is a great element of the unknown, and the situation and response could change at any time.
BUECKERS BECOMES FACE OF BASKETBALL
Looking back: Bueckers signed her UConn national letter of intent in November 2019, arrived in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic and swept every major award in early 2021. The Gatorade national high school athlete of the year was named college national player of the year as the Huskies reached a 13th consecutive Final Four. Bueckers averaged 20 points, 5.8 assists and 4.9 rebounds as a freshman, along the way becoming one of the most famous players in the nation — college or professional.
Looking ahead: Bueckers is starting 2022 in a rough spot, sidelined with a knee injury sustained Dec. 5 against Notre Dame. Surgery was performed Dec. 13 and her estimated recovery time is 6-8 weeks, meaning she is likely to return by early February. Bueckers leads UConn in scoring (21.2 points a game), assists (6.2), steals (2.7) and minutes (36.3) and she is second in rebounding (5.5). The Huskies are 1-2 without her, and three other key players are also sidelined (Azzi Fudd, Nika Muhl, Aubrey Griffin). Bueckers will continue as the face of women’s college basketball and a leader on the name, image and likeness front.
NAME, IMAGE AND LIKENESS ERA
Looking back: After years of debate, this movement took on new momentum in 2019, when California passed a law preventing schools from removing an athlete’s scholarship if they profited off their name, image and likeness. On July 1, 2020, the NCAA enacted a policy allowing student-athletes to sign endorsement deals, hire agents and profit in ways previously banned. What followed, as an example: Bueckers trademarked “Paige Buckets” and signed major endorsement deals with Gatorade and StockX.
Looking ahead: The college sports world will continue adjusting to the new norm, where top players are offered lucrative deals, others are offered deals with far less visibility and money involved, and some student-athletes are offered nothing. In Bueckers and freshman Fudd, who has contracts with Chipotle and Steph Curry’s SC30 Inc., UConn has two players at the forefront of these endeavors. What bears watching from here: how they handle additional responsibility, how it affects their place in the program even in subtle ways, and how it impacts recruiting. Coaches have nothing to do with NIL deals or circumstances, but it can’t hurt a school like UConn to have in place examples for what can be accomplished on this new financial front.
MEN’S BASKETBALL RETURNS TO NCAA TOURNAMENT
Looking back: The 2020-21 season marked a return in many ways for the program — a return to the Big East, a return to the NCAA Tournament, a return to the draft lottery (James Bouknight), and a return to the national conversation. The Huskies finished 15-8 (11-6 Big East), losing their final two games — a conference tournament semifinal to Creighton and a first-round NCAA game to Maryland. So the ending to Dan Hurley’s third season was less than desirable, but it was, overall, another step in the right direction. UConn hadn’t appeared in the NCAA field since 2016.
Looking ahead: UConn returned every key player minus Bouknight this season and navigated its way through early-season injuries to Adama Sanogo and Tyrese Martin. They have both returned. The Huskies are deeper and more well-rounded than last season, when they were so reliant on Bouknight, and the program is in line to expect more from itself in seeding and performance on the national stage. Recruiting continues to be a success — Bristol Central 7-footer Donovan Clingan arrives next season — and the Huskies are seemingly well positioned to regularly contend for Big East championships.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL RETURNS TO FINAL FOUR
Looking back: The Huskies rode Bueckers through the empty gyms of a pandemic to the usual destination, the Final Four, this time held in San Antonio. There, the Huskies (28-2) were upset by Arizona. It was UConn’s fourth consecutive loss in a national semifinal. Still, this is one of the more remarkable streaks in sports. The last time UConn failed to reach the Final Four was 2007. Fudd was 5 years old.
Looking ahead: Maybe the streak, 13 tournaments in a row, is in jeopardy. UConn, struggling early this season due to so many injuries, entered the holiday break with three losses and at No. 11 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll — its lowest ranking since 2005. Bueckers, Fudd, Muhl and Griffin are expected to return well in advance of the postseason, though, so UConn will be more formidable than its record suggests, and expectations will likely be just as high as usual when the NCAA Tournament begins.
FOOTBALL: EDSALL OUT, MORA IN
Looking back: The Huskies went through one of the most interesting, and miserable, experiences in recent college football history. After opting out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19 and scheduling complications, UConn returned to the field “in a position to win,” coach Randy Edsall said. The Huskies were smoked in the opener at Fresno State and upset at home by Holy Cross. At 0-2 on the season, and 6-32 since 2017, Edsall 2.0 was over. He announced his retirement Sept 5. The next day, Lou Spanos, the defensive coordinator with a long NFL history, was named interim coach, the same week he lost his father to COVID-19. The Huskies finished 1-11, with their only victory coming over FCS Yale.
Looking ahead: Jim Mora, named coach in November, is eight months from his first game on the sideline but he has scored a victory in his initial public relations surge. The Huskies begin their second season as an independent program in 2021. Athletic Director David Benedict will continue to explore conference options but the program and the brand need new energy, regardless. Mora announced his first recruiting class in December and has vowed to recruit Connecticut high schools and prep schools, having already established strong working relationships throughout the state. Next goal: win games, plural.
RAY REID RETIRES
Looking back: Men’s soccer coach Ray Reid, who led the Huskies to a national championship in 2000, announced in early December that he was retiring after 25 years at the school. Reid, 61, is a four-time national champion, having won three in Division II as coach at Southern Connecticut before arriving at UConn in 1997. He retired largely to care for his ailing parents, Ray and Joan, who live on Long Island. Reid was 311-132-63 at UConn; 457-149-78 overall.
Looking ahead: The program is now in the hands of a notable alum. Chris Gbandi, the 2000 Hermann Trophy winner as UConn won its third NCAA title that season, was named coach Dec. 13. He spent the past six seasons as coach at Northeastern. Gbandi is just UConn’s third coach since 1969 (Reid, Joe Morrone). The Huskies last season began playing at a renovated Morrone Stadium, connected to the Rizza Performance Center.
A NEW HOCKEY ARENA … FINALLY
Looking back: In April, the Board of Trustees approved plans for construction of a $70 million, 2,800-seat hockey arena on campus after several iterations stalled over the eight years. Construction began soon after along Jim Calhoun Way and the building is expected to open later this year, for games in the 2021-22 season.
Looking ahead: UConn will continue to play some home games at the XL Center, but the new 97,300-square-foot arena will be the centerpiece for programs run by Mike Cavanaugh and Chris Mackenzie. UConn hopes to recruit at a higher level with the facility upgrade. The small and outdated Freitas Ice Forum had been UConn’s practice home throughout its first eight seasons in Hockey East.
A CAMPUS TRANSFORMED
Looking back: The hockey arena will become the latest shiny new building in a transformed area of campus informally referred to as Olympic Village by Benedict, who has completed five years on the job. The area already features new or upgraded facilities in Morrone Stadium (soccer), Burrill Family Field (softball), Elliot Ballpark (baseball) and the Rizza Performance Center (training and offices for numerous sports).
Looking ahead: Programs that competed — some of them even thriving, particularly baseball — despite subpar facilities now have nothing holding them back on that front. The fields and stadiums of the southwest portion of campus have extended the entire area of the athletic complex, with Gampel Pavilion, the Shenkman Training Center, the Burton Family Football Complex and the Werth Champions Center just up the road and over the hill. The new buildings/fields are expected to be a recruiting boon.
WOMEN’S ROWING CUT … AND REINSTATED
Looking back: UConn announced in June 2020 that it would cut four sports — men’s cross country, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and women’s rowing — as part of measures to meet a university directive to cut approximately $10 million from a university subsidy. In May, however, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on the elimination of women’s rowing. The program had alleged in a lawsuit that cutting the sport would be a violation of Title IX. In July, UConn announced it would reinstate the program for at least two more years.
Looking ahead: Reinstating women’s rowing leaves UConn with 21 sponsored sports. UConn said it will work during the twoyear period on a more detailed assessment of costs in an effort to keep women’s rowing and consider a long-term reinstatement of the program.