To play with passion
Auriemma is pulling Huskies from malaise
In a season defined by injuries, transfers, and a COVID-19 pause, the UConn women’s basketball team has been searching for an identity.
Geno Auriemma’s theory? The only thing consistent is that these Huskies are inconsistent.
Yet below the surface, there's an issue that plagues many college kids over the past two years — high level athletes or not.
“There’s this like general malaise,” Auriemma said Wednesday night in Indianapolis after UConn beat an overmatched Butler team with an efficient, methodical performance.
The malaise, Auriemma said, has been visible all season. There’s a lack of passion and energy, an absence of, well, happiness.
Wins and losses and individual performances aside, something tangible has been missing.
“Maybe that’s just the world today after these couple of years of what we’ve been through,” Auriemma said. “But I told the team before the game (Wednesday) …It’s like every game you watch, everything you see, you see people, everybody’s been affected and everybody just kind of plays numb.
“So there’s no joy, there’s no fun. Maybe that’s what life is today.”
Auriemma recently bemoaned the challenge of coaching over the past two years. Everything he loves about his vocation — the teaching and the building and the striving and the incremental improvement — has been at best altered and at worst erased during the pandemic.
So Auriemma seems to understand the place where his players sit.
After his team returned from a four-game pause and beat Creighton last Sunday, he felt the need to use his most effective motivation tool — his gift for words. He spoke to seniors Christyn
Williams, Olivia NelsonOdoda, and Evina Westbrook about elevating their game displaying some leadership through performance.
They responded emphatically, leading the Huskies (8-3) over Butler. Williams and Nelson-Ododa had 19 points each, Westbrook scored 13 points off the bench.
He’s also talked to sophomore Aaliyah Edwards, who has been unable to replicate her memorable freshman performance and has been inconsistent all season. Against Butler, Edwards had 12 points and seven rebounds.
Finally, he talked to his team about the overall mood. He addressed the lack of passion and excitement.
“I said, I don’t want to be one of those teams,” Auriemma said. “I don’t want us to be one of those teams. I don’t want us to act like one of those teams. I want to be different.
“They went out there (Wednesday) and they tried to be different, they tried to be what a good basketball team is supposed to look like, where you play with that kind of energy, where you play with that kind of passion for the game. Which I think has been missing for a couple of years.
“I’m not saying there are no reasons for it. I just don’t want to be one of those teams and I know they don’t want to be one of those teams.”
With the caveat that UConn was facing Butler — a team that entered with 10 losses in 11 games and was coming off a COVID pause — it was still an encouraging performance in Indiana, the kind of lopsided conference win fans around here have come to expect each January.
The Huskies’ defense has been efficient all season (opponents have averaged 59.6 points and shot 37.1%) but the performance Wednesday was aesthetically pleasing. There was energy and movement, the defense led to the offense, there was ball movement and a balanced output.
The team that’s lacked an identity since Paige Bueckers went down with an injury may be on the road to finding a personality.
Freshman Caroline Ducharme (18.3 points over the past four games) is emerging as a productive player at both ends of the court, the seniors seem to understand their roles, sophomore spark plug Nika Muhl is back with energy, and transfer Dorka Juhasz (6.4 points, 5.7 rebounds) is showing why she was an All-Big Ten player at Ohio State.
“Obviously, still in the process,” Williams said. “When a couple guys got hurt, we had to build a whole new identity to our team. But I think it’s starting to click that if we get things going defensively, our offense will flow.”
Williams and NelsonOdoda said after the win over Butler that the team’s energy level in practice has recently been good. Through the COVID pause, the players are developing trust among one another and the enthusiasm is bleeding into games.
The Huskies host Xavier (6-8) Saturday, another Big East opponent with inferior talent. On Monday, UConn visits Oregon (8-5) to face a perennially strong program that is currently unranked.
Later this month, there’s a visit to No. 1 South Carolina. Next month, UConn hosts No. 5 Tennessee. Azzi Fudd could soon be back from a foot injury and Bueckers will return sometime in February.
Until then, Auriemma will keep fine-tuning and nudging his roster with an eye on March. Behind closed doors in practice, Auriemma and his players are breaking out of their malaise.
“Everything starts in practice,” he said. “Everything comes from a certain intensity level and a certain energy level.”