Huskies on poll position: ‘Roll with it’
UConn currently at its lowest AP ranking in 30 years
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
STORRS — Of the 569 consecutive weeks that the UConn women’s basketball team has been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, three have been spent outside the Top 15.
The first week in 1993-94 (18), a week in the middle during the 2004-05 season (16), and last week (17).
So, yes, the 17th-ranked Huskies are at their lowest point in the poll in 30 years.
“I stopped, a long time ago, paying attention to where we are in the polls,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “But
ONLINE
No. 17 UConn knocked off No. 24 North Carolina 76-64 on Sunday night at Mohegan Sun Arena. Get a full recap at CTInsider.com.
when people show that to you, you think ‘That can’t be possible. There had to be some time in the last 30 years we were in this neighborhood.’ I’m just amazed when I read this stuff.”
The Huskies, who faced No. 24 North Carolina Sunday night, opened the season at No. 2 behind reigning national champion LSU. With a chance to move to the top spot for the first time since the final poll in 2021, UConn fell at unranked North Carolina State 92-81 on Nov. 12 and dropped to No. 8.
It moved back up two spots before a 78-67 loss to secondranked UCLA in the Cayman Islands Classic on Nov. 24 knocked it out of the Top 10 to No. 11. The 80-68 loss at No. 10 Texas on Dec. 3 dropped it six spots to its current No. 17.
UCLA, which faced No. 20 Florida State in the opener of Sunday’s tripleheader at Mohegan Sun Arena, is still second. North Carolina State added an impressive win over then-No. 3 Colorado to its resume on Nov.
25 and has moved all the way to third. The Longhorns rose five spots after the win over the Huskies and are now fifth.
“If you’re not careful it can play tricks with your psyche,” Auriemma said. “You try not to even acknowledge it but obviously you can’t hide it from the players. They’re probably going to see it. You tell them that it’s people’s opinions but also we’ve lost to three of the top-five teams in the country right now. Maybe we should be sixth?”
UConn has 14 players on its roster but lost redshirt freshman center Jana El Alfy with a torn Achilles’ tendon in July and junior guard Azzi Fudd to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee in November. Sophomore forward Ayanna Patterson has not played due to knee issues and may not play this season, Auriemma said Friday. Junior guard Caroline Ducharme has played only 58 minutes over four games due to neck spasms and there is no timetable for her return.
The Huskies were ranked for the first time in Week 13 of the 1989-90 season, checking in at No. 25.
SNY analyst Meghan Culmo remembers walking into the Storrs Field House a year earlier during her freshman season and got what was then news.
“We were in the ‘also receiving votes,’ “Culmo said. “That was a big deal. It was real cool. It almost gave us some legitimacy. Back then we didn’t go by ‘UConn’ but by ‘Connecticut.’ If you said UConn then, people thought you were talking about Alaska.
“It’s interesting now 35 years after that UConn is at No. 17. I was talking to someone who is close to the program who was apoplectic about it. They were complaining, ‘How can we be 17?’ But what
coach wouldn’t be thrilled to vote UConn lower after 30 years? It’s almost human nature.
“When has the program ever worried about the rankings? It’s easy to say when you’re in the Top 5 or the Top 8. But you have to be consistent. If you didn’t care about it then, you shouldn’t care about it now.”
Tennessee held the previous record for consecutive weeks in the AP poll at 565, which was snapped in February 2016. At a United States national team camp in Storrs that week, Lady Vols’ great and 2021 Naismith Hall of Fame inductee Tamika Catchings emotionally expressed her disappointment and frustration over the program’s decline.
Auriemma said he has not heard from any of his former players about the fall in the polls, though he smiled and said that twotime All-American and Olympic gold medalist Napheesa Collier asked him how he was doing when she attended Wednesday night’s game against Ball State at Gampel Pavilion.
When asked how his players were doing, Auriemma said to “ask them.”
“The best thing we can do is to delete social media, stay off of Twitter, stay off of Instagram,” guard Paige Bueckers said. “And no offense to the media but they have no idea what goes on every day in practice, the struggles we go through mentally and physically. A lot of it is people putting pressure on us and trying to tear us apart. We already have a lot of pressure on us. We have super-high expectations for ourselves. Right now we’re just trying to become a better basketball team in every facet and focus on that.
“You can look at it, ‘We’re 17, haven’t been that in 30 years.’ Every team is different. Every team goes through different things. Honestly, the best thing
we can do is tone it all out and focus on ourselves individually and as a team.”
During the 569-week streak, the Huskies have been ranked 16-18 in three weeks, 11-15 in 22 weeks, 610 in 63 weeks, and 1-5 in 481 weeks. They had a stretch from 2007 to 2020 with 247 straight weeks in the Top 5. Since Jan. 17, 1995 when they became No. 1 for the first time, the Huskies have held the top spot a record 255 weeks. In all but five seasons since 1995 they’ve been No. 1 at some point in the season.
So, when did the rankings become unimportant? “Maybe during those stretches we were No. 1 or No. 2 all those years we got to a point where it was, ‘So what?’ “Auriemma said. “Two years ago we were in the national championship game. It feels like 22 years ago, doesn’t it? Things happen along the way and you learn to roll with it. I don’t know if there’s another way to handle it.”
Culmo — a member of UConn’s first Final Four team in 1991 and part of the school’s first three Big East regular-season championship teams, first two Big East tournament title teams (she was the Most Outstanding Player of the 1991 event), and first four NCAA tournament teams — was an assistant coach when the AP poll streak started.
The 1993-94 club that opened at No. 18 broke into the AP Top 10 for the first time (UConn was No. 4 in the final 1991 USA Today poll conducted after the Final Four) in December of that season following back-to-back wins over Top 10 opponents Auburn and Virginia. After a drop outside the Top 10 for two weeks in January, they moved back in and remained in the Top 10 until 2005.
“These kids have an exorbitant amount of pressure on them,” Culmo said. “The world today is different than it was back then. The program hasn’t changed that much in that
there’s still the process, they go to work and do what they have to do and the results tend to take care of themselves. But they’re in a spot they haven’t been in for a long time and a good part of it isn’t their fault with the injuries. But you have to deal with it.
“The eye test says they don’t look good, they don’t look like themselves. But with what they’ve been through since the pandemic and then with the injuries ... They started this season thinking that was all over and then to lose Jana, Azzi, and no one is talking about Caroline, it’s hard.”
After taking on North Carolina, UConn hosts No. 18 Louisville at the XL Center on Dec. 16. The Huskies then open Big East play against Butler in Hartford on Dec. 18 before heading to Canada to take on Toronto Metropolitan in a homecoming game for senior forward Aaliyah Edwards on Dec. 20. Their first game after the Christmas break is Dec. 31 against No. 19 Marquette at the XL Center before they travel to Omaha to face No. 22 Creighton on Jan. 3.
Even if the Huskies fall out of the poll, their Hall of Fame coach needs to only to look across to the other side of Werth Champions Center to know where you’re ranked early or even midway through the season is not all that important.
Coach Dan Hurley’s UConn men fell to No. 24 in the Jan. 30, 2023 AP poll but in March went on a dominant run in the NCAA tournament to capture the program’s fifth national championship.
“There was a point where the guys almost weren’t ranked last year and it worked out pretty well for them,” Auriemma said. “Experience teaches you that you can be No. 1 in the country and lose early in the NCAA Tournament. You can also be unranked in January or February and win it all.”