The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Geno, Huskies making most of summer session
STORRS — The UConn women’s basketball team is on week two of its fiveweek summer workout session.
It’s the first time the 2022-23 team has been together — minus incoming freshman Isuneh “Ice” Brady, who remains with Team USA’s U18 team in preparation for the 2022 FIBA Championship later this month in Argentina.
But half of coach Geno Auriemma’s players remain sidelined in individual rehab and recovery due to injuries.
For the Huskies, this year’s summer workouts are about integrating new players while staying healthy and fully conditioned going into the season. The work they do now, months ahead of their first official practice, impacts how they look and play next March.
The goal being, put in the work now to be at their bests both physically and mentally come next postseason.
“They’re not ready to play in a 40-minute game, nor should they be able to. They’re not in March shape. They’re not in March shape in November. You have to be at your best in March, that’s the goal here at Connecticut every year,” Auriemma said Thursday at the team’s first media availability since the end of the season.
“That’s when you want to be the healthiest you’ve been, the strongest you’ve been, the more mentally and physically (you are) in March because that’s the month that we prepare for the most here at UConn. … Right now, we’re just showing them, this is how you do it….
“Do you understand winning? Or do you understand just working out? I think that’s a good lesson for our younger players to learn. This is a non-threatening time to learn.”
Only five Huskies have been participating in full workouts: Paige Bueckers, Aaliyah Edwards, Lou Lopez Senechal, Ayanna Patterson and Nika Muhl (who just returned to the team after sitting out for a non-COVID related illness). Auriemma said sophomore Amari DeBerry “comes and goes” in terms of actively participating — “Some days she’s good to go and other days she’s not, so we’re at
five and a half.”
As for the team’s injured players, their weeks are focused on individualized workout and recovery plans specific to their respective injuries.
Azzi Fudd is doing light individual workouts to continue strengthening her foot from her injury earlier last season.
“But she’s not yet going up and down the floor,” Auriemma said. “We’re still trying to make sure that there’s no lingering effects of what her issues were last year at the beginning of the season.”
Dorka Juhasz has shed her cast from her late March surgery on her left wrist and instead wears a brace on her wrist. Caroline Ducharme appears to be off crutches following her April hip surgery and is doing conditioning work in a pool and on the elliptical.
Auriemma said Aubrey Griffin is focused on being able to run up and down the court as she continues to rehab from her January back surgery.
“For some of the rehab guys, they’re gonna be here all summer. For them it’s, ‘How do I get ready for September?’ ” Auriemma said. “They’ll all be ready by September, but they don’t get a chance to get better as basketball players because they’re not able to spend enough time on the court. So, for them it’s more, ‘How do I keep my conditioning up?’ ”
Despite the lack of players fully available, the time together has allowed UConn’s newcomers — Lopez Senechal and Patterson — to get adjusted to the intensity of workouts and to their new teammates. Lopez Senechal begins her final year in college playing just up the road from where she has spent her career at Fairfield, while Patterson begins her freshman season this fall.
“It’s a fast transition for me. I graduated two weeks ago and had to come right away but it’s gone really well,” Lopez Senechal said. “Learning a lot and embracing every day here. … It’s very demanding. All the coaches have really high expectations on me, on all of us, but it’s the challenge that I was looking for so I’m gonna be ready for it.”
When asked if he plans on adding to his current 11-player roster, Auriemma said it’s unlikely. He said no one in the transfer portal has caught his eye as someone to add and he won’t know of any possible walkon’s until school starts and students return to campus in the fall.
“The chances of that are remote,” he said about a possible roster addition. “As far as the transfer portal concern, it’s a little late in the game for that and I really haven’t seen anybody that would significantly improve our program so that’s also another remote possibility that I don’t see happening.”
GENO TALKS BASEBALL
Auriemma had high praise for the UConn baseball team, which faces Stanford in the NCAA Super Regionals this weekend.
“I like our team now against Stanford. You’re playing the No. 2 seed in the country on their home field. Tough task, right?” Auriemma said. “But I think Coach ( Jim) Penders’ kids, I think, relish the opportunity and I think they relish being the underdogs. They’re the underdogs all the time when they get to the NCAA Tournament because of where they’re from. … I like their chances. I like our chances. …
“I think (Penders is) the best coach ever to coach at Connecticut in any sport. To be able to go where they went, playing on a baseball field that was not as good as some of the high school fields these kids played on and guys practiced in the rain and snow before they got the indoor place, come on. No one has done more with less than that guy and now that he has more, it’s gonna be unbelievable. I think the world of Jim and his staff and his kids.”