USA TODAY International Edition
Title favorite UConn not overlooking foes
South Carolina, Notre Dame stand in Huskies’ path
BRISTOL, CONN. In a room above ESPN’s cafeteria earlier this month, Connecticut forward Breanna Stewart and point guard Moriah Jefferson posed for selfies, took group photos and joked around with Baylor forward Nina Davis, Tennessee guard Diamond DeShields and South Carolina guard Tiffany Mitchell.
The players were in town for the NCAA women’s basketball media day. The gathering provided the old friends a chance to catch up and enjoy the waning days of the preseason. And just like it has been for most of the past decade, everyone is chasing UConn.
The Huskies received all 32 first- place votes in the preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll and are heavy favorites to become the first women’s team to win four consecutive NCAA tournament championships. Still, UConn coach Geno Auriemma isn’t overlooking teams such as South Carolina, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Baylor and Maryland.
“I’m not one to think about the end of the season when the sea- son hasn’t even started yet,” Auriemma said. “And I’m not one to think that just because everyone thinks you should be playing that Tuesday night in the national championship game, that you’re entitled to that. That’s tremendously disrespectful to all the other coaches, not just here, but around the country.”
Auriemma remembers during his early years at UConn when Tennessee, Old Dominion and Louisiana Tech were considered near- locks to win the title.
“It was like, ‘ They’re going to win. Nobody’s better than them. They’re the best team. They’re going to the Final Four,’ ” Auriemma said. “I was like, ‘ What about the rest of us? We’re going to have something to say about that.’ ”
And the Huskies did, winning their first national championship in 1995 and adding nine more since. With 10 championships, Auriemma is tied with UCLA’s John Wooden for the most titles of any college basketball coach.
“He’s ahead of the game when it comes to coaching with what he does from an offensive standpoint ( and) what he demands from his players,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who will be an assistant on Auriemma’s staff at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. “And he doesn’t let them off the hook and he’s not afraid to be hard on them. That’s what brings out the best and that’s what makes his teams great is they allow him to be him. They allow him to coach the way he needs to coach.”
As usual, Auriemma has assembled a loaded roster, including four returning starters ( Stewart, Jefferson, forward Morgan Tuck and guard Kia Nurse) and a freshman class led by forward Katie Lou Samuelson, the top high school player in the nation last season. Since Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck arrived in the fall of 2012, the Huskies have gone 113- 5 and won three national titles.
Their only loss the past two seasons occurred in November 2014 when Stanford won 88- 86 in overtime on its home court.
Stewart, a 6- 4 forward and two- time national player of the year, said she entered college hoping to win the NCAA tournament each season, but she didn’t realize how hard the goal would be to accomplish.
“If you get caught up in ( winning national titles), then you’re probably going to lose,” said Stewart, the only player to be named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player three times. “You need to have an understanding of what I want to do, but also realizing that you have to live in the moment, take things one day at a time, one game at a time, because when you look too far ahead, that’s when things get messed up.”
Jefferson, a second- team Associated Press All- American last season, said Auriemma mentioned the historical significance of winning four consecutive national titles during the team’s first practice. Since then, he has been as hard as ever on the Huskies, imploring them not to take anything for granted.
“It’s not like it’s throw ( the ball) up in the air and UConn’s taking it,” Jefferson said. “It’s not like that. I think sometimes people think that, but it’s definitely not. We have to work extremely hard to get there or we will lose. It’s that simple.”