BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — It started with Paige Bueckers’ 3-pointer. Six layups later a free throw from Aaliyah Edwards ended it, a 16-0 UConn onslaught in less than four minutes playing time. There used to be a name for knockout punches like this from the UConn women’s basketball team:
Game day.
But what for so long was matter-of-fact is no longer. Geno Auriemma’s slow, sigh-filled walk down the corridor as reporters trailed was one of many signals that a victory in the NCAA’s Round of 16, such as UConn’s 75-58 win over Indiana on Saturday at Total Mortgage Arena, is no longer something that’s just “supposed to happen.” Not even for the Huskies.
“I said to the kids in the locker room, ‘Man, when we’re playing like that, it really is fun to watch,” Auriemma said. “It was really impressive to see us have so many people touch the ball and so many good things happen. And it looked like nothing was forced, nothing was rushed. Everything was just boom, boom, boom. It’s a coach’s dream.
“Fortunately, I’ve seen it a lot the last 20-something years, but this year I appreciate it more because it’s harder to come by.”
Maybe it was an omen when they couldn’t get the baskets installed on First Night. Nothing was going to come easily for either basketball team. With the UConn women, everything is relative. The Huskies’ season was going off the rails in December and January, darn near crashed in a heap at Gampel Pavilion last Monday night, but it’s still a season all but a few schools in the country would consider a dream season.
And with another ticket to the Elite Eight, the Huskies have to get past top-seeded NC State on Monday to go to the Final Four for the 14th tournament in a row. If they want to go the Tom Brady route and chant “we’re still here,” who can blame them?
“You know, Monday night we played a team, UCF, that’s experienced as hell and been together a long time,” Auriemma said. “Today, we played a team that’s experienced as hell and has been together a long time. Now this Monday night, we’ve got a team that’s won three straight ACC Tournaments, and they’ve been together a long time. There’s no breathers in this tournament, and there shouldn’t be, either. When you’re playing to go to the Final Four, it should be a real, real, real hard game. And this game [against NC State] is as hard as any final eight game that I can remember.”
The Huskies (28-5) are managing this tournament as it goes along. Auriemma seems to have settled on a starting five of Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, Christyn Williams, Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Edwards, all played 29 1/2 minutes or more, with four others getting in the game and playing depending on what Auriemma sees.
“Unfortunately some people need a lot of minutes to be effective,” Auriemma said. “But unfortunately in the NCAA Tournament, you don’t have time. Everyone has a role on our team, and it depends on what night, what your role is going to be that night, which is what I really like.”
Bueckers and Fudd, best friends whose teaming up was supposed to be the thing this season, before injuries got in the way, are a combination that can change games. Even if Bueckers is not quite what she was before her knee surgery and Fudd goes cold, as she did after hitting three early 3-pointers on Saturday, they draw so much attention it leaves the lanes wide open for Williams. When Edwards and Nelson-Ododa rebound like they did against Indiana, combining for 24, that completes the puzzle.
But this is 2022, and other women’s basketball teams have the puzzle complete, or nearly complete, too. Most teams have multiple fifth- and sixth-year seniors. Many programs are rising, and the overpowering aura of UConn no longer has teams feeling beaten before a game starts. UCF put UConn through a wringer, and Indiana made UConn work, even after the Hoosiers fell behind by 20.
“Monday was a huge reminder to our team,” Auriemma said. “That, yo, this is how things go. You don’t just roll in, have a conversation with the other team and go, ‘What do you want the score to be tonight? At UConn, we’ve made it look easy enough times that the expectation sometimes is, ‘Why isn’t this easy tonight?’”
The point has been driven home. If UConn hasn’t changed, if Auriemma, who turned 68 Wednesday, is still the same old Geno, the world around the Huskies is different. The Sweet 16, the Elite Eight or Final Four is no longer a birth right for UConn. The Huskies may yet get there, to the top, but how hard it is will make it special.
“I actually thought making the NCAA Tournament was in jeopardy,” Auriemma said. “Because you never know when you’re ever going to get back to having more than six or seven players. It just seemed like, ‘This is it. This is what it’s going to be the rest of the season. You’ve got six or seven healthy players, max.’ But little by little we got everybody back. We started playing real well. We got contributions from a ton of people.
And, you know, here we are. Our players sitting in that locker room have a lot of tradition on their backs. And sometimes, that’s enough to carry you.”
It’s enough, at least, to allow Auriemma to let out that sigh and trudge up the ramp to his bus Saturday night with at least one more game to coach, the quest for a 12th championship still very much alive.
