Post by Marco on Apr 6, 2024 19:29:44 GMT
The Athletic
Was UConn’s Final Four run just a warm-up for next season?
By Grace Raynor
Apr 6, 2024
CLEVELAND — In the almost 40 years that Geno Auriemma has been UConn’s head coach, he can remember exactly two instances when the Huskies went on a postseason run that defied all logic.
The first was in 1991 when UConn made its first Final Four.
“There was absolutely no way to predict or explain how that happened,” Auriemma said. “And yet it was the beginning of our program as it exists today.”
The second was these past three weeks in this year’s March Madness.
“I even told the players during pregame introductions, I said, ‘This is the first time that we’ve come here where it feels like we’re the visitors. Where it feels like we’re actually the underdogs and no one expects us to win,” he said. “We did talk about (how) getting here was the hardest part. And you appreciate that so much.”
The lasting image from Friday night in Cleveland will almost certainly be Auriemma bent over in anguish, facing his bench, distraught after forward Aaliyah Edwards was called for a moving screen with 3.9 seconds left. UConn was down one point to Iowa and ready to give star guard Paige Bueckers a chance to go win the game with a national championship berth on the line.
The 71-69 loss will undoubtedly haunt Auriemma, who admitted Friday night that the pride he feels from this season will last about “30 seconds” before he starts to stew again.
“Then you start going over in your mind all the things that just happened in the game that you wish you had done differently to win,” he said. “That’s the problem with this job.”
But down the road, Auriemma indicated, this totality of the season will eventually sink in. When it does, maybe he’ll be able to zoom out more fully.
“I think this is Geno’s best coaching job,” NC State coach Wes Moore said Friday. “To think about all he lost along the way and he’s still now in the Final Four — come on.”
Five UConn players suffered season-ending injuries this season, making the Huskies’ improbable run to the Final Four for the 15th time in the past 16 years this week all the more remarkable. It’s rare an Auriemma team is seen as the pesky underdog, but these past two seasons have challenged him tremendously on the injury front.
Freshman forward Jana El Alfy tore her Achilles tendon during the summer. Standout guard Azzi Fudd tore her ACL and meniscus in November. Sophomore forward Ayanna Patterson had season-ending knee surgery in December. Graduate forward Aubrey Griffin tore her ACL in January. And junior guard Caroline Ducharme was ruled out for the year two weeks later due to head and neck injuries.
That put all the more pressure on Bueckers and Edwards, the two most important UConn players. Freshmen KK Arnold, Ashlynn Shade and Qadence Samuels — the latter of whom Auriemma said he made a coaching mistake against Iowa by not playing Friday night — received no learning curve.
While South Carolina averages nearly 34 points per game from its bench and Iowa has just one player playing more than 30 minutes a night — superstar Caitin Clark — the Huskies needed all five starters to play at least 30 minutes a game all season long. Bueckers played all 40 minutes in each of UConn’s last four games.
Perhaps that’s why she felt particularly reflective Friday night.
“For this year especially, from my perspective, you just appreciate it as it goes along. Just being on this team,” she said. “Everybody saw the heart, the joy, the passion that we played with. We just love each other and we enjoy being around each other. And this season meant everything to us, against all odds. Nobody thought we would be here.
“All people posted about us was (this) was (our) worst ranking in 20 years, the worst start in 20 years, the worst seeding in the tournament in 20 years. And here we are at the Final Four.”
Bueckers and Auriemma both know that the standard at UConn is national championships — nothing less. It’s the burden that Auriemma’s own dominance has created, even if the outside expectations bug him. Uconn hasn’t won a title since 2016, which feels like a particularly long time in Storrs.
“What pisses me off is the minute we don’t win a national championship for a couple of years, people think that our program now is less worthy of some others that have done it twice or have gone to the Final Four three out of the last four years,” he said. “When Tiger (Woods) was at the height of his career, the only story on every Sunday was he didn’t win. Nobody cared who didn’t win.
“Stop talking about us when we don’t win a national championship.”
But Auriemma might not have that problem next year.
As the Huskies turn the page, they will be a favorite to compete for it all in 2024-25. Bueckers, who could have entered the WNBA Draft, will be back as arguably the sport’s most prominent faces. Fudd should be healthy. Arnold has proven she can compete against anyone — finishing with 14 points and 5 assists on Friday against Iowa — and will only be better as a sophomore. The Huskies also got significant contributions from Shade, who averaged 11 points per game, and fellow true freshman Ice Brady, the backup forward who had to develop faster than expected because of the depth issues.
Expectations will be high for UConn next season. But it’s understandable that the sting from this loss won’t quickly subside. “It sucks so much that you get this close and you don’t win,” Auriemma said.
Truly, UConn wants the expectations to remain high. Their own bar is lofty. They just want to meet it next season.
“The standard at UConn is national championships, so it’s always disappointing,” Bueckers added. “But I know we’ll reflect after this and just get better from here.”
Was UConn’s Final Four run just a warm-up for next season?
By Grace Raynor
Apr 6, 2024
CLEVELAND — In the almost 40 years that Geno Auriemma has been UConn’s head coach, he can remember exactly two instances when the Huskies went on a postseason run that defied all logic.
The first was in 1991 when UConn made its first Final Four.
“There was absolutely no way to predict or explain how that happened,” Auriemma said. “And yet it was the beginning of our program as it exists today.”
The second was these past three weeks in this year’s March Madness.
“I even told the players during pregame introductions, I said, ‘This is the first time that we’ve come here where it feels like we’re the visitors. Where it feels like we’re actually the underdogs and no one expects us to win,” he said. “We did talk about (how) getting here was the hardest part. And you appreciate that so much.”
The lasting image from Friday night in Cleveland will almost certainly be Auriemma bent over in anguish, facing his bench, distraught after forward Aaliyah Edwards was called for a moving screen with 3.9 seconds left. UConn was down one point to Iowa and ready to give star guard Paige Bueckers a chance to go win the game with a national championship berth on the line.
The 71-69 loss will undoubtedly haunt Auriemma, who admitted Friday night that the pride he feels from this season will last about “30 seconds” before he starts to stew again.
“Then you start going over in your mind all the things that just happened in the game that you wish you had done differently to win,” he said. “That’s the problem with this job.”
But down the road, Auriemma indicated, this totality of the season will eventually sink in. When it does, maybe he’ll be able to zoom out more fully.
“I think this is Geno’s best coaching job,” NC State coach Wes Moore said Friday. “To think about all he lost along the way and he’s still now in the Final Four — come on.”
Five UConn players suffered season-ending injuries this season, making the Huskies’ improbable run to the Final Four for the 15th time in the past 16 years this week all the more remarkable. It’s rare an Auriemma team is seen as the pesky underdog, but these past two seasons have challenged him tremendously on the injury front.
Freshman forward Jana El Alfy tore her Achilles tendon during the summer. Standout guard Azzi Fudd tore her ACL and meniscus in November. Sophomore forward Ayanna Patterson had season-ending knee surgery in December. Graduate forward Aubrey Griffin tore her ACL in January. And junior guard Caroline Ducharme was ruled out for the year two weeks later due to head and neck injuries.
That put all the more pressure on Bueckers and Edwards, the two most important UConn players. Freshmen KK Arnold, Ashlynn Shade and Qadence Samuels — the latter of whom Auriemma said he made a coaching mistake against Iowa by not playing Friday night — received no learning curve.
While South Carolina averages nearly 34 points per game from its bench and Iowa has just one player playing more than 30 minutes a night — superstar Caitin Clark — the Huskies needed all five starters to play at least 30 minutes a game all season long. Bueckers played all 40 minutes in each of UConn’s last four games.
Perhaps that’s why she felt particularly reflective Friday night.
“For this year especially, from my perspective, you just appreciate it as it goes along. Just being on this team,” she said. “Everybody saw the heart, the joy, the passion that we played with. We just love each other and we enjoy being around each other. And this season meant everything to us, against all odds. Nobody thought we would be here.
“All people posted about us was (this) was (our) worst ranking in 20 years, the worst start in 20 years, the worst seeding in the tournament in 20 years. And here we are at the Final Four.”
Bueckers and Auriemma both know that the standard at UConn is national championships — nothing less. It’s the burden that Auriemma’s own dominance has created, even if the outside expectations bug him. Uconn hasn’t won a title since 2016, which feels like a particularly long time in Storrs.
“What pisses me off is the minute we don’t win a national championship for a couple of years, people think that our program now is less worthy of some others that have done it twice or have gone to the Final Four three out of the last four years,” he said. “When Tiger (Woods) was at the height of his career, the only story on every Sunday was he didn’t win. Nobody cared who didn’t win.
“Stop talking about us when we don’t win a national championship.”
But Auriemma might not have that problem next year.
As the Huskies turn the page, they will be a favorite to compete for it all in 2024-25. Bueckers, who could have entered the WNBA Draft, will be back as arguably the sport’s most prominent faces. Fudd should be healthy. Arnold has proven she can compete against anyone — finishing with 14 points and 5 assists on Friday against Iowa — and will only be better as a sophomore. The Huskies also got significant contributions from Shade, who averaged 11 points per game, and fellow true freshman Ice Brady, the backup forward who had to develop faster than expected because of the depth issues.
Expectations will be high for UConn next season. But it’s understandable that the sting from this loss won’t quickly subside. “It sucks so much that you get this close and you don’t win,” Auriemma said.
Truly, UConn wants the expectations to remain high. Their own bar is lofty. They just want to meet it next season.
“The standard at UConn is national championships, so it’s always disappointing,” Bueckers added. “But I know we’ll reflect after this and just get better from here.”
