5/15/2023 0 Comments Uconn wednesday basketball gameShe cited UConn’s Bueckers and Fudd as great players, along with South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston, the team’s star senior forward, and A’ja Wilson, now a forward for the W.N.B.A. “There are more good players now, but it’s great players that turn your program,” she added. It was one of the few times this season that the team had everyone available on the court, including Fudd, who returned for the three tournament games. The Huskies finished the regular season with a 67-56 win over Villanova to secure their 21st tournament title. Edwards and Lopez Sénéchal lead the team in scoring, with 16.6 and 15.7 points a game, while Edwards leads the team in rebounds, averaging 9.2 a game.īy the Big East tournament earlier this month, UConn’s fortunes began to shift. Guard Caroline Ducharme, a preseason All-Big East selection, was on concussion protocol for two months.Įven Auriemma himself missed four games after his mother, Marsiella, died in December and he battled an illness.Īuriemma has come to rely on UConn’s entire available roster this year, including Edwards, a 6-foot-3 junior from Kingston, Ontario Lou Lopez Sénéchal, a 6-foot-1 guard from France and Dorka Juhász, a 6-foot-5 forward from Hungary. Aaliyah Edwards, a forward and national player of the year semifinalist, broke her nose during a collision with a teammate in the first week of practice. 1 overall recruit, missed 22 games because of knee injuries. draft this April, she said she plans to return to school next season.) Guard Azzi Fudd, a former No. (Though she would be eligible for the W.N.B.A. Paige Bueckers, a junior guard and one of the best players in the game, has been out for the entire season with a knee injury. The team will begin its run on Saturday against 15th-seeded Vermont (25-6), with the victor playing Monday against the winner of No. Some of its best players have been sidelined for the majority of the season, forcing the team to postpone a game because it did not have enough healthy players to suit up.īut the Huskies rallied at the end of the regular season to clinch the Big East Conference title, finishing with a 29-5 record and a No. UConn has faced a kitchen sink of setbacks this season - injuries, illness, bad weather, out-of-character losses. “The expectations on their program are incredibly high, and they’re expected to get to a Final Four every year, it’s a lot on them,” said Muffet McGraw, a former Notre Dame women’s basketball coach and a longtime courtside sparring partner of Auriemma’s. But as the national spotlight grows on the sport, will the Huskies be able to meet the standard they have demanded of themselves for over three decades? There is no question that the Huskies have cemented their place in the arc of women’s basketball and were instrumental in reframing the conversation around women’s sports. Where UConn used to be an odds-on favorite to win a title, South Carolina has now taken that mantle for this N.C.A.A. The Huskies have lost their past three meetings with the Gamecocks and four of their past five against the reigning champions, who are laying claim to a dynasty of their own under Coach Dawn Staley. UConn has not won a championship since 2016 and fell in a title game for the first time last year, to South Carolina. The Huskies had dominated the sport under Coach Geno Auriemma since he began building the program in 1985, with 11 championship titles, 22 Final Four appearances and, at one point, a 111-game winning streak.īut as the wealth of talent deepens across the N.C.A.A., UConn no longer stands alone as the top women’s basketball program. No women’s college basketball program in the country feels that tension more than the University of Connecticut. Coaches are hesitant to quantify success in terms of dynasty, perhaps in part because of the assumption - and the demand - that the wins keep coming.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |