Another perfect record was put together from November to late-February, UConn’s 10th undefeated regular season, and no team among the other 348 in America averaged more points than the Huskies (90.7) or a wider margin of victory (37.7).
There is essentially a giant stack of numbers and several growing lists that define, from an outside perspective, what UConn women’s basketball is all about, and through that lens the 2017-18 season has looked as easy as any for Geno Auriemma and his team.
The Huskies played 29 games and won them all. UConn has won 140 of its past 141, 187 of 189 and all 98 American Athletic Conference games. Most are decided early in the first half, quickly becoming showcases for the sport played at a different level.
So one could listen to Auriemma talk about how difficult this season has been, as he did Monday following a 29-point victory over South Florida, and wonder whether he has a grasp on reality. Or one could listen and understand that this approach to the operation and the pursuit of goals is exactly why it all plays out the way it has for so long.
“This was the hardest year I’ve had the last four or five years, easy,” Auriemma said. “There hasn’t been another one that’s close. There was a lot of stuff we had to deal with, a lot. And there were times when our record was the furthest thing from my mind and our players’ minds. There were weeks when it felt like we were losing, every day. Every day felt like a loss. Every practice was a loss. Every game was a loss. Every film session was a loss. Everything felt like we were losing, because everything was a struggle. And maybe you have to go through those times so you can appreciate what you do, come back and go, ‘Wow, in the middle of all that we went 29-0.’”
UConn will look to earn a fifth consecutive AAC Tournament championship beginning Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena, then try to navigate a six-game NCAA Tournament path through Storrs, Albany and Columbus toward a 12th national championship. There are teams capable of beating UConn, which had its 111-game winning streak snapped last year by Mississippi State at the Final Four, and that fact makes it easy for Auriemma and his players not to lose sight of what needs to be fixed along the way.
Some years, Auriemma said, the job is easy. Call him when the NCAA Tournament starts. The 2015-16 season, when Breanna Stewart, Morgan Tuck and Moriah Jefferson were seniors, was like that. No one was going to beat that team, and no one did.
“Play our ‘A’ game, and it’s impossible to lose,” Auriemma said. “I never felt like that this year, not one time.”
Auriemma likes his team, its ability to win at every position, its maturity. What the Huskies lack in depth, they make up for in versatility. UConn has a few of the best players in the country, defends as well as any team, passes unlike any other, shoots well, meets every moment.
Yet Katie Lou Samuelson, possibly the national player of the year, has missed five games with ankle injuries and is one of several players less than 100 percent. All-American Gabby Williams has battled a hip injury. Point guard Crystal Dangerfield has shinsplints.
Top reserve Azura Stevens has been a project, though she’s rounding into form at the right time, named the AAC’s player of the week on Tuesday. The rest of the bench has contributed more to Auriemma’s frustration than UConn’s victories.
“Six players you’re trying to incorporate, so more than half of your team, almost, is completely oblivious to what you’re saying,” he said. “The object is to win a national championship and you’ve got six people who have never played in the NCAA Tournament. So it’s a struggle. Now, I know all the other coaches in America are going, ‘I’ll take that struggle every year with the guys you have starting.’ Yeah, I would too. I’m not sitting here saying I’m giving it back. I’m just saying, relative to some of our other seasons, this was difficult because there was very little margin of error for our starters. And you have all these other guys sitting there who, you know they’re just not going to be able to help you in a big game.”
The best way for a team to carry itself is to hammer away at all the right-now moments that, eventually, become your March composition. The buildup of four-plus months to the Final Four isn’t about appreciating the view – it’s about improving it.
“I remember back when Svetlana [Abrosimova] was playing for us [in 1997-01], she came in one day and goes, ‘Coach, why do you talk about national championships all the time?’” Auriemma said. “I go, ‘Because that’s the goal here.’ [She said], ‘Don’t you think everybody already knows the goal here?’ I thought, ‘She’s right.’ So from that point on, we almost never talk about the end of the year. We just talk about what we have to do today, what we have to do tomorrow, what happened last night, what we have to get better at. … Nobody goes into [a season] thinking, ‘We’re going to win them all.’ You’re not going to win them all. And sometimes you do.”
