Earlier this season, Caroline Ducharme made an impressive play in practice that caught a younger teammate by surprise. The teammate let out an “Oh!”, a reaction the fifth-year guard didn’t take kindly to.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh?’ I was really damn good, you know,” she said, as relayed by Geno Auriemma on a recent radio show.

Ducharme hasn’t shown that ability much recently after concussions derailed her career, though. She missed most of the 2023-24 and 2024-25 campaigns due to lingering effects, but eyed this year for a potential bounce-back. Ducharme had high hopes coming into the current season.

“I didn't think I would even get cleared, so who's to say I can't continue to get better and continue to get back to who I used to be,” she said over the summer. “Those are my biggest goals: Continue to improve, continue to get healthy and see where that takes me.”

The early returns were promising, too. During summer workouts, Auriemma declared that she looked “really, really good” and “doesn't play any differently than she did” during her freshman season.

That ultimately never materialized, though. The injuries have taken their toll. Ducharme has averaged 8.9 minutes — nearly all of which are well after the outcome is decided. She’s only seen action in 16 of 29 contests due to a combination of factors: Illness (one game), a shoulder injury (three games), coach’s decision (two games) and the always-troublesome concussion issues (seven). Auriemma always considers Ducharme day-to-day.

But while this season hasn’t been what she might’ve hoped, Ducharme has no second thoughts about her decision to return for one final ride.

“I have not regretted it for a second,” she said. “My teammates and the people here make it all worth it… The place you do it at makes the return all so much better.”

Ducharme’s star once burned as bright as anyone’s, though.

As a freshman in 2021-22, she carried an injury-plagued UConn team on her back after Paige Bueckers went down with a tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscus tear. Over a 13-game stretch from Dec. 5 to Feb. 2, Ducharme averaged a team-high 16.2 points, reaching double-figures in 11 of 13 games. She earned spots on both the All-Big East Second and Freshman Teams.

But Azzi Fudd is the only other player still in the program from that season. Nobody else on the Huskies’ current roster saw Ducharme play at that level.

“They don't remember her as a freshman being our best player when Paige was hurt,” Auriemma said of UConn’s younger players.

Instead, Ducharme has made her mark as the Huskies’ team mom and emotional leader. If someone has to go into the locker room mid-game due to injury or illness, Ducharme is always right behind them. When UConn lost to Iowa in the 2024 Final Four, she comforted the heartbroken freshman in the postgame locker room. Ducharme joked that she has a “revolving door” in her bedroom because her teammates are always coming in.

“It's not all about what you do on the court,” she said. “You can still have an impact.”

That didn’t come naturally to her, though. When Ducharme arrived on campus as a freshman, Auriemma joked that she didn’t say a word for the first few days. She was more comfortable blending into the background.

But as she watched the 2023-24 season from the sidelines, Ducharme started making quiet comments to Bueckers, Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mühl — those she was closest to. They soon started encouraging her to share her thoughts with the rest of the team.

Ducharme steadily grew more confident using her voice. Once she did, she quickly established herself as an invaluable leader despite her limited time on the floor.

“It was just so unexpected,” she said of her off-court emergence. “When I was a freshman, I was so nervous and didn't want to mess up. I was quiet and I just kept to myself and kept my head down… I don't think anybody would have thought I would be team mom.”

That aptly sums up her UConn career: Not much went according to plan.

“Nothing about my time here was expected. Even when I first got here and everybody got hurt, I wasn't expected to be thrown into that role,” Ducharme said. “Then having my own set of injuries, I wasn't expected to come back. So I think it shows you that, no matter what, you can never control your plan.”

Even with how little she’s played throughout her career, Ducharme still has plenty of highlight-reel-worthy moments to look back on. She’s responsible for UConn’s last game-winning shot, hitting a layup with 1.6 seconds left in an 80-78 win at DePaul in 2022. She dropped 28 points at St. John’s as a freshman. She returned from a 13-game absence due to a concussion and single-handedly brought the Huskies back from an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit against Creighton by scoring all 10 of her points in the final frame.

But Ducharme’s favorite on-court memory came from a game in which she played just two minutes and failed to record a stat.

“I mean, the national championship,” she said with a laugh when asked about her favorite on-court memory. “That'll do it, I think.”

Even though Ducharme’s own season hasn’t necessarily been what she may have wanted, she’s always put winning above all else. With UConn currently 29-0 and the favorite to win a 13th national title, she can still finish with a storybook ending.

Like the rest of the Huskies’ senior class, Ducharme’s career has been defined by adversity. But after all she went through, the fact that Ducharme will leave on her own terms is an ode to her resilience.

“Throughout the whole process, once I started coming back, I absolutely never turned back,” she said. “It's kind of like an addiction. Once you get going, you want to just keep going, keep going, keep going. That’s always been my love for basketball.”

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