The Aftermath: Despite Geno's prediction, UConn goes perfect in Big East play

When UConn beat Marquette in its second Big East game of the season on New Year’s Eve, head coach Geno Auriemma made a prediction about how the rest of the conference slate would go for his team.

“I don't think anybody's going undefeated in our league this year,” he said. “There's just too much that we have to overcome and there's too many good teams that are capable of winning.”

As it turned out, he couldn’t have been more wrong. The Huskies beat the Providence Friars 65-42 on Saturday night to wrap up the regular season with a perfect 18-0 mark in Big East play. Not only did they go undefeated, nobody even came close to pulling off an upset.

UConn won every game by double-digits and its closest margin of victory was 15 against St. John’s on Feb. 4. Every other game was decided by 20 points or more, with 46 points being the high in an 86-40 drubbing of Xavier.

This is nothing new for the Huskies. They’ve gone undefeated in their conference 18 times — 11 in the Big East, seven in the American. This particular year is different, though.

UConn is without five key players for the season. The rotation features more freshmen than veterans. As a league, the Big East is better than it’s ever been in its current iteration. Yet the Huskies came out unscathed.

“It's a lot harder than it looks. It's a lot harder than people think and at Connecticut, it's exceptionally hard because the expectation is that you're going to win,” Auriemma said. “‘You’re the preseason favorite to win the league.’ Yeah, but we're missing half our team. ‘Well, even if you only play four against five, you're supposed to win the league because you're Connecticut.’”

It’s not a matter of talent, either. Last year, UConn beat St. John’s by 30 on the road and Marquette by 29 in the Big East Tournament. Yet both those teams pulled out a win over the Huskies because they were better on that given night.

The difference this season is that UConn had its two most important players throughout: Paige Bueckers and Aaliyah Edwards.

Those two once again carried the team at Providence with Bueckers scoring 17 points and Edwards contributing 13. In league play, they combined to average 40.5 points per game — nearly half the team’s total of 84.4 points per game. They reached double-figures in all 18 contests as well.

Bueckers, Edwards and Nika Mühl — the point guard who makes everything work on both ends of the floor — simply didn’t let the Huskies lose.

“We talked about that in a locker room afterwards how incredibly happy I am, proud of I am, especially of Nika, Paige and Aaliyah,” Auriemma said. “The pressure on the three of them to have to be good every day, to have to be perfect every day, to score for us, to stay out of foul trouble, to play a ton of minutes with the understanding that if they don't do that, our chances of winning are less or even none.”

It’s easy to forget now, but there was a time this season where there were serious questions about whether UConn could turn it around. At one point, the Huskies were 4-3 after losing to Texas in a game where they genuinely looked broken. After three years of injury, nobody would’ve blamed them if it had finally all caught up.

Instead, UConn found the right combinations, dug deep and figured it out. There are two national championship teams in the program’s history that failed to do what this year’s squad accomplished: An undefeated mark in conference play.

Even Auriemma acknowledged that this one means more to him.

“I told them in the locker after: People might not appreciate how incredibly difficult this is — and I do and everybody in our locker room does,” he said. “To be that good and to be that consistent, home, away. Yeah, this year, maybe more so than other years it feels really, really gratifying. Really grateful for that.”

The best worst quarter

After UConn led by 32 after 30 minutes, Providence had a 17-8 edge in scoring during the fourth quarter. But in a way, the Huskies still won that period too because they didn’t need the three seniors. Bueckers and Edwards didn’t play while Mühl only went in for four minutes.

Considering all three average over 30 minutes per night, it gave them some much needed rest.

“We've got a lot coming up the next couple of weeks, and I'm sure next weekend, they won't have the opportunity to sit out the fourth quarter,” Auriemma said, referencing the Big East Tournament.

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