UConn begins new season with more flexibility, but less experience

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Headlines

News

• UConn releases tip times and TV info for 2024-25 season

• Injury updates: Fudd, Ducharme and Griffin won't be ready for start of season

• Nika Mühl tears ACL in first game overseas

Analysis

• Paige Bueckers is ready to be selfish: "Leave nothing up to chance"

Last week’s Weekly

• UConn's top storylines as official practice begins

Elsewhere

• Tiffany Hayes won the WNBA’s Sixth Woman of the Year award.

UConn begins new season with more flexibility, but less experience

By the end of last season, UConn didn’t have much left. The Huskies were down to eight healthy players after six season-ending injuries, but really could only count on their five starters to contribute.

That group featured two grizzled veterans in Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mühl, an experienced superstar in Paige Bueckers, then a pair of freshmen in KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade who performed far beyond their years.

In spite of all the adversity it faced, UConn still made the Final Four — which is essentially the program’s floor each season. The Huskies have gotten that far in 15 of the last 16 years and only missed out in 2023 as a result of a cataclysmic string of injuries on top of the worst possible matchup in the Sweet Sixteen.

Considering UConn got there in April despite all that went wrong, it certainly has the formula down for reaching the Final Four.

“Last year was just a struggle to keep it afloat. The entire season was about, ‘Let's make it to the NCAA Tournament and see what happens,’” Geno Auriemma said last Thursday. “What we learned from last year is that we're good enough to be as good as we need to be to put ourselves in a position to win a championship.”

UConn is no longer being held together by duct tape and bubble gum. The Huskies’ first official practice on Oct. 3 featured 10 participants — a number that should rise to 11 by the opener on Nov. 7 and could go as high as 14 if they continue to get players back healthy.

Without the threat of everything falling apart, they don’t have to be so risk-averse.

“I think our approach can be a little bit different,” Auriemma said. “We can be more aggressive. We can experiment with more things. Last year, we were very cautious and very defensive in everything that we did.”

Yet that boost in numbers comes with a downside: UConn won’t be nearly as experienced with Edwards and Mühl off to the WNBA.

There’s the fifth-year Bueckers and sixth-year Griffin — who probably won’t be back from a torn ACL until midseason — then a whole lot of players who haven’t spent much time on the court at the college level.

Arnold and Shade are tied for the second-most starts on the team and have played just four fewer games than Fudd, who is entering her fourth year in the program. Ice Brady also played in all 39 games last season, though almost exclusively as a reserve. Qadence Samuels saw action all but three times, but projects to be down the depth chart.

Caroline Ducharme has 55 contests under belt, but just 15 of those have come in the last two calendar years. Ayanna Patterson appeared in 30 games as a freshman but sat out all of 2023-24.

Beyond that, Kaitlyn Chen has plenty of collegiate experience but all of that came at Princeton. Jana El Alfy has been on campus since January 2023 but has yet to appear in a game. Then there’s three freshmen in Morgan Cheli, Sarah Strong and Allie Ziebell.

“You're replacing [Edwards and Mühl] now with people that haven't played that kind of basketball for that long,” Auriemma said.

That’s especially true in the frontcourt.

“Ice is our veteran,” the coach said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Even with the youth and inexperience, expectations shouldn’t be lowered for UConn’s upcoming season. The goal is still to win a national championship, especially with this being Bueckers last go-around in Storrs. The Huskies are just beginning the preseason at a lower point than they’re used to.

“It's like we gotta start all over again,” Auriemma said. “You really start to see the level of difference in the the way the older guys carry themselves and execute, and how lost some of the younger guys look. So it's going to be a work [in progress] and and it's going to take some time.”

It hasn’t been all bad, though.

“Their energy was good. They were anxious to get going. They were upbeat. So all the things you want them to be,” he said. “It's going to take us some time.”

The starting point doesn’t particularly matter for UConn, though. Last season is proof of that.

When they began the season, Fudd and Ducharme were among in the starting lineup as lynchpins in the backcourt. Shade didn’t even play in the second game of the year. Then injuries struck, which meant all the work they did in the preseason went out the window less than a month in. They figured a new plan on the fly and rode it all the way to Cleveland.

Compared to that, dealing with a little inexperience should be a cake-walk for the Huskies’ staff. It helps that they have heaps of talent — three No. 1 recruits, seven other top-11 prospects, a top international player and a former Ivy League Player of the Year.

Still, it’s natural that Auriemma is only focused on the present and the work that still needs to be done. Bueckers provided a more optimistic viewpoint.

“I think the sky's the limit. Obviously, we're young. We have a lot of new people. There's a whole lot to learn,” she said. “But I think starting from the beginning… we have a great belief within each other that we have what it takes to get it done, and it's on us to do it.”

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