Geno: "It just kills me to watch us play sometimes with one hand behind our back — again"

For the third consecutive season now, UConn women’s basketball is dealing with a slew of injuries. Azzi Fudd (torn ACL) and Jana El Alfy (ruptured achilles) are out for the season while Caroline Ducharme (neck spasms) and Ayanna Patterson (knee) remain sidelined for an indeterminate amount of time.

The Huskies had to make do without Paige Bueckers (torn ACL) and Ice Brady (dislocated patella) all of last season and didn’t have Azzi Fudd (knee), Caroline Ducharme (concussion) and Dorka Juhász (thumb) for significant stretches as well. The year prior, Bueckers (knee), Fudd (foot), Nika Mühl (foot), Ducharme (head) and Juhász (wrist) missed significant chunks of time as well while Aubrey Griffin (leg, ankle, back) never played.

So this is nothing new. UConn will march on with what it has, starting on Sunday at Texas. That doesn’t mean it ever gets easier, though, and Geno Auriemma admitted the frustration has started to get him over the last few weeks.

“[The players] were all anticipating that this year was going to be different. That this year, all [the injuries were] going away and that it was all behind us. The response, I think it has been like a real punch in the gut. Like, ‘I gotta do this again?’” he said. “I probably have not handled it great internally and probably externally at times as well. And that's my job is as an adult: To make sure that I handle it, make sure that I am in complete control of myself and that I'm able to [figure out]: ‘How do I get each individual through another season?’”

Part of that frustration is due to the nature of the injuries. While fans have questioned whether UConn’s support staff — strength and conditioning, athletic training — deserve blame for everything that’s happened, Auriemma pushed back against that. He doesn’t believe there’s any explanation for the catastrophic run of poor health over the last three years.

“None of these things are like: ‘If you guys only did more of this, you could have prevented that. If you've done less of that, it could have prevented that. If you'd have done this instead of that, it would have been different,” he said. “What, that would have kept Dorka from breaking her wrist or catching her thumb on a kid’s jersey and breaking her thumb? That would have kept Carol from getting hit in the head five times?”

The Huskies had high hopes coming into the year, too, not only because they expected to finally be healthy, but they also thought they had one of their best teams in recent memory. Back in April, Auriemma proclaimed that this season would be their “best chance to win a national championship since 2016.”

While UConn still believes it can be the last team standing in April, the vision that the coach originally had for this year is gone.

“The rest of the season will never look like the way I want it to look, or the way I envisioned that it would look, or that it would look like it needed to look at this point,” Auriemma said. “All we can do is just try to find what works that game… We'll be constantly searching and I don't think that'll stop until the season ends.”

Whereas last season UConn knew it would be without Bueckers before the preseason even began, the team played the two games with almost everyone available this year. Now, it has to chart a new course without two of its top three guards in Fudd and Ducharme after building the entire offense around them.

“When I sit there and I'm watching what's happening in some of the games, it just really burns me up knowing what it could have been and instead what it is,” Auriemma said. “Had we gone into the season without any of these guys, I would already be acclimated to it. But not after what I saw in June, the entire summer. No, no. I can't. It just kills me to watch us play sometimes with one hand behind our back — again.”

Currently, UConn has just four veterans in the rotation — Bueckers, Mühl, Aubrey Griffin and Aaliyah Edwards — which means it has to count on its four freshmen — Ice Brady, KK Arnold, Ashlynn Shade and Qadence Samuels — significantly more than expected. The Huskies have to start one freshman and whenever they go to the bench, it’ll be a freshman going into the game as well (unless Amari DeBerry and Inês Bettencourt suddenly transform into contributors).

That wasn’t the plan going into the season — for anybody. As Auriemma described it:

“When I asked [the freshmen], ‘What did you think your contribution was going to be this year?’ Well, I know we have so and so…And I knew I was gonna have to work really, really hard, and that I would get my opportunity and you know that I would contribute.’ Okay, so you didn't know you're gonna be in the starting lineup in your fourth game?’

“Everybody's put in a situation they don't necessarily want to be in,” he added later. “But circumstances are forcing them into that situation.”

That’s been especially true for Bueckers. Coming off a torn ACL, UConn thought it could work her back into the mix relatively slowly. Instead, she’s had to put the team on her back, averaging 22.3 points per game since Fudd went down. But as much as the Huskies need her, Auriemma is doing his best to take the pressure off her for now.

“I just want her to have more fun than she's had up to this point,” he said. “I want to make sure that it doesn't make her feel the weight. I think that's the big thing, the weight. Like, ‘I'm so glad to be back.’ Just keep that keep the focus on that. Not on ‘It's not what I expected it to be.’ It's not what we all thought it would be.”

At the same time, the coach believes all the adversity gives Bueckers a chance to do something special.

“It will be a hell of a story if she's able to take this group and let's see where it goes,” Auriemma said. “That'd be a pretty good story — wherever that is.”

With Bueckers at the helm and the freshmen in tow, UConn will carry on. It won’t look like anyone expected it to, but that’s become the norm in Storrs over the last few years. And with all the Huskies have faced in that time, Auriemma is leaning on his go-to motto.

“It is what it is. Perché co sí,” he said with a smile.