Notebook: Why Geno doesn't put much stock in summer workouts; Injury updates

The 2025-26 season hasn’t started and UConn women’s basketball is already 0-1. With the players on campus for summer workouts, associate head coach Chris Dailey organized a trivia competition between the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The reigning national champions came in with plenty of confidence — perhaps too much.

The men’s team won comfortably.

“They beat our ass,” Geno Auriemma bemoaned at his annual Fore The Kids charity golf tournament. “They were better prepared, they were better teammates to each other, they, they celebrated better when they won their trophy. It was like a national championship celebration. I think our guys were cocky little suckers. They thought, ‘Oh yeah, we're going to win,’ — and they got their ass beat.”

“They're already 0-1.”

So the first major test facing this edition of the Huskies has nothing to do with basketball. Instead, Auriemma wants to see a response from them during the next competition with the men’s team.

“I want to see, when we play again, whether there's any change because they got their ass beat by the guys next door,” he said. “They should be pissed.”

As for what’s happening on the court throughout the month of June, the coach isn’t putting much stock into any of it. He often refers to summer workouts as a mini-camp where newcomers can get acclimated to both the school and the program while the team focuses on building a foundation for the preseason.

The coaching staff can only spend so much time working with players during the summer anyways, so there’s a limit to what they can do.

“We haven't done much,” Auriemma said. “They're not in great shape because they don't need to be. The rest of April (after the Final Four), all of May, they were in the gym but not seriously.”

The stakes aren’t high this time of year and expectations should be adjusted accordingly. As a result, Auriemma lets his assistants handle most of the on-court work so everyone can go into the preseason with a clean slate.

“I don't get that involved really because I don't want to prejudge,” he explained. “I don't want to go, in June, ‘That kid's not going to play because they suck.’ I'm not going to do that because it's June. So I try to stay out of the way a little bit.”

Injury updates

UConn isn’t even at full strength, either. Freshman Blanca Quiñonez hasn’t yet joined the team while finishing school in Italy. Meanwhile, Morgan Cheli has yet to begin on-court work as she recovers from season-ending ankle surgery in February.

“That's going to take a little bit of time,” Auriemma said about the rising sophomore.

As for Ayanna Patterson, who missed last season with a shoulder injury that required surgery in December, she’s “full-go,” according to the coach.

Exhibition opponents

UConn will partake in two exhibitions this preseason — and both will be open to the public. In addition to the Huskies’ Oct. 13 meeting with Boston College at Mohegan Sun Arena, Auriemma said they will take on Division II Southern Connecticut State at home.

While he didn’t reveal a date, exhibitions traditionally falls the week leading into the official season opener (Nov. 5 vs. Louisville in Germany this year), which would put it in the first few days of November.

Over the last few years, UConn has paired one public preseason contest against Division II competition with a secret scrimmage versus a fellow Division I school. With Boston College now on the slate, the Huskies will forgo the closed-door game.

“If we can't make any money, we're not going to play,” Auriemma quipped. “That's the state of the world.”

UConn previously faced the Owls in preseason action back in 2018 and 2023.