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UConn not worried about where it ends up on Selection Sunday

The Huskies know they're in the tournament. Beyond that, anything's possible.

Author

Daniel Connolly
March 14, 2024

Photo: Ian Bethune

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UConn not worried about where it ends up on Selection Sunday

When the NCAA Tournament field is revealed on Selection Sunday, UConn knows it’ll be included. The Huskies secured the Big East’s automatic bid by winning the conference tournament — though it’s not like they were on the bubble to begin with.

The bigger question will be where they end up, though UConn isn’t losing any sleep over it.

“Wherever you go, that's where you go,” Geno Auriemma said. “You have to earn the right to play close to home and if we didn't earn the right to play close to home, then we won't play close to home.”

The Huskies is almost certain to get a top four feed, which guarantees the first two rounds will be hosted in Storrs. That’s typically the most important part because it guarantees they won’t have to travel right away.

“Hopefully we can get home-court advantage. That's a huge thing that we want to have, being one of the top 4 seeds,” Paige Bueckers said. “That would be great.”

Assuming the Huskies advance to the regionals — which they’ve done 29 years in a row — they could end up in two dramatically different spots.

The preferred option is Albany, a short drive from campus that’ll guarantee a near-home court advantage and an arena they’ve been to in the NCAA Tournament plenty of times (2015, 2018 and 2019). The other? A cross-country trip to Portland, Oregon — not unlike the trek UConn took last year when it ended up in Seattle.

Again, the Huskies don’t want to hope for one outcome and then be disappointed if that doesn’t happen. They’ll just sit back and wait for the chips to fall where they may.

“Starting to worry about where you're going to be, who you're playing and who's in your bracket and all that, that's a recipe for [getting] the exact opposite of what you want,” Auriemma said. “That's a no brainer.”

In past years, the Huskies were almost certain to end up close to home — in part because they were either the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament or one of the other three 1-seeds. Even in 2019 and 2022, UConn landed at the closest regional (Albany and Bridgeport, respectively) as a 2-seed.

UConn will have to hope it gets the same treatment this year despite being further down the seed line. The top bracketologists — our own Megan Gauer and ESPN — both have the Huskies as 3-seeds.

That’s where the consensus ends, though. Megan has UConn slated to be in Albany with Iowa as the 1-seed, but ESPN has the team traveling out to Portland where Stanford will be the 1-seed.

Generally, the selection committee has made an effort to place the Huskies in a regional where they’ll draw fans. But with the move to just two regional sites last year, that may not be as much of a concern. South Carolina and Iowa are the two projected top seeds in the Albany Regionals and both schools have fanbases that travel well. That could impact where they end up.

For now, the Huskies — along with the rest of the country — will remain in limbo. They have to wait the entire week until the field of 68 is revealed on Mar. 17 — Selection Sunday.

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Photo: Ian Bethune

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