What it takes for UConn to schedule homecoming games

Sometimes the Huskies have to get creative to schedule contests near their players' hometowns.

Author

Daniel Connolly
December 21, 2023

Photo: Ian Bethune

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What it takes for UConn to schedule homecoming games

The coaching carousel nearly sent UConn women’s basketball’s slate of homecoming games up in smoke this past spring. Two of the schools the Huskies’ planned to play — Minnesota and Pitt — changed coaches over the offseason.

At Minnesota, Dawn Plitzuweit honored the agreement and got rewarded with a crowd of 10,869 at Williams Arena — over 5,000 more people than their next highest attendance. Since the Golden Gophers played UConn, their gate numbers have slowly risen from sub-3,000 prior to over 5,000 in their most recent game against Grambling State.

“If you showcase your program to way more fans than you normally would — way more — a lot of them are going to come back, win or lose,” Geno Auriemma said. “If they like what they see, they're going to come back. So you just made a lot of fans.”

Pitt did the opposite. Former Panthers coach Lance White agreed to play the Huskies in Toronto for Aaliyah Edwards’ homecoming but when Tory Verdi took over, he backed out of the game.

“That’s why it’s important to get a contract signed. Once you get a contract signed, the coach is stuck,” Auriemma said on his radio show. “The one in Toronto next Wednesday, that was supposed to us and Pitt. Pitt coach was fired, we hadn’t signed a contract yet, the new coach goes ‘The hell with it. We’re not playing you guys.’ Just like that. So you’d rather lose to someone else than lose to us?”

That meant UConn had to scramble to find a replacement.

“When [Pitt] fell through, then it became very difficult because it was so late,” Auriemma said. “It wouldn’t have been so difficult to say ‘Well, we need one more game. Let’s find that game.’ But ‘Hey, we need a game but we need it to be played in Toronto.’ That's not the easiest thing in the world.”

Luckily, Toronto Metropolitan stepped up and answered the call. It helped that the Mattamy Athletic Centre, where the Huskies played both this game and their previous trip to Toronto for Kia Nurse’s homecoming in 2017, is the Bold’s home court. They’re also one of the top programs in Canada’s U Sports (essentially their version of the NCAA). It proved to be a perfect fit.

“There's a school up there that traditionally is one of the better teams up there and fortunately they were all in,” Auriemma said. “[Setting up the game] was easy in the beginning. It was very difficult after we lost it. I’m just glad that we were able to put it together.”

It’s not the only time UConn has struggled to put together a homecoming game. Back when Tamika Williams was a senior, the Huskies asked Ohio State to play. In response, the school said that if Williams wanted to play at Ohio State, she would’ve gone there instead of UConn.

In 2015-16, the Huskies hoped to play Syracuse for Breanna Stewart’s homecoming since she grew up in North Syracuse, but the Orange said no. The Huskies ended up playing Colgate in the school’s 1,750-seat arena.

It’s not always in the hands of the teams, either. For Christyn Williams, the team scheduled a home-and-home with Arkansas-Little Rock. But when the Covid pandemic threw non-conference schedules into chaos, UConn set up a game at Arkansas on-the-fly during the 2020-21 campaign. That ended up being Williams’ homecoming.

When Katie Lou Samuelson was a junior, the Huskies traveled out to UCLA — the closest the Huskies ever visited to her hometown of Huntington Beach, California. The problem? She didn’t play due to a foot injury. UConn went out to Cal the next season and while it was better than nothing, it was still a long drive or flight away from the greater Los Angeles area.

On the flip side, some schools agree right away with no issue, like Minnesota or Ball State this year. It can be easy to set up on occasion. Other times, it’s like pulling teeth.

“You would think: ‘What coach would not want to do it?’ But again, you'd be surprised, for whatever reason, people just don't want to schedule it,” Auriemma said.

Edwards knew setting up a game in Toronto wasn’t simple even before Pitt reversed course. She was plenty appreciative of both Auriemma and Neal Eskin, the team’s administrator, for sticking with it.

“It did take a lot of work. I'm especially grateful for like Neal, because he was the backbone for the whole operation, and also Coach (Auriemma) because he wants to give back what as his players give into the program,” Edwards said. “So to have us each play at home, a home court, it's great.”

Even though UConn won by 77, Edwards put up 26 points and 10 rebounds in her homecoming — all while Nurse looked on from the crowd. Auriemma gave her a curtain call with 3:30 left, a fitting end to a near-perfect homecoming. It might’ve been difficult to put it together but in the end, it was all worth it.

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Photo: Ian Bethune

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