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Why UConn will likely decide its own fate in the NCAA Tournament

According to Geno Auriemma, winning in March as "nothing to do with how good you are."

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Daniel Connolly
March 13, 2025

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Photo: Ian Bethune

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Why UConn will likely decide its own fate in the NCAA Tournament

It’s do or die time for UConn women’s basketball. The Huskies will next take the court in the NCAA Tournament, where one loss will end their season but six wins will grant them immortality.

At this point in the calendar, the better team doesn’t always come out on top. While a talent advantage will often be the difference in the early rounds, that evens out as the tournament progresses. The No. 1 overall seed doesn’t always win. In fact, that’s only happened twice in the past seven tournaments.

“The whole thing — a Big East tournament, conference tournament, NCAA Tournament — it's got nothing to do with how good you are,” Geno Auriemma said.

Instead, it’s about which teams are best equipped to put together their best performance on a given night. They have to mentally prepared for the rigors of a single-elimination tournament.

“Mentally, you can change a lot. You can get worse because you're affected by the pressure and you can't handle it. Then you change as a player because you start to put a different emphasis on the games,” Auriemma said. “Or you get better because you understand the pressure and you've prepared for it, and you're so confident that you play your best basketball in the postseason.”

The mental side impacting the physical side of performance pretty much sums up UConn’s entire season. The Huskies’ losses to Notre Dame, USC and Tennessee weren’t because they were overmatched, they just weren’t ready for the big moment. They played scared and it cost them.

But when they traveled to South Carolina, they “played to win”, as the coach put it, and beat the Gamecocks by 29 on their home court.

“There wasn't any, ‘I hope I don't miss this shot. I'm not going to take the shot because I don't want to miss it,’ or ‘I'm not going to go after that rebound because I'm tired,’ or whatever the case may be,” Auriemma said postgame. “This was a play-to-win game.”

The impact of a team’s mentality even manifested itself on a smaller scale during the Big East Tournament. In the quarterfinal, UConn held St. John’s to just two points in the opening quarter and forced a 12+ minute scoring drought. Once the Red Storm finally found the basket again, the buckets started to flow.

The next game, the Huskies’ defense sagged in the first half and allowed Villanova to take the lead during the second quarter. They responded by holding the Wildcats without a field goal for the first 15 minutes of the second half. In the championship, UConn started on an 11-0 run, let up and allowed Creighton to score seven straight, then came back with another 8-0 burst.

When the Huskies’ defense was on, they suffocated their opponents. They just struggled to sustain it.

“Our team defense has been really good,” Auriemma said on Monday night. “But it comes and goes, too.”

The same concept also applies to individuals. Paige Bueckers was great across the entire weekend, scoring 20+ points in all three games. But when UConn found itself in a precarious spot, she took over. She scored 12 of the Huskies’ 16 points in one stretch against the Red Storm then ripped off eight straight vs. the Bluejays.

Bueckers could sense when her team needed her and stepped up in those moments.

“Any time a team was making a run, that's where we looked to,” Auriemma said. “We knew that if we put the ball in Paige's hands, something good was going to happen.”

Sarah Strong, who the coach has pushed to be more assertive all season along, also left her imprint on the Big East Tournament. She attacked the glass and put up a double-double each time out, then saved her best performance for the final. Strong finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds, six steals, four assists and three blocks against Creighton while blowing the game up in the third quarter.

“Maybe the first five, six minutes of that third period, I thought you saw something you haven't seen yet this year,” Auriemma said. “That's what I was talking about. If we can get that mindset, that feeling in the next tournament that we play in — actually, we're going to need that if we want to win the games that I think we need to win. We're going to need Sarah to be exactly like she was this weekend and especially like she was in the third quarter.”

Strong is capable of doing that every single night. Whether or not she does is another matter. The same is true for the team at large. UConn has already showed it can be the undisputed best team in the nation when it destroyed South Carolina. “This is in them,” as Auriemma put it. The Huskies can also falter under the bright lights as they did in their three losses.

Ultimately, UConn will likely decide its own fate. Unlike previous seasons where the Huskies needed to catch a break somewhere to even have a chance at winning it all, they’re good enough to match up with anyone this year. It just depends on which team shows up on a given night.

“You're always excited for the NCAA Tournament,” Auriemma said. “Some years, you're hoping and praying. This year we still have that. But it's not as dire, not as crucial as it was last year.:"

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